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Backup File Of Drive C: Is Quite Smaller Than The Actual Drive

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Hi,

I recently installed a fresh copy of WinXP with necessary programs on C: drive, and it "weights" around 10GB, but the backup file of the mentioned drive is only around 5GB. The only parameter I modified during the backup process is the archive spliting, by putting the partition limit of a DVD size. It created 2 partitions, one 4,33GB other 1,08GB. I use Acronis True Image Home 2009.

Would appreciate help very much,
Goran.

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What size was the image before?

Are you able to mount or explore the image?

I didn't create an image file (ISO), but some specific Acronis, "tib" file. Also, there was no image or "tib" before, If I understood you correctly, since it's the first backup since I installed Acronis... and so I was unable to mount or explore it whatsoever. Or was I? I'm not very advanced in this stuff, maybe I'm doing something wrong. :/ The only thing i really changed was the archive splitting part.

Leon,

The tib file is the Acronis image file.

The point is you should be able to mount or explorer the image.

Does it validate? This will take longer than making an image.

If you have the space available and to save you having to swap DVD's numerous times, copy the two files temporarily over to the hard drive and run your tests from there.

Thanks Colin, it passed the validation, and was able to mount & explore both partitions of the backup file... So, I guess it's no problem that it doesn't match. A member of this forum told me that it actually doesn't backup all data (windows swap file, etc), so it must have been that. Also, I did the backup once again with same parameters, and got the same size, so it's fine I guess.

But now I have other issues: I wanted to test if it actually works (I have the file on two DVDs, one per each part). Before Windows starts I boot from Acronis Bootable Media Loader burned on a CD, but it won't restore the files since they are not in the same directory. Is there a way to load the data form first and then second DVD? I don't have other hard drives installed or any removable drives (zip or flash 5GB size). I tried to compress the backup file, but it cannot fit to a single DVD. I don't see a point in keeping it on C: since I cannot load it from there as well, it says I need to move it to a different drive.

Leon,
1. If you created the backup and later copied to DVD, then in order to restore, you need these backup files together in one folder such as on an external drive or usb thumbdrive, etc.
or,
2. If you had Acronis create the backup directly onto the DVD, then after you boot from the REscue CD, you can remove the boot CD and insert the first disk of the Backup CD. It will ask with constant switching--which is why most people avoid restoreing from DVD.