The last backup has failed
OK, so I purchased and installed Acronis True Image 2012 Home to protect my data.
However, I keep getting the message "The last backup has failed" in a red strip and I have no idea how to fix this.
I contacted Acronis who told me that "support" (that should be against the trades description) only lasts 30 days - how come I can buy a car with a 7 year guarantee?
The problem only just happened, several months into using the programme!
If you type "Failed" into help it says no topics found so what can an average person now do.
NO I don't have a masters in computer science, I am NOT an IT PROFESSIONAL - just someone trying to run his business from "Home" which is why I purchased the HOME version of the programme.
So should I just dump Acronis and look for an alternative and if so can anyone advise where I can get a backup programme with SUPPORT please?
By the way, I am a Journalist, is this a story?
Colin,
It looks as if an image IS made, but being pretty ignorant about this stuff I have no idea if it would re-install anything IF I wanted it to - when you get a message saying something has "failed" (as an ordinary person) you sort of think it has failed!
This is currently part of my regular (incremental) back-up to a new 1tb usb hard drive.
I know I should have a much better regime, but working out what to do is (for me) incredibly complicated.
I am running Windows XP Professional, SP2 (I think) and the very latest version of 2012 (downloaded and installed 2 days ago.
I have an office at home with 2 computers on an local network. This means that if I got burgled I would probably loose the entire lot of my work, data etc. The main computer has a Raid system to guard against disc failure.
I have four removable, USB hard drives and my intention was (is) to take a complete "clone" of my system evey 6 months and keep that in a safe.
Then I wanted to operate some sort of weekly? incremental back-up with one Drive constantly connected and one (max a week old) in the safe, thus restricting my data loss to just a week.
This might not be the best solution, but it is all I can think of at the moment - However, setting this procedure up and actually working it are proving more complicated than I imagined and the knowlege that I am required to have to do it (in other words the menu choices etc.) are as yet something I can't work out.
I am aware that a car and software are very different, but I rather hoped that after purchasing a GENUINE version of a top software product there would be some sort of access to support from the vendors AND this would last for more than 30 days. I don't think this is unreasonable!
I understand that these "forums" are a great source of "information" but they seem to rely on customers or enthusiasts doing what is essentially the job of the manufacturers.
Can anyone direct me to a source which would advise me (in simple terms) on how to establish an ongoing backup for someone in my situation - I can't be unique, can I?
What build of 2012 are you using?
You can check if the image appears to be correct in three ways, excluding actually performing a restore.
1. Run a validatation task - not really recommended purely due to the time it takes to perform a validation, at this moment that would be overkill for your situation.
2. Mount the image (assuming you've made a disk/partition image) this will allow you to navigate the image file as though it were an attached disk. From there you'll be able to see if everything seems to be in place.
3. Explore the image or backup (if you've made a files and folders backup).
Can you describe how you've set up your task, or post the task file here or upload screenshots?
You mention four drives, does this occur with all of the drives? Note, if you want to use a four drive rotation you'd be advised to make four separate tasks to cover each drive as True Image embeds the drive identifier into it's tasks and often the task will fail if the drive used to set up the task isn't the one connected at the time of running.
Be careful of the use of the term 'clone' it has a specific meaning with Acronis products and confusion can reign when talking to Acronis.
A Clone copies the sectors of a source drive to a destination drive directly with no intermediate drive/image required, it is a one time only action - that is, the drive will always be an exact copy of your current drive, you cannot go back over a time greater than the currecny of your source drive. A clone cannot be run as a scheduled task.
An Image copies the sectors of your source drive or partition and places it into a container file where you can make archives of your drive over a period of time, there are also manipulations that can be peformed. An image can be run as a scheduled task.
Files and folders backup copies files or folders containing files into a container file and can be made into an archive over a period of time and can be scheduled.
With the drive that has given you the warning error see if the same thing happens if you use a different USB port.
Check in Windows Error Reporting and see if there is a corresponding error there relating to the Acronis task, this might give more information than just 'error'.
It would also be worthwhile running the TIH installer again and selecting repair in case a file has become corrupted or didn't install properly, reboot before trying to use TIH again.
Have you had a previous version of True Image installed previously even a trial version including Seagate/Western Digital Disk Wizard?
Have you had any other disk imaging software installed other than Microsoft Backup?
You could check out Grovers' guides which appear in the useful links in the left margin of the forum menu.
Colin B,
I have the same problem as Papertiger, but your solutions are way too complicated for a novice. I'm Using XP pro and have the latest Acronis build (6942). My schedule is the default (Full backup + 6 diffs). PrintScreen won't let me paste to this email, but the log says "cannot find source partition with..." and "operation completed with error.."
BTW, 6 months ago, I had a crash and tried to Restore with Acronis, only to find that the last recoverable backup was 3 months old; all the recent ones had failed, which I didn't know since I assumed Acronis was running properly. I didn't think I had to check daily. Why can't the Acronis do a popup letting you know it failed AND WHY? With this latest "backup failed" I'm about ready to use Carbonite since they now have a service that can backup/mirror your entire hardrive.
Jack,
You are using the latest version of 2011 not 2012 (This is the 2012 forum). Your best bet would be to create a new backup task pointing to a new empty folder on your backup destination drive. Once you get your first full backup completed and validated, you could then get rid of your older backup files if you wish. You can enable email notifications during the backup task creation to have Acronis notify you of the status of your backup jobs.
Thanks James; I'll try the other forum.
Jack
I have a related problem and thought this topic covered a similar area. I am running ATIH2012 (cannot follow help instructions for finding build number) and have done so successfully for some months now. Currently my daily Documents backup is still running well.
However, my Partitions Backup has not worked for some days. Not worked in the sense that the main "Backup and Restore"screen (listing the backups) always shows "backup failed " on the result bar. However, when I look at the log I find the "green tick" which indicates that the backup was completed.
I have examined the detail of this failed partitions backup on the log and compared it to that for the successful documents backup:
the last line of the partitions log says ."updating backup database setting verification requirement for database access"
The documents log has two extra lines :
The penultimate line of the documents log says
"Updating backup database:
Inserting new backup version creation information into backup with ID 159999793463892604"
and the last line says:
"Operation has succeeded."
Can anyone suggest a cure please?
Dick
SORRY DUPLICATE POST
I have a related problem and thought this topic covered a similar area. I am running ATIH2012 (cannot follow help instructions for finding build number) and have done so successfully for some months now. Currently my daily Documents backup is still running well.
However, my Partitions Backup has not worked for some days. Not worked in the sense that the main "Backup and Restore"screen (listing the backups) always shows "backup failed " on the result bar. However, when I look at the log I find the "green tick" which indicates that the backup was completed.
I have examined the detail of this failed partitions backup on the log and compared it to that for the successful documents backup:
the last line of the partitions log says ."updating backup database setting verification requirement for database access"
The documents log has two extra lines :
The penultimate line of the documents log says
"Updating backup database:
Inserting new backup version creation information into backup with ID 159999793463892604"
and the last line says:
"Operation has succeeded."
Can anyone suggest a cure please?
Dick
Dick,
Has the partition image actually been made, that is does it physically appear on your drive and is it explorable or mountable?
Are there any temporary filesshowing in the archive, they will be named similar to F3A271-DD879-EF23B-22AC6.tib etc, if there are they could be causing confusion in the database and can be manually deleted.
Hello Colin B,
Thanks for the reply.
The backups are in the Iomega Drive but so far I have been unable to get into the Temp file folder. Since writing last I have set up a slightly different disk backup to the one which I have been having trouble with. When setting this up Acronis shows me the drives on my computer so that I can select which ones to backup.
I set up this new backup and started it on the Backupnow button and after 2.5 hours the backup was completed (the message to this effect pop-up).
However, on looking at the backup screen against this new backup it said "Not yet started".
This programme worked effectively for many months this year. Why it should now go belly-up is I am afraid beyond me! I can only think that it is necessary to uninstall and reinstall the programme.
Would this help?
Thanks again
Dick
Dick,
If you could attach a log, it may be helpful for troubleshooting. In addition, you could provide us with some more information about your system such as Windows version, build number of 2012 (click the "?" help button, then select "about"), as well a possibly a screen capture of your Windows Disk Management drive layout and possibly a screen capture of Windows Explorer showning your backup files.
Before uninstall and reinstall, open the installer and try to run a repair install first.
Before doing so, open your user profile temp folder and delete all the files and folders you can.
To open your user profile temp folder, in Windows 7, click the start button, then type %temp% and press enter. In Windows XP, click start, then run, then type in %temp% and press enter.
James
Hi James F and Colin B
Many thanks for your help. I am sorry that it was not one of your suggestions which directly cracked the problem, though they may explain what happened!
Before following your suggestions further after my last post, I decided to set up a new Full disk backup and run it just once more to see whether this was a general problem or one specific to the backup which always failed. As I said a simple documents back-up worked every time even as I was having the troubles.
The upshot was that the new backup completed successfully ! I assume that this could mean that an individual file was corrupted in the old backup or as you suggested, there was a temporary file conflicting it, which did not have any effect on the new backup.
Lets hope this is an end to the problem: if not I have your numbers!
Once again, Many Thanks
Dick