Please explain why my mother's True Image backup is corrupt
Hello,
Last year in December, I created a simple image of my mother's hard disk; she only has 1 partition (C:) and she only had about 15 gigs of data to backup.
I asked Acronis True Image 8.0 to split the resulting image file in chucks of 4.4 gigs, with the idea that these chunks could then be burned easily to DVDs for "permanent" storage.
So here's exactly what I did:
- Started the image creation and asked for a verification step. Chose "High compression"
- Resulting files were respectively ~ 4.4 gigs, ~4.4 gigs, and ~2.07 gigs.
- Verification result was ok.
I then proceeded to burn these 3 files on 3 different DVDs, one per file, using Nero Burning Rom. I used the "verify data" option and all went ok. I then identified the DVDs as "Backup 1 Disk 1" , 2, and 3.
THEN last week her hard disk crashed. I then proceeded to restore her hard drive using the Restore Image option in Acronis True Image. The program asks me to locate the first file, so I insert DVD "Backup 1 disk 1" and select the 1st file of the image and select it as the image I want to restore. The program then *almost instantly* tells me the image is corrupt and the operation ends.
My question is: is it because the program doesn't see on DVD #1 the other 2 files that are part of the image ?
Thank you for your help.
I would appreciate if further replies actually adress the question I asked.
Thank you.
Mikey,
Tony is right. When ATI validate, it verifies the integrity of the files, and chain of files, not the fidelity of the backup. As ATI creates the backups, it includes checksums at regular intervals. When you validate, the checksum are recalculated and compared with the ones calculated during backup. The slightest change in data can make this validation fail.
When you burn a file to a DVD, and then read it back, the process can generate changes in information that eventually could explain why the validation fail.
The best chance of success is to have ATI burn the files to the DVD itself (not through Nero) and then run a validation. Note that a big backup on multiple DVD is not the most reliable backup with ATI 2011, as several users have experienced.
The most reliable way to do it is on a USB disk.
If you backup doesn't validate, you can still try to:
- restore entirely or partially from the DVD files,
- copy the files back onto a computer, validate and restore from there,
- copy the files back onto a computer, mount the TIB files and copy the files from there.
Maybe at this point none of these methods will work. You have to try.
My real question is this one: when trying to restore an image that is made up of several files (simply because I asked the True Image creation process to split the image into several chunks), do all the files of the images have to be located on the same drive/support media and directory ?
What I fear is this:
The Restore Image utility checks file 1 (which I manually located on the DVD drive) and sees that there is a total of 3 files in the image. It then checks the same directory where file 1 is located, and if there is any file missing, it says the image is corrupted.
That is my hypothesis.
Is this possible that's what's happening ?
It is possible. Typically, it ATI couldn't find a file, it would pop up a window like "specify location of volume x" where X is the number of the backup piece. I am not sure if it would do it when the missing piece is part of split TIB file. It definitely does it when it is missing a TIB file as part of a chain of backups.
If ATI had produced the files itself, this risk would not exist.
Mikey,
If you had TrueImage split the files for you, when you do the restore, TI is expecting all the files from a specific backup to be together in one location or such as inside one folder. If you copy the files from the DVD back onto a external disk in a single location, etc, you should have better success performing a restore.
Pat and Grover H, thank you for your help.
BUT let me tell you Acronis, this is very weak. A GOOD program should check parts 1, 2, 3 etc... of a split TIB file (as many as can be sequentially found), and when more files are expected, tell the user "Please locate piece X on your system", NOT just tell the user that "the image is corrupt" (lol c'mon !).
Don't you people agree ?
mikey,
You will also get the corrupt message if you are using an older version CD to restore a newer version backup.
When restoring a backup, TrueImage wants either the same version or a newer version program to do the restoring.
GroverH, this is no problem for me at this time, all must stuff is from True Image 8.0
I've never updated (yet).
Copy the files from CD into one folder on an external drive and see if you can validate the files when booted from the Rescue CD.
Yup, that is exactly what I'll try, next time I visit her.
GroverH's recommendation to copy the files to a HD folder is the way to do it.
If you are determined to do it directly from DVDs: when TI asks for the first DVD try putting in the last DVD. The last DVD contains the metadata describing the backup and it needs to be read very early in the restore process. It should get asked for when necessary but try doing it first anyway.
TI8 had no facility for burning directly to DVD and I presume over the versions the TI DVD burning facility has improved but using Nero or another burning program through the years was the most reliable way of producing a DVD. Ideally the burn speed should be slower than faster and the only high-quality disks should be used. This isn't like burning a music CD where the loss of a bit means nothing - one bit that is lost when the data is presented to the buss means corrupt, period.
After you get the archive onto a HD try validating in Windows. If that works and validating with the TI rescue CD doesn't then you may have a Linux driver problem. If you've successfully restored using the rescue CD before then this isn't the problem.