TI2010.6053 Overwrites Full Backups When Configured Not To Overwrite!

Bump.

Anyone else having this problem in 6053?

When you tick or untick the overwrite box, do you see any parameter change in the actual task file?

I don't know what you mean by the "actual task file." There are no scripts in the backup scripts folder, and the config files are as follows: backupsupp.config, common.config and restoresupp.config. (All found in the Acronis folder within my user profile.) I have an image created immediately before I upgraded to build 6053, and comparison of all three files shows they are identical. I can't find any config files for individual backups. Am I missing something?

I have several jobs, all of which are set to overwrite, with the exception of this one, which no longer works. :(

Can you elaborate on where I should be looking to find the "actual task file?"

Thanks and Regards!

In XP the task files should lurk.

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts

In Vista and W7 they will be;

C:\Users\All Users\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts .

The files will have a .tib.tis ending and are standard XML files. I suggest making copies of the files if you are going to manually alter anything.

Oh duh.... it didn't occur to me to look in the "All Users" profile. (I'm running XP Pro SP3, BTW.)

Once again I compared the job files from build 6053 and build 6029, and all settings are identical. I also looked at the files for my other jobs (which are configured to overwrite) and compared them as well. The files are identical with the exception of volume numbers, available space, etc.

I was hoping I could see what the flag is for overwriting/not, but nothing jumps out at me. :-(

I can post the files if you're interested in comparing them yourself. Any other ideas?

Thanks!

I think Acronis scripts work by using negative logic - if an entry doesn't exist it is true. If that is so a flag would only show up if overwriting is disabled. I'll check my scripts as I don't have overwriting enabled.

I can't think where else TI would store that info, unless it is in one of it's setup files which lurk elsehwere.

Thanks bodgy!

Are you saying that you're running build 6053 and your jobs work properly (e.g., don't overwrite when they're set not to)? If so, did you install the 6053 upgrade over 6029, or did you do a fresh install? What OS are you running?

Also.... Since no one at Acronis has jumped in here, I thought I might send an incident report directly to tech support. I can find no way to contact Acronis tech support other than to pay $9.95 for an "incident." Surely there must be a way to contact Acronis without paying more $$! I realize that Acronis techs do read this forum, but what are users to do when a solution is not forthcoming (yet anyway)? I'm feeling rather grouchy right now, as I paid ~$50 for the ATI2010 upgrade and one year of upgrade protection. Acronis just sent me an email offering me the same upgrades for $29.95! Grrr.

Anyway, I do really appreciate your help and willingness to troubleshoot this with me, bodgy.

Regards!

I have the same damn problem. I've hoped that this problem was solved:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5710
But now this much heavier problem exists.

In addition: The consolidation settings aren't saved anymore if using full backups!

I really hope that Acronis is reading this and solve all the problems soon!

twokatmew wrote:

Are you saying that you're running build 6053 and your jobs work properly (e.g., don't overwrite when they're set not to)?

I'm still using 5055 at the moment, on W7 64 bit Ultimate.

I will make a new task tonight and checkout the overwrite entry (if it exists).

Peter Bonge wrote:

I have the same damn problem. I've hoped that this problem was solved:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5710
But now this much heavier problem exists.

In addition: The consolidation settings aren't saved anymore if using full backups!

I really hope that Acronis is reading this and solve all the problems soon!

Lovely. Reading through the thread you mention, I see there are several other threads referenced. It sure would be nice if I could subscribe to those threads w/o having to post in them!! Aargh.

It sure is a much bigger problem. And silence from Acronis makes me wonder if they know of the problem and have no solution.

I'm getting *really* grouchy now....

bodgy wrote:

I'm still using 5055 at the moment, on W7 64 bit Ultimate.

I will make a new task tonight and checkout the overwrite entry (if it exists).

Thanks. I have the enterprise 90-day trial of W7 64-bit, just haven't got 'round to installing it. My plan was to test this problem on W7-64, but from reading the other threads/posts, it sounds like the problem persists among the various OSes. Still, I will test regardless. :)

Anyway, I'll look forward to your next post. Thanks again for persisting with me. :)

OK I made two new unscheduled task tonight.

The backup type was Disk and Partition

Both Archive locations were an internal drive.

For task 1 backup schedule was FULL + Overwrite
For task 2 task was FULL and no overwrite.

There was no difference at all in the xml task files.

On a side note, I'm now itching to play about with the OCB, rotation count and scheme entries - think these belong to ABR10 though.

Hello,

I have the same problem, my unscheduled full backups will be overwritten every time I start the backup, although I have configured not to overwrite the existing backup.
It is now the third version of TI 2010 that does not work correctly.

I'm eagerly awaiting the next build....

Hello all,

Thank you for posting,  I will provide you with the explanations. 

We are aware of the problem, our QA team was able to reproduce the issue and our developers are working on creating a fix. I will do everything possible from my side to expedite the resolution of the issue. The update may be available in the next released build. 

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Please do not hesitate to ask additional questions if the provided information is not clear or you need a further assistance. 

Thank you.

simplicissimus,
Try a different way.

An alternate suggestion would be to use Oracledba's Chain2Gen listed in my signature index below. This offers lots of choices in backup retention. This solution prevents an overwrite.

@ GroverH

Thank you for your information.
I will try your solution later because at the moment I have not the time ...

Could someone clarify the issue for me? A new full unscheduled backup overwrites an old one? Even if you give them different names, or is this a OneClick Backup thing?

Create a backup task that does a full backup only. Click the option to *NOT* overwrite the previous backup. Set the destination and use the @date@_@time@ (or just @date@) variables in the file name. Complete the backup.

When you do subsequent backups, your previous backup gets overwritten. In ATI2010 releases 5055 and 6029, the option to *NOT* overwrite previous backups did not get ignored as it does with release 6053.

Last night I was playing around with using a post batch file to manage multiple full backups. For the batch file to work, you must not use the @date@ and @time@ variables. When I attempted to run a second full backup (from the same task), ATI asked if I wanted to overwrite the existing file. It seems that when you use the @date@ and @time@ variables, ATI mistakenly overwrites the previous backup.

Hope this helps!

What happens if you don't use the @date_@time variables, but give it a name like "SystemBackup"? If you go to do a new full backup with a different name, will it still overwrite?
I've answered my own question, to my chagrin...I can confirm this bug, and add that:
1) it is present in the Recovery Media .iso as well, and
2) in answer to my own question, it doesn't matter what the name of the archive is.
I used the 6053 Recovery Media, being the most current, to write my last image. I just went to restore to a previous image, and discovered it was missing its last section (I had split the image to write to DVD, so only the last split was overwritten--but it was enough to ruin the image. I'm going back to either version 6029 (if it will run with the new SnapAPI drivers) or 5055. Or maybe I'll just write my images with the 6029 recovery media, which didn't overwrite anything...
and yes, it is a big PITA to recreate one's backups, which I now have to do!

update: installed the full prog without and then with SnapAPI drivers update. Tested it...no overwrite. I'm confused now...perhaps in my case it was just the recovery media?
Same result with recovery media written from the installed program rather than the download.
So...in my case, anyway...it could have been that the image I though had a section overwritten had somehow gotten corrupted--still disconcerting, but not the same problem--or the problem in my case was isolated to the downloaded recovery media .iso--or going through the recovery options thoroughly made the difference. I discovered that even though I'd checked "create a new full backup archive" the recovery method, when I went through the options, was still set to "incremental" and I had to change that. Or one or the other result was a fluke.
And the moral of the story is, always duplicate your key images that you might have to go back to, I guess...

Hi All,
Just flagging that I also have this overwrite problem with build 6053 (only noticed it yesterday). Just got a new eSATA drive setup for my backups and was pleased that the total task time had reduced from 1 hour (using USB connected external HDD) to 20 mins (eSATA), so I was happy - then I noticed only one backup (.tib) remaining in the archive - NOT HAPPY!

Anyway, I see that Oleg (from Acronis) has replied on this thread and hopefully the problem will be fixed in the next build.
I'd like to just re-quote the suggestion from the OP (twokatmew) about being able to keep backup schedules somehow (export / import) so that if you uninstall TI before installing a new build the schedules aren't lost:

Quote "BTW, it sure would be nice to be able to "export" the configured settings and backup jobs, so we could "import" them if we reinstall the OS, move to a new machine, or simply have to uninstall a prior version/build of TI and reinstall." Unquote

Thanks and regards,
Greg

The other day I modified my backup job that was overwriting the previous backup. This was an unscheduled full backup, and the @date@ and @time@ variables where used in the archive location. (Remember, this task was set *not* to overwrite.)

First I modified it so it was doing an incremental backup with a full backup after two incrementals, and overwriting the previous backup. I then performed three backups. Each new archive was as large (or slightly larger) than the original full backup, and each archive appeared to be a full backup, even though the log said they were incrementals. Also, no backups were deleted.

Then I changed this same backup to a differential, with a full backup after two differentials and overwriting the previous backup. Again I performed three backups. Once again, each new archive was as larger (or slightly larger) than the full backup, and each archived looked like a full backup, even though the log said they were differentials. Again, no backups were deleted.

I'm wondering if TI2010.6053 is getting confused by the @date@/@time@ variables. My next test will be to create the same differential backup with a static archive location (i.e., no @date@ or @time@ variables) and see how the task behaves.

Right now, it looks like backups that aren't supposed to be getting overwritten are getting overwritten, and those that *are* supposed to be overwritten are not!

TrueImage Home versions:
There is no need to have backups overwritten. Change your configuration. Don't use consolidation and don't user overwrite. Why cause yourself grief. Take the time to read the pdf file from Chain2Gen (signature index). It explains how keeps as many backups sets as you wish with no overwrites. Reading the pdf is time well spent.

In TI Home versions, the name of backup file can be user selectable. I use an assortment of names such as
Fulldisk-.tib or CDE-.tib or C_only-.tib or if files only, the mydocs-.tib or Mytextfiles-.tib

I think you get the picture. You can remove the date and time and add your own names during the task creation time.

Gregory Peck,
Have you looked at the task option list lately? Right click on a task and note the new additions.

You may also find these links of interest regarding the copying and moving of scripts.
http://forum.acronis.com/de/forum/5674#comment-9529
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5810#comment-11694

GroverH wrote:

TrueImage Home versions:
There is no need to have backups overwritten. Change your configuration. Don't use consolidation and don't user overwrite. Why cause yourself grief. Take the time to read the pdf file from Chain2Gen (signature index). It explains how keeps as many backups sets as you wish with no overwrites. Reading the pdf is time well spent.

In TI Home versions, the name of backup file can be user selectable. I use an assortment of names such as
Fulldisk-.tib or CDE-.tib or C_only-.tib or if files only, the mydocs-.tib or Mytextfiles-.tib

I think you get the picture. You can remove the date and time and add your own names during the task creation time.

Actually GroverH, you know nothing of how and why I use various backup types. I use the date and time for ease in file naming and so I don't have to rename all my backup files. Because build 6053 is overwriting my files, I've started using some other methods, which is how I found out certain other tasks are not overwriting when they should be. This is simply a matter of ATI2010.6053 not working as it should, not a debate over how we should handle our backups.

That said, I have several backup tasks for various purposes and using the naming schemes you mention. I have indeed read the PDF at Chain2Gen and do in fact use a modified version of the batch file for keeping a set number of backups.

Perhaps your post is meant to be helpful, but it comes across as condescending. There's nothing wrong with expecting ATI to work correctly. Yes, there are workarounds, and I'm attempting to make them work for me, which is how I discovered further anomalies in how build 6053 works. I was simply reporting my findings with the hope it may benefit others and/or provide Acronis with further data to aid in resolving these issues. I don't appreciate receiving judgments in response. Further, you've told me nothing I don't already know.

twokatmew
Thanik you for your feedback. I will absorb your comments.

GroverH, thanks for not flaming me. :-) I probably over-reacted to your response.... BTW, thanks for all the hard work on your "accumulated wisdom." I've found a lot of helpful info there. :-)

When I had the overwrite happen, I wasn't using @time@date format. One image was called 1SystemBackup and the other was 2SystemBackup. However, this happened from the build 6053 downloaded native recovery media and I couldn't reproduce it with the installe dproduct with updated SnapAPI drivers, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not.
I have also been taking the precaution of putting backups I want to keep intact in their own folders after they have been verified.

Hi, I started another thread posting a long explanation of having the same problem. Someone seen it and directed me here.

Like the rest of you I have the same issue with the previous archive being deleted. I was better off with V11 and doing the following post command:

if exist MyBackup.tib rename Mybackup.tib "Dell745Full_%date:~0,3%.%date:~4,2%.%date:~7,2%.%date:~10,4%_%time:~0,2%.%time:~3,2%.tib"

All was fine back then and then I decided to prepare for Windows 7. Well once again Acronis has even got worse. I told my customers to stay on V10, V11.

Using 2010 I tried the above batch file post command (that works fine in V11) and from the log you would think it worked, but when viewing the directory it doesn't do the rename. Not sure why? It works fine when you click on test the post command in the setting up part. Also works fine when running alone in command mode. I even added some delay before the rename and still won't work in 2010 when running via scheduler. However that is a different issue, I would just like to get this issue of this thread resolved. I will have to go check out what GroverH posted.

I give up and going back to V11 or maybe 2009 (I have it but never tried it) . Found even more problems and not going to waste time telling as Acronis just can't or won't do anything about these errors. Actually I don't even need Acronis in 7 and there are free packages out there that do just what I want- BASIC BACKUP! Don't need all this other crap!

Build TI2010 6029 worked just fine for me.... I know there were problems with it, too, but I didn't have any of these overwriting/not overwriting issues till I upgraded to 6053. There are a lot of nice, new features in TI2010 that do work. Sorry you're giving up and going back to v11.

hi everybody, needless to say, I have the same problem. I just started using and testing ATI 2010 Home this christmas along with getting myself a NAS. Unfortunately, the more I read in these Forums the less confidence I have in ATI's features. Unfortunately again, I have had similar experiences in the past with other products and so didn't expect too much of ATI from the beginning.

What I want is just a basic daily full disk backup of all my 3 pcs to the NAS network drive, without overwriting the old ones.

What really scares me about this bug is: What if it works again in build xxxx, I make 10 backups, then upgrade to build yyyy, and the bug pops up again, will I lose all my previous backups??

Now I had a quick peek at the Chain2Gen solution suggested by GroverH, but really the whole idea of spending good money on backup software was to avoid having to rely on custom homemade scripts.

Idea 1 (didn't work): I tried using variables in the folder part of the backup location, so ATI wouldn't see the existing archives. Like this:
\\nas\backup\@machine@_@date@\@machine@_@date@.tib

On a side note, these variables are severely limited. The above example creates archive files of the form "machine_27.12.2009.tib" (on my machine anyway, swiss-german locale). I want files of the form "machine_2009-12-27.tib" (year-month-day, ISO standard) so when I order the files in explorer by name, they will also be sorted by date (I thought every sane IT person names his files in this way).

Idea 2 (I hate it, but what else can I do to guard against this bug popping up again in the future?): I will look into the feature called  pre/post commands and try to move the backup to another folder immediately after it is created.

I will post again if successful (or not).

Hi again. So - a few hours later (and christmas holidays being almost over) I can confirm that "idea 2" (see my previous post) works and that I will configure all my backup tasks like this to be on the safe side.

For those interested, I attached screenshots of my backup task settings.

rho wrote:

Idea 2 (I hate it, but what else can I do to guard against this bug popping up again in the future?): I will look into the feature called  pre/post commands and try to move the backup to another folder immediately after it is created.

I will post again if successful (or not).

You can't! Simply protect your backups when you first upgrade to a new release.

As far as using a pre- or post-command or batch file, well ... nearly every piece of software I use requires some sort of customization to suit my needs. Further, it's a *home* product and is fairly inexpensive as a result. Generally *home* users don't require the granularity of configuration and features required in a professional product. Besides -- even a professional product (like gets used in an IT shop, etc.) still requires some customization. Each user's situation is different, so the ability to customize is a good thing.

GroverH's batch file works very well, though I had to modify it a bit to get it to work properly, as ATI2010.6053 temporarily appends a "1" to the prior backup file, so I was getting an overwrite prompt. Further, I had to modify it so it wouldn't exit immediately if the oldest backup was not there to delete. Once I modified the job, it works very well.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that @date@ format should be yyyy_mm_dd!

Edit: I edited this post to remove my reference to Grover's batch file as "Chain2Gen," which was incorrect. (Thanks GroverH for catching my error! And thanks for the reminder -- I'll be checking out Chain2Gen shortly.) :-)

You said Acronis adds a 1 temporary to backup file name. That made me think of why the following line in my post backup quit working in 2010. Worked fine in V11.

if exist MyBackup1.tib rename Mybackup.tib "Dell745Full_%date:~0,3%.%date:~4,2%.%date:~7,2%.%date:~10,4%_%time:~0,2%.%time:~3,2%.tib"

I will add another line and test for both MyBackup.tib and MyBackup1.tib.

if exist MyBackup1.tib rename Mybackup.tib "Dell745Full_%date:~0,3%.%date:~4,2%.%date:~7,2%.%date:~10,4%_%time:~0,2%.%time:~3,2%.tib"
if exist MyBackup.tib rename Mybackup.tib "Dell745Full_%date:~0,3%.%date:~4,2%.%date:~7,2%.%date:~10,4%_%time:~0,2%.%time:~3,2%.tib"

This is what my archive name looked like after post command in V11:
Dell745Full_Sat.11.07.2009_1.07.tib

I like knowing date and time and maybe ATI won't find the latest archive to delete (which it only does if I use the scheduler).

Yea I know I am still suffering through 2010 and haven't went back to V11. Old and stubborn I am.

Jerrold Rappard wrote:

I like knowing date and time and maybe ATI won't find the latest archive to delete (which it only does if I use the scheduler).

Interesting. My backups get overwritten even with unscheduled jobs.

Yes, today I created an unscheduled task and been running it playing around trying to get an exclude of c:\games\dragon age\*.* to work finely figured out it works if I leave the *.*. All I need is c:\games\dragon age\

Also today my batch file is working, previously with "if exist MyBackup.tib it was failing (was fine V11) I added another check to look for both MyBackup.tib and MyBackup1.tib - that did the rename after the backup. I watch with explore as it is backing up and it shows up as MyBackup.tib and I watched it change to my rename.

Perhaps I will go back and leave off the 1, sometimes I just do too many things and get confused?

Anyway, I took what just ran fine and scheduled it for 1AM Monday. Will see if my renamed file gets deleted.

UPDATE: I decided to start scheduled backup now. I see in explore that Acronis has added a 1 making my file archive MyBackup1.tib. My guess and only guess is Acronis see same file name for archive in one day and adds a 1???? I can assure you there is not a MyBackup.tib anywhere on the G: drive. Who knows why they added a 1, it has to be holding something from the last backup and doesn't actually look. I am not all that good with batch files, wonder if I can use wildcard * in my if statement?

@echo off
if exist MyBackup1.tib rename Mybackup.tib "Dell745Full_%date:~0,3%.%date:~4,2%.%date:~7,2%.%date:~10,4%_%time:~0,2%.%time:~3,2%.tib"
if exist MyBackup.tib rename Mybackup.tib "Dell745Full_%date:~0,3%.%date:~4,2%.%date:~7,2%.%date:~10,4%_%time:~0,2%.%time:~3,2%.tib"
Rem I had to split up time and date so the : and / stored with system time and date did not become part of file name as they are invalid char for file name
exit

dear twokatmew: you wrote ... The Chain2Gen batch file works very well, though I had to modify it a bit to get it to work properly, as ATI2010.6053 temporarily appends a "1" to the prior backup file, so I was getting an overwrite prompt. Further, I had to modify it so it wouldn't exit immediately if the oldest backup was not there to delete. Once I modified the job, it works very well...

I am not sure I understand, could you send me a PM, or respond here with further clarifcaition on your comments. If chain2gen needs modification so it better suites everyones use I would be happy to do so.

A key element in the chain2gen design was that there must be one and only one archive set in a target folder. The archive set may be a bunch of files (a full and a bunch of incrs but 100% of the .tib files in the folder are of the same set) This "limitation" was actually a key element to its design and why chain2gen is able to work effectively. One can have as many backup jobs as you like but each would have thier own chain2gen program and each chain2gen would use its very own target folder to receive the .tib files. All the files in a folder would be 100% of the files needed for that achive set.

If the target folder was already empty then there isn't anything for chain2gen to "do" so exit success is the only thing it can do.
If the target folder contains .tib files then chain2gen goes about the processing to see if today is the day that those .tib files need to be promoted into history. If so it does the promotion and maintenance of history if not it exits.
As for temporarily appending a "1" I do not understand how this can possibly be an issue.
By definition, when a "full" is made the target folder will be empty so regardless of a "1" being temporarily used or not would not matter as there would just the this single file being built.
After acronis has made the backup it gets named without the "1" as in:
[whatever].tib

the first incr file will end up being
[whatever]-2.tib
then
[whatever]-3.tib

Again the reason I am following up here is if chain2gen needs modification for the general masses then I want to make sure it gets done.

Oracledba, please forgive the mistake in my previous post, where I incorrectly said I was using Chain2Gen. (FYI, I edited the post to correct my error.) I'm actually using a modified batch file by GroverH. I'd downloaded Chain2Gen but used the batch file to get up and going quickly. I forgot to go back and switch to Chain2Gen. It's on my list to switch over to Chain2Gen, which I hear works very well. Sorry for the confusion, and thank you for your explanation of how Chain2Gen works.

When I had the issue it wasn't a scheduled backup, except in as much as Acronis sees each backup task as "scheduled" (the taskbar icon always displays "scheduled task started" or some such thing.
I was writing to a blank HDD, so it had no folders. Since then I have created discrete folders for each backup that I do not wish overwritten, which I guess is basically the same as rho's idea 2, except not scripted. This seems to work. It's easier for me anyway to keep the backups organized, keep all the parts of an image together if it's split, anyway.

Hello all,

I would like to let you know the current state of the issue. I have sent a request to our developers. They confirmed that the fix will be available in Update 2. The exact date of the release is unknown, we are working on it. 

Please do not hesitate to ask additional questions if the provided information is not clear or you need a further assistance. 

Thank you.

Well I have figured out a workaround on this overwrite problem. Went back to using default MyBackup.tib archive name and using my post command to rename MyBackup.tib. Then ATI doesn't find the file name to overwrite. My batch file wasn't working at first, even though it worked fine in V11.

Thanks, to someone's posting on this thread I discovered that after the first backup or attempt backup ATI adds a 1 to the file name. Even if it is the third backup in the same day it adds that 1, it does not increase, just sticks the 1. So after finding that out I put two if exist in my batch file and all is well for now.

Jerrold - glad you got your issue figured out.
since your scripts are working as desired let them continue to work for you.

keep in mind that chain2gen was designed for this activity.
It offers much more power and flexiblity for you and many people
have reported they get exponentially more protection for
the same or less storage than what they consumed before chain2gen.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5940

I have the same problem backing up my documents. I keep my documents on a NAS drive, for some reason the differential and incremental options produce the same size tib file as the full so I configured to make a full backup for restoring earlier versions of my documents, etc. After the last update (6053) it now deletes the previous days backup and creates a new one with todays date. I just noticed this so I have no interim versions of my documents for the last couple of weeks and am not pleased.

As a home owner using a product designed for home users to be protected from data disasters I can tell you that I am not going to, nor am I and most other home users able to, write scripts etc to solve this issue. Since some of you were able to figure this out and post workarounds (a bit too technical for me to follow) in this forum, why cant Acronis post a quick patch or post command or other instructions that home users without specialized knowledge can use to fix this issue temporarily until a new build is available.

Gary Pyatt,
If you wait for Acronis to post a fix, you may be in for a long wait. In the meantime, why not give Chain2Gen a try as mentioned in the post #38 and post #43 just prior to yours. It may look difficult but it really isn't. It is doubtful that any version of Acronis will ever offer the features already built into Chain2Gen. Chain2Gen is a helper program. It helps Acronis to do a better job of maintaining or organizing your backups.

Jerrold Rappard:
I heartily recommend that you try Chain2Gen. I think you will like it! The sleep.vbs file mentioned below is another example of the many options included with Chain2Gen.

Just an FYI: Based on some of the information supplied in your post, I was also able to successfully use a batch file with your date-time code to cause a renaming to occur when using a base name of MAIL-.TIB for a full backup Attachment illustrates the rename result. Using TIH 2010(6053). I initially had some trouble getting it to work but after I added a time delay following the backup and before the renaming, things fell into place. I did clean out the old files using the Recovery/delete option before starting.
Before renaming: c:\backups\mail\mail-.tib
After renaming: C:\Backups\Mail\Grovers_2009-12-29_T19-15_full.tib
------------------------------------------------
Archive location c:\backups\mail\mail-.tib
(checked) Create New Backup archive
(checked) Backup Method= Full

Added a post processing batch file to the TrueImage scheduled task containing this code.. (Will also work as a pre-processing task.)
c:\backups\mail\full-rename.bat
--------------------------------------
ECHO ON
rem add date and time to file name plus a delay between backup creation and the rename function.
cscript /nologo "%Scriptdir%sleep.vbs" 1000
IF EXIST mail-.tib RENAME mail-.tib "Grovers_%date:~10,4%-%date:~4,2%-%date:~7,2%_T%time:~0,2%-%time:~3,2%_full.tib"
--------------------------------------
The attachment shows the renamed files as displayed in the TrueImage Recovery option.

I am going to study Chain2Gen, I downloaded the zip file earlier today. I really just do pretty simple full backups to an external drive. I haven't got into the incremental or differential backup. When testing for Acronis (I think it was 2009) I found what I think is an error in diff backups, but Acronis didn't agree it was an error. To do a restore with a Diff all you need is the full and the last diff backup archive. Therefore, I said that for a validation all you needed was the full and last diff, you could delete the diff between the full and last diff backup. However, if you do that the validation will give you errors, or at least it use to. Perhaps I was just being too picky.

Thanks for your post, I think I will change my bat file and put the 4 digit year first. Also, I ran into the timing problem and couldn't remember how to do a delay, so I stuck a ping command prior to the if. Not pretty, but gets the delay.

I still plan on looking at your Chain2Gen, been busy doing volunteer work and taking granddaughter to gymnastic.

Well as a simple workaround, I think rho's idea is great. A simple command to move the files from a temporary dir. Unfortunately, I can't test it for myself as the command refuses to run on my PC. I put in the post command you used and click the Test button. It comes back "failed" and the files are not moved. If I take the same command to the Start/Run dialog, it works fine. In case it was something to do with cmd.exe I wizzed up a quick VB movefile app and it does the same.
Seems like a[nother] bug in TI. TI 2010 6053.

Edit: aha. looks like command line must be enclosed in quotes if paramaters line has quotes. Appears to affect Test button only as it actually worked either way when the job was run.
Thanks rho, this works nicely for me.

Hello everyone. I responded to Acronis' mid-December sale email and bought the upgrade from ver 2009 to ver 2010. Now I have the same problem as you folks where build 6053 erases my previous backup regardless of the settings I enter. This is really aggravating!

I am just a home user who would like to have 4 or 5 recent FULL backups available at any one time. Guess we just have to wait for Acronis to fix this. Seems like fixing just a few lines of code would take care of this.

For anyone interested, I wrote a quick app to replace TIs consolidation as relevant to full backups. ie. my app handles deleting old .tib files (it doesn't do a consolidation).
Can do cmdlines that effectively:
eg. Delete files named mydir\MYCDRIVE_*.tib but keep most recent 5 (any date).
eg. Delete files named mydir\DATA_*.tib but keep any created in last 7 days.
eg. Delete files named mydir\*.* but ignore any file < 10MB
For cmdline syntax, just run the exe with no paramaters.

So I tell TI not to do any consolidation, then run a DelFiles command as a system scheduler job at 7.00am. You could also put this job as a Post Run command in your TI job.