True Image 11 problem restoring email - hangs
I have multiple backups of my Outlook emails done with Task Scheduler. The backups completed OK and the archive will Validate, but when I try to restore, the restoration process hangs part way through. I have tried different settings and partial restores of the data by checking/unchecking various parts of the backup tree with no luck. Any thoughts would be helpful; these old emails are needed for evidence in a legal dispute and are critically valuable.
System info:
Acronis True Image Home 11 build 8053 did the backups
Tried both build 8053 and 8100 for restore
Windows 2000 SP4 with all updates
Outlook 2000 SP3
AMD Processor
Hi Sam, are you trying this from within windows, from TI boot cd, or via F11 key?
IF it's just the data you want and you need it fast, then this might be a help. If you can open the tib file with windows explorer you can copy the archive to the Outlook archive location, usually C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name here]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
or
C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name here]\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
with and extensions of pst and ost. You can look up the file location Under the Outlook Options menu, for email setup.
You might want to turn off Outlook.exe before you copy the archive. To be sure it's stopped, load the Task Manager (ctrl alt del), select the task called Outlook.exe, right click and choosing End Process.
This should give you all of you archived mail that's been brought down to your pc.
I fyou don't want to overwrite the archive file that's already there, you can copy out the backup copy somewhere, rename it but leave the extension as it is and then copy it with the new name. Start Outlook and under the data file menu in Outlook options, select ADD and then select the renamed file. This will put the contents of both archive in your version of Outlook.
Another option would also be
Assuming that your email is installed on your system drive (C) and you have a completely current backup of your system C drive:
Restore an old full backup of your C drive which contain the missing files.. This would put your system drive back in time.
Copy or forward the pertinent emails to yourself and retain on your email ISP provider.
Then restore your system drive (C) back to its current status by restoring your most recent system partition backup.
Download the pertinent emails from your ISP to your desktop to include in your current emails database.
It's a lot of extra work but it is one option which should work.
Thank-you to everyone. All helpful. Here is additional information and explanation.
Grover: What you suggested is part of my ongoing backup strategy. I have two identical hardware drives (same mfg & model) that trade off as my system C: drive. I use Drive 1 as C: and then when I come to a major system checkpoint, I use TI on CD to clone Drive 1 to Drive 2, I install the clone as the working drive (to make sure the clone is good) and put the original drive in the safe. So to do these restores, I cloned the working drive, set it aside, booted from the clone and did my restores to the clone (the backups live in an Acronis Backup Place on a network drive). Not sure if there lurks any possible problem in this method. But this also means that I can try potentially damaging things because I am only working with the clone.
Yana: AcronisInfo and additional screenshots attached. There is a screen shot of the hung state. See attachment "Acronis_hang". The CPU goes to 100% with no disk activity. I have let it do that for an hour or so and it hasn't changed the % complete. I would be happy to pay for support, but I can't seem to get to anyplace that would let me do that because I am using TI Home 11 and that is too old. This is really frustrating but I am hoping the forum folks can help me out.
bin: The backups and restores are both being done from within Windows. Outlook is not started. I do a hard boot and start no other programs before trying the restore.
Scott: When I try your method, it fails. I am generally familiar with Outlooks' data structure and PST files. The .tib file structure is shown in the attachment "Acronis tree". If I Copy from the archive and Paste into a regular Windows directory, I get error messages where the folder name is the title of an email. See the attachment "Acronis_copy_error_msg". I expected to see *.pst files in the archive, but there don't seem to be any. The archive size on disk is a little over 500 MB. After I Copy and Pasted into a regular windows directory, the file structure is a bunch of empty folders, and each folder is the title of an email. See attachment "Acronis_after_copy".
I hope this gives somebody an idea for moving forward. Thank-you all for your kind help.
One more thing:
Not sure if the schedul2.log is in the AcronisInfo.zip, so here it is.
Depending on what components of the archive I choose for restore, the program does one of two things:
>It either hangs with 100% CPU and no new PST files are created, or
>It completes in a blink and again no new PST files are created (this is probably why you see exit code 0 in the log sometimes)
When it hangs, I can't use Cancel to terminate the process. I click Cancel but the scheduled task icon stays in the taskbar and the CPU stays at 100%. I have to reboot to make it go away.