True Image Home 2011 won't move or validate backup.
I have seven incremental backups of my Windows 7 Pro x64 installation and was advised that I need to restore my system on a different drive since the drive I'm on is failing (failed Sea Tools long and short dst tests). The problem is that the .tib files I have are on the drive that I want to do the restore to. So I initially hit on the idea of moving the backup to a 500GB external firewire drive and then restoring from that. The problem is that I can't seem to move the backup. I first tried it with my bootable media Acronis 2011 that has both Disk Director and True Image 2011 on it. But when I right clicked the backup and clicked "move" in the drop down menu nothing happened. I waited about 20 minutes and tried a gain, and still nothing happened. So I went ahead and started the system on my failing drive after a temporary "repair" of a bad sector and was able to specify the external drive as the destination for the move. But it's been sitting there with a "Time remaining calculating..." message for half an our with no movement on the progress bar. So, what is wrong? Am I doing this wrong somehow? Since it doesn't work on either the bootable CD or the installed Windows version, is it a bug in the program? Supposedly this is the most recent update. I'm in something of a bind and True Image doesn't seem to work. I did the last incremental backup just yesterday and it said that the backup completed successfully so why can't I get the move to work?
Update: It's now going on an hour without any movement on the progress bar or any change to the "Time remaining calculating..." message. It looks like it's hung, although I seem to be able to still use other applications, and I haven't tried to cancel the action yet. But if it can't perform a "move" successfully how much confidence should I have in the "restore" function?
I have the Plus Pack, btw. But suspect that doesn't work either.
Well, I tried copying the .tib files. It took forever, and the program wouldn't recognize them as backups or allow validation so I figured copying wasn't reproducing them properly. So I can't get either "move" or "validate" to work, and I'm really not sure that *anything* works. I mean, it created the incremental backups, but that's all it's done correctly so far... and I have no way of knowing whether that's really correct. I sure don't want to delete the original .tib files until I've validated the moved/copied files... unless Acronis does the move itself. (I assume it would validate as part of the move.)
OK I just checked the external drive and the first (baseline) of seven .tib files was apparently transferred or copied, but it didn't name it "1" and they should be named 1 through 7. It also hasn't "moved" the file since the old version is still on the original disk and the progress bar still hasn't moved. I had actually right clicked and "moved" number 7 so assume it would also move the first six. And the size of the file on the destination disk is exactly the same size as the baseline .tib file and much larger than the others, but with no numerical designation. So, I still don't know what the heck is going on. Not much reassuring feedback.
Update: The progress bar finally started moving and the message now says "Time remaining 1 hour 12 minutes". I have a bit more confidence in the move now that it's being accomplished by True Image. It would help if there were some sort of message indicating that the bar might take a long time to register the move.
Also, there is a *huge* difference between the time it takes for the bootable media to create a backup and the Windows version of the program. The bootable version took about 26 hours and didn't scope out the disk space required ahead of time so after all that time it suggested that I delete files from the target disk but didn't provide a way to do so. Thus, I couldn't complete the backup and had to abort. I am again looking for alternatives, with perhaps better support and a more rigorously thought through implementation. I use a very good backup program on my Apple platform that has has an intuitive implementation and seems bug free, and does many of the things Acronis True Image does. Isn't available for the Windows environment, though.
A way to move the backup files is to copy them and to verify the copy is correct (with CRC check for example. Some tools (like Syncbak) have a file verification option.
The bootable CD is typically slightly faster than the windows version. You have to suspect something was making it hard. Were you backing up or doing a clone? Are you sure you didn't enable some options like sector-by-sector (not useful here)?
Run a chkdsk -r on the disk you want to backup.
Acronis is really good at imaging. If you just need to backup files, you have a plethora of options.
OK, so True Image moved the .tib files to the other drive and I started the restore process to the drive that the files *were* on, and immediately got the message "Recover process failed." So I tried looking up the phrase "recover process failed" hoping to get some clue about what to do next, and of course it wasn't even in the help files. And so I've been backing up my system for a year in case I needed to restore my system after some disaster and now when I need to use it *of course it doesn't work*. I got a refund after buying True Image 2010 and a similar problem, with nearly non-existent customer support, but allowed someone to talk me into trying Acronis again. And now... bupkis. Serves me right for being a sucker, I guess.
Scott,
Try to recover from the CD. Validate the backup before recovering. A chkdsk -r might help also if your disks has errors. This will narrow the risks of failures.
I've tried from the CD. I've also tried to validate as a separate action, but it doesn't seem to do anything. I've done chkdsk and also used Sea Tools to do short and long dst tests on the target disk. The problem is that the OS disk seems to be failing. It initially failed both the short and long dst tests so I used Sea Tools to do a repair and it has been passing the dst tests since then. But that's just to keep it stable until I can replace the disk and move the OS from a backup made prior to the when the disk died. I'm restoring from a backup I made in October, 2010 because nothing after that is safe. But I created the bootable CD from a different Acronis True Image installation on another computer. It doesn't have the Plus Pack, however. I don't know if I need the Plus Pack because I can't really figure out the instructions. But I am backing up from a .75TB Seagate system to a 1TB WD Green, but the .tib files are now located on a Maxtor external drive, which has also passed the short dst test. Perhaps I should be using universal restore or something, but I really can't make heads or tails of the instructions. If this doesn't work then I'm simply going to have to do a clean install of Win7 Pro x64 and use the Easy Transfer, and then reinstall all of my software... so Acronis hasn't saved me any work at all, and I'm just fortunate that the old system is still running and the Seagate drive hasn't totally crashed yet. If that weren't the case I'd be totally up a creek. I am *not* a happy camper. Wishing I'd just used Windows Backup instead of this fancy Acronis stuff.
OK I got validate to run on the damaged Win7 Pro installation but the "validating" message came on for awhile and then showed a message that "The operation has failed." Got the same thing when I tried to validate another file backup I just made as well as a backup file that I've already used successfully to restore another system. So it appears that all of the backups I've made are corrupted, including the ones I made last year when the system was working perfectly. Pointless.
Wait. You don't need Universal Restore if you are restoring to a new disk in the same computer. UR is necessary if you restore to another disk in another computer with different hardward (chipset, disk controler, etc.).
If you OS installation if failing, and if you ran your validation from it, the fact that it failed can be ignored.
Boot your computer on the Acronis CD, run the validation of the TIB files from there. For this to work, you have to make sure that the version of ATI that produced the CD is the same as or later than the one that produced the TIB files (backward compatibility).
If the validation passes, you can start your restore. Remplace the failing disk with the new on on the same connectors, boot on the CD and restore one partition at a time, *in the same order as they were*. YOu can resize any partition you want to take advantage of your new disk, but I wouldn't change the size of any hidden partition: resize only the C:\system partition and/or your own partitions. FInally restore the MBR + Track 0 and the disk signature.
I tried a restore from the CD, beginning from an incremental backup that was taken prior to the problems... but moved to a new location using the "move" feature. I then deleted the old ones so that I could restore to that disk. The restore failed from both cds, one created from the current version of True Image 2011 without Plus Pack, and another created with Plus Pack. I have a files backup that was not moved, but was produced using the version of True Image on what I'm calling the "failing" disc, but it had passed both the short and the long dst before I created the file backup. Oddly, even though in won't validate, I can still open it and inspect the files and folders. I'm right in the middle of a clean install of Win 7 Pro x64 and am executing the Easy Transfer file. I can't think of one single thing that True Image has done for me. It just plain hasn't worked. One I get it installed on the new disk, however, I'll try to restore the file backup. Maybe I'll get lucky.
Oh yes, one more thing, there was a backup stored on other disk that was created right after I had first installed True Image and it was never moved. I had even used it to create a clone installation. (I guess it has worked once.) But the validate won't work on that file either. Says it's corrupt.
When a validation fails, there is a strong chance the restore will fail. You are down the right track though. In these cases, the fall back position is to try to mount or simply open the archive and salvage the files by copying them out of the archive.
Thanks for your response. Glad to know I'm at least on the right track. Some more information:
In addition to the fact that disk containing the original Win7 installation was failing the dst tests I discovered that one of my 4GB memory sticks was bad. After removing that memory, doing a clean install of Win7 to another drive, and reinstalling Acronis Disk Director 11 and True Image Home 2011 I fiddled around with Disk Director for awhile, first trying to change the failing drive to logical. My idea there was to get the drive into a format where I could boot with both drives plugged in at the same time. (For some reason the two OSes were interfering with one another during boot up.) That operation failed and suggested that I run check disk to correct errors. So I renamed the drive "Village Idiot" because that's the way I felt about it, and then ran chkdsk from the shell in my Win7 installation disk which said there were no errors on Village Idiot. I then ran check disk on Village Idiot from Disk Director too. That drive has one of the file backups I made that have been failing, and after all this fiddling around I tried to validate that backup again, and it worked. I also ran check disk on my third drive called "Little Birtha" that has a very old backup on it, which had also failed validation. That also passed! Neither of these backups is very critical, though. But I was encouraged to do the same procedure with the firewire Maxtor Backup disk that had the critical incremental backup on it, so I ran check disk on that too, and tried to validate But the validate operation still failed. So I thought maybe there was a problem with the firewire connection so I copied that corrupted incremental backup to my C drive and tried validate again. It failed again, however the little location item below the failed backup listing on the main True Image screen indicated a particular file location: G:/Users/My Name/AppData/Temp/tmp.0.tmp/. That's odd, because the backup is now in a directory on my C drive and my old OS was also supposed to be on the C drive in the TIB files. Village Idiot is now designated as my G drive, but there isn't a G drive that's part of that corrupted backup. So why is it listing that location after the fail? Is it comparing the backup to my old OS drive? Is that Temp folder corrupted so that if I managed to delete it from the backup in might then validate?
The other funny thing is that that Temp folder doesn't exist on any of my drives, and it's also not listed on the corrupted backup in Files and folders, so couldn't delete it. Anything else I can try?
Scott,
I have some difficulty following your post. A couple of points:
- you talk about an incremental backup. You cannot validate an incremental backup alone. You need the full backup and the incremental(s) together to validate. You can still open/explore an individual incremental file and find some content in it.
- in the TIB files, the letters might be different than in Windows. For example, on my system, a hidden partition has the letter D:\ in the TIB file, while I have also a real D:\ drive.
- I don't follow the situation with the Temp folder, but it is weird that you have had a backup in there. It might be a temporary file ATI created which is not a complete backup.
Scott,
I have some difficulty following your post. A couple of points:
- you talk about an incremental backup. You cannot validate an incremental backup alone. You need the full backup and the incremental(s) together to validate. You can still open/explore an individual incremental file and find some content in it.- in the TIB files, the letters might be different than in Windows. For example, on my system, a hidden partition has the letter D:\ in the TIB file, while I have also a real D:\ drive.
- I don't follow the situation with the Temp folder, but it is weird that you have had a backup in there. It might be a temporary file ATI created which is not a complete backup.
There's the original backup and 6 later ones that are incremental updates. I first tried to validate the 7th, which would have required the other six to also be valid, and it wouldn't validate. I then tried the third, and finally just the original. None would validate.
I don't see any G drive in the backup, and I just assumed that there wouldn't be a hidden drive since I just backed up the primary drive with the OS on it.
I can't find the Temp directory anywhere on any of the backups or on any of my drives, so I don't know what it refers to. Has nothing to do with the backup I was trying to validate, so I don't know why it was listed as the location.
OK. It looks like the move of the backup files didn't work and corrupted the backup. By fixing your memory stick, you improve the ability to run any backup validation. So you have to assume that the moved incremental is lost for a complete restore.
Before you end up going to one of these older backups that you can validate, you could try to do a new backup of the failing disk, and restore it on another disk. Do all this from the CD though.
The failing disk won't boot so there's not much point in doing that. That is, I can view the files on that disk but they're mostly the same as those on this corrupted backup, the only difference being that if the corrupted backup could be validated and used for a restore the resulting recovery would actually be able to boot. However, I can read the files off of the old disk pretty well, and that brings up something else that might clarify that "G drive" thing. G:\ is the current location of the old system, that I can read but can't boot. I thought of trying to convert the backup to a windows vhd file, and it identifies the target as an *eighth incremental backup* that is a TIB file located in that Temp folder on the G drive. It's about 70 GB. I have no idea how it got there but it might have been created at the same time that I created the seventh TIB file last week, while I was still running that old system. (I didn't see this Temp directory earlier because it's not in the "Roaming" subdirectory of AppDate, but in the "Local" directory. So, it's there and it somehow gets referenced whenever I try to validate one of the first seven TIB files. But I didn't even know it was there? What is it? How is it connected to the other 7 tib files?
Do you know why the OLD doesn't boot? This might be easy to fix with the bootrec commands (fixing the MBR, etc...).
To do this, you just need your windows installation CD. Disconnect any other bootable disk from the computer and boot the computer on the Windows installation CD. First try to repair the startup. It might take a couple of passes separated by a reboot to fix everything.
If the repair startup doesn't find anything to fix, use the windows installation DVD and this time go to a command prompt. Then use diskpart to rename your G: partition C:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415
Then use bootrec /scanOS to see if it finds your installation. If it does, bootrec /rebuildBCD etc...
Do you know why the OLD doesn't boot? This might be easy to fix with the bootrec commands (fixing the MBR, etc...).
Unfortunately, yes. I tried to change it to a "logical" drive, because it's attempt to boot was interfering with my other system and I wanted them both available at the same time so that I could download files. (This was before I realized I had to boot into OLD in order to deactivate some Rosetta Stone software, which has to be done from within my OLD system.) I also don't think it was booting at that time anyway, because I'd tried the fixes and figured that the installation couldn't be repaired, possibly because after SP1 is installed the installation can't be repaired from a regular install disk. Eventually MS will have ISOs of the SPI installation available, but they don't yet. Anyway the conversion to logical told me that it had failed about halfway through and to run check disk, but check disk didn't find anything wrong. However, it probably did convert it partly to a logical drive even though it doesn't show up as a logical drive on DD11. Anyway, I can't boot to it no matter what I do and the install disk doesn't even recognize it as an OS installation.
So no dice on that one. My only hope is to figure out how to repair the TIB files, or at least figure out what's wrong with them and why that 8th TIB file was created. It's much smaller than the original backup or any of the subsequent increments. Only about 70MB. I also can't figure out how the other TIB files even knew it was there, since I've changed both the drive name and the drive letter where the eighth TIB file is stored.
I'm thinking that I could possibly reformat the OLD drive to Basic and then try just replacing the files via the files and folders menu. It might hang at some point, but enough of the system might be there to boot, or I might be able to repair it using the installation DVD if I chose an increment that was before I installed SP1. Am I making sense?
Now that I think back on this, one of the tricks I used to use to get a "copied" OS to boot was to first install MS-DOS and *then* copy all the OS files to the disk. I doubt if that will still work.
(I think it used to work for XP though.)
Well you can try. I believe some hives of the registry will not be set up properly when you just copy them back.
Going back to where you made a mistake is when you decided to change the partition from primary to logical. You don't need to do that.
If you end up one day with 2 bootables disks on the system, you just need to use the Windows Installation DVD to create the boot records so that you can boot on either disk. You can also use a third party boot manager (see Disk Director).
If you don't want to be able to boot to the 2 disks, you just need to unplug one disk and then boot.
The issue was that I wanted both disks on my system at the same time, and disconnected one of them sort of defeats the purpose of that. I even tried to use the Disk Director multiple boot app, but it just got into an endless loop when trying to boot, and had to uninstall it.
But again, I made an exact backup of the disk and have ordered the replacement disk which will be identical. Thus, if I first create a basic partition that's exactly the same as the old disk right down to the same volume name, and then do a replace of the files, why wouldn't it boot correctly? If it doesn't boot but first needs to be "repaired" I guess I'll have to wait until MS decides to release an ISO of SP1 or they come up with a hotfix that allows the old install disk to repair the system.