ATI2011 - recovery-error: "not enough space on the recovery destination drive" on an new big hard disc

Hello, I have a similar problem, i am trying to recover backup to a clean drive, but i always get an error: "there may be not enough free space on the system partition to boot up your operating system after recovery" Same as user Mike Neuer, i thought about no partition, therefore i created slightlz larger partition, but the error is the same.
Any suggestion?
Acronis true image 2011 5519, even tried 6574, with the same result

@ both posters,

Are you starting the recovery from the CD or from within Windows?

I assume you both made complete disk images not partition images?

If you haven't already, I suggest trying to recover the image using the CD, this way Windows will not get in the way.

Could you both please post the brand of HDD you are using, in case there is some clue there as to what is causing the problem.

Where have you got the new drives, in a drive caddy, internally, eSata etc.

Hello, i made only 1st partition image (due to reformating and reinstal from recovery location I lost data, so to perform data recovery i tied to copy partition to new disk - in virtual machine (vmware player), where i am performing data recovery). I tried older version of acronis (v11) and there were no problems, i mnaged to create recoverz partition. It was mentioned on different forums, that problem started after upgrading ATIH.
Thanks for help.

Peter,

Do you still have a problem, or is now fixed?

When you say v11 is this v11 or an earlier build of 2011?

It is still a problem with ATIH 2011 aka v14 build 5519, but i managed to get it done with ATIH v11.

This problem in 5519 was supposed to have been fixed in the recently released new 6574 update.

I have the same problem using update 6574 and don't have "v11" to fall back to.
However, the original back up image was not made with update 6574 -- it was update 5519.

To restate the problem - I made a sector by sector back-up of a 15gb drive. Now, I am attempting a bare-metal-restore to another machine which has a 100Gb drive in it. Obviously it is going to have to make a 15Gb partition. However, ATIH Recovery Wizard tells me "There may be not enough free space to boot up your operating system after recovery".

I know THERE IS enough space as that was the amount of space on the previous machine. So, I click OK and instead of treating this as a warning message and proceeding, the Recovery Wizard just sits there waiting for me to do something else.

Correction: I made a image of the 15gb c: drive *partition* of the original machine.
The other partition on that machine seemed to be empty. Would it matter?

Arbalest,

Your question 'would it matter" depends upon what your are attempting to do.
If your new restore is just to be an accessible drive to access its files, then it probably does not matter.
On the other hand, if you want the new drive to be a standalone bootable drive, then yes it could matter and will certainly matter if the empty partition was a Windows 7 (or Vista) boot partition marked as active. Look at your disk as viewed in Windows Disk Mangement and see how your partitions are arranged. If the empty partition is the active partition, then you should redo the backup to include all your partitions which is checkmarking the "disk" option to include all partitions within the backup.

'Sometimes TrueImage is also reluctant to proceed if the disk contains disk errors which can be corrected by running
chkdsk c: /r
from the command prompt.

If you are wanting to add your 15GB of data to existing data on the 100, then create your own partition and then restore the backup into the new partition--but it probably not be bootable.

My goal is to make the target machine a clone of the other. As far as I can tell the original machine has a bootable 15gb partition with everything it needs on it. The other partition is empty/unused. The target machine has (had) a blank 100Gb drive in it and I have done done a BMR on it using a different source machine just to make sure there are no other problems.

However, ATH11 is NOT ALLOWING me to restore to the target machine because of what seems to be a warning message ("might be not not enough...") being treated as a show-stopper. I want to click OK and have it proceed anyway. Instead it just stops there waiting for me to change options or give up. It is not finding an error and stopping -- it is not starting.

My question is whether there is a way around this problem and if possibly making an entire disk image of the original machine (including the empty partition) might reasonably be a solution. I do not want to take the image of the whole disk if there is no good reason to think it would help.

Lastly, from other posts it seems that older versions of ATIH do not have this problem. Is there a way I can get a downgrade download of the bootable disk and do a restore with it instead? I do have the Plus Pack so that I can do a Universal Restore (aka BMR). It is the only reason I have purchased the software and this is a very straight forward use of the product.

Arbalest,

As you don't appear to have a non working system, that is the original 15GB drive is still working, why not in this case install your new drive alongside the old one and then use Windows TIH to restore the image to the 100GB disk. Just make sure both drives are not connected when you reboot the PC.

I've highlighted 'this case' because this isn't how an image would be normally recovered.

If you decide to try this method, you could run chkdsk /r on the 100GB drive, before recovery and be able to more easily check that everything is OK.

There are two reasons I cannot do this. First, the original system is a laptop and the system I want to recover to is a desk top. Second, the original system is at an office where I cannot do any more work than to make an image on to my portable drive. Meanwhile, at home I have the desktop I am trying to recover to.

Arbalest,

If you are recovering a W7 or Vista OS, you will run into some problems running the recovered image,as Windows won't have the correct drivers, you may or may not get a BSOD. If it is an XP OS, you will need an XP install CD to run a repair install, which will install drivers to at least get you going, though note you'll lose all your Windows service packs and updates if they are not on the Install CD.

As you made a partition image you won't have an MBR contained in the image (you wouldn't when making a conventional image, not so sure about a sector by sector), so after recovery is finally accomplished you will need to make one.

I think I need to start again.

You have made a sector by sector image, correct? Therefore your image is at least 15GB in size, correct?

Does this desktop have an OS on it at the moment?

Do you have a spare hardrive?

Are you trying to retrieve the image booting from the recovery CD or from within Windows?

Does the image validate?

If you are trying to recover in Windows and you have TIH 2011 installed, can you mount the image? I'm not sure if a sector by sector image can be mounted, but we should probably check the integrity of the image before going much further as Acronis error messages can often be somewhat wide of the actual problem they report.

Let's see if I can hit on all of the points.

First I tested the target machine by making an image of a similar configuration. Except in this case the source machine C: partition was 24Gb. The source machine was running XP and the destination machine had a blank disk. I used the installation of ATH on the source machine to make a Bootable Media disk -- and the image was on a portable USB drive. I did a "Universal Restore" (aka bare metal restore) and it worked with no driver problems and without using an XP installation disk. It worked fine.

Now I did the same thing on the real source machine, which has a C: partition of 15gb. After I boot the target system with the bootable CD I do the same procedure and on the screen where I select the destination drive I click NEXT, and I get the error/warning. The restore did not start. ATH did not look at the integrity of the source image or the integrity of the destination disk. It just says there "maybe not enough space..." and I click the OK button. Then I am still at the screen where I need to click NEXT.

As Grover H said on 11-28-2010: This problem in 5519 was supposed to have been fixed in the recently released new 6574 update. I am using the 6574 update.

Are you saying that if I go back to the source machine and make a sector by sector image of the entire disk (MBR, C: partition and unused D: partition) and attempt the restore with the bootable CD this problem will not occur?

But is the image you have made at least 15GB in size? I am trying to find out whether you have made an actual sector by sector image as you say in your post, or if you have made a normal image which uses used sectors only, and just confused the terms. The size of your tib file will tell me that.

I'm not advocating sector by sector imaging at all.

I missed the point that you have the Plus Pack.

You need to manually validate the image.

It is possible that the error message you are getting is not actually pointing to the cause of the problem, it may be, but as I said, Acronis error messages aren't always as verbose as one would like, they are coded that the most likely cause of a problem produces a message or in other words, someone has decided to restict the number of messages to minimum for whatever reason. It is possible that TIH is having difficulty actually addressing the drive.

Now the machine that you are currently trying to image to; your dektop - does this just have the new 100GB drive in it or is there a drive with an OS on plus the new target drive?

I

Thanks for your help so far.

The target machine has a single 100Gb drive in it. There is nothing
on the drive other than results of previous restore trials. In other
words, I am willing to format it if need be.

The tib file is a little larger than 9Gb. And it has been validated manually.

The tib file from from different machine back-up is about 8Gb and it is
an image of a 24Gb disk. I am able to do a Universal/Bare Metal restore
with that image.

Again, when I select the source and destination for the restore, then
click NEXT, I get the error/warning immediately as if the restore was
not even attempted.

As for further validation I put the portable drive (with the image file) on
yet another machine and mounted the image. The mounted image
appears as a disk that is 15Gb and using Windows Explorer I can look
around and open files, etc.

Being able to access the data is not sufficient though. I am not able to run
a very important application by double clicking the executable file on the
image. I need to be able to replace the source machine with the target
machine without re-installation and reconfiguration of existing s/w.

I am willing to make a sector by sector image of the entire source disk
(empty partitions an all) if it will achieve this end.

Any suggestions on my next move?

1) wait for a bug fix? (when?)

2) somehow get a bootable disk from an older version? (from where?)

3) start over with some new way of making the image? (how?)

4) mount the image and delete enough files for Universal Restore/Plus Pack to think there is enough "head room" to restore a 15Gb C: partition? (does this even seem reasonable?)

Have you tried changing the size of the restored partition? For example, resizing it smaller than TI would or resizing it larger if TI isn't resizing. In other words, do not accept the defaults and try various sizes.

In most cases where I've seen this problem, changing the partition size just a bit usually makes a difference. For example, resizing the source partition just a bit smaller and creating a new image.

Does it make a difference if you restore the image to a different drive? Even one connected via USB? If that worked, you might be able to image the USB drive and then do the UR restore of that image to the computer.

Thanks for your suggestions!

If I do a sector-by-sector restore + Universal Restore TI will not allow me to change the size of the destination partition -- only the free space before and after it.

If I deselect sector-by-sector the restore works but Windows XP thinks that it is not activated. I am willing to go through the process of activation HOWEVER, I suspect the one critical S/W package I am doing this for will not work.

I've tried mounting a copy of the image and deleting unneeded files but apparently the mounted image cannot be changed (write protected).

I have not attempted to restore to a different drive yet. However, before doing this I took an image from another machine and (bare metal) restored it to my intended target machine. That machine had a 25Gb partition and it restored perfectly. I understand that ATI is "warning" me that the target partition "might" not be big enough to boot to after a restore. But it seems to be a bug that it will not let me proceed anyway.

As for the source machine, changing partition sizes or even deleting files is something I am too afraid to do. A small business is running on the system with no way to reinstall the very old, but licensed (and remotely activated) S/W. I fear that any change on the source machine could result in a problem with that S/W.

I bought ATI to do this one thing but I am willing to buy something else to get this thing done. Are there other packages out there that can do a BMR? I do not see the feature listed on the site for Ghost. Seems weird to be asking this here but I feel backed into a corner. If the Acronis folks read this and want to send me an older version (that doesn't have this bug) instead they would have one less disappointed ex-customer.

I have exactly the same problem. I have waited until I NEED to do a restore and my Acronis 2011 has failed me. I am another unhappy customer!!!!
In "What to recover "it shows my capacity is 293.4 GB. It also shows my used capacity is 226.7 GB.
I have tried to make a little adjustment to the size in "Settings of Partition C" but it does not allow me to make a change to the "Free space before" or "Free space after"--both show 0.

I have XP with SP3 and all available updates/KBs.
At this time I cannot get to my Acronis 2011 to see what my build is.
Please tell me how to fix this problem-or-tell me that I need to use another program.

@Mitchell,

Are you restoring a partition or a disk?

What is the actual capacity of your drive?

If you use the ISO version of the CD that is in your account, does that behave any differently? Just wondering if the problem is TI itself or due to TI and the Linux drivers, the ISO uses a different kernel and drivers.

It might also be interesting to see if the SAFE mode (downloadable from your account) also has the same problem. The SAFE version uses BIOS calls rather than drivers.

Hi Colin,
I first attempted to restore the complete disk (3 partitions) but I got the same error. I then just tried to recover my primary, active partition (C:\), unsuccessfully.
The drive that needs to be restored, with the recovery disk, is 500GB.
I do not know how to use the ISO version of the CD that is in my account--in otherwords, I cannot get to my account on the machine--hence the need for restore!
If you mean the Acronis CD that I received in the mail, I have not tried to use it. I just used F11 at boot.
I cannot access my Acronis account on the machine to try the SAFE mode thing.
Please tell me how to fix this problem-or-tell me that I need to use another program.
.

Mitchell,

You can access your account on whichever machine you are posting to this forum on, though as you have no access to the installed TIH, you can't use the SAFE mode as you can't install it, but you can burn the ISO to CD.

So if you don't press F11 (this means at some point you activated the Acronis Recovery Manager) does the system still boot into Windows?

The F11 environment is the same as the standard one created by Acronis Media Builder for the recovery CD. If you installed TIH from a CD then I assume you purchased this from a bricks and mortar based outlet. This build of True Image is likely to be 5018, which is very out of date and wasn't part of the download release build which was 5105.

Or did you purchase a CD from Cleverbridge from the online shop?

If it's a retailer CD then it will be bootable. boot from this and Validate you image, let's make sure you have a recoverable image to start with.

Hi Colin,
My system does not boot, thus I used the F11. I did not purchase from a store. I purchased from the Acronis site.
I recently downloaded the lastest build about a month ago. I checked last week and there was not a newer one. It is on the machine that will not boot.
I ordered the Acronis CD from you when I made my purchase.
I will attempt to boot from it and validate my .TIB file.
This image is on a separate external 1.5 TB Western Digital drive. It is where I place my Acronis Backups.
I also have an Acronis clone of my internal drive on a separate external 320 GB WD drive. Can I do anything with it?
Please tell me how to fix this problem-or-tell me that I need to use another program.

Mitchell,

If you ordered the CD from Cleverbridge they sold you a copy of what you downloaded, which is pointless as you can always download the installer from your account.

Now was your PC working before you activated the F11 option, and did it fail to boot immediately after you activated the ASRM?

Does the clone boot? Is the clone drive installed and running on your PC along with the original drive? Did the PC fail to boot after making the clone?

You can still download the ISO recovery media if you find that the CD you have doesn't boot from any PC.

It is possible that all that is wrong with your PC is the ability to boot, which could be resolved when you've answered the above questions.

In Linux drive letters get altered, you are positive you are trying to recover to the correct drive? It is always advisable to give all your drive/partitions labels as they don't alter in the Linux environment.

I am not employed by Acronis.

Hello Colin,
My laptop would not boot. It reported a corrupted file in i386/system....something.
That is when I decided I would just restore with Acronis.
I make an Acronis clone of my internal hard drive about monthly. The drive that receives my clone is an external 320 WD drive that I connect to my laptop for making my clone.
There is only 2 hard drives involved in my problem 1-internal that does not boot 2-external hard drive that I use to hold my Acronis backups.
What you have told me is to try and boot from the CD I purchased from Acronis. Then validate my .TIB file.
I have not received any info about how to fix the "not enough space on the recovery destination drive"

The problem is, we need to track down why you are getting that message, exacerbated by the fact the message may be generic in that the problem lies elsewhere but that message is the closest error message that fits.

TIH will refuse to image or restore if there is a major problem with the disk structure or with the image itself. Although you are getting the same error message as others in this thread, yours may not have the same cause.

So we need to find out if the problem is caused by

1. Linux version of TIH.

2. Linux drivers.

3. The image itself (if this reports its size incorrectly then TI will refuse to restore it).

4. Your laptop drive.

Now you could put your cloned drive in and then attempt to repair your original drive using Windows version of TIH.

The i386 folder is normally the copy of the XP install files that you find on an XP install CD but without the CD boot image. So these folders aren't used except when new hardware or a repair to a system file is required.

This then begs two other questions - assuming you want to get going as quickly as possible.

1. Do you have an XP install CD with SP3 included? If yes you could try running an XP repair install.

2. Can you boot into Windows safe mode via the F8 key when you attempt to boot the laptop?

Thanks for you input Colin. I do not have the time to be an Acronis tester or resolve problems for Acronis.
I have done a restore with another program successfully. This Acronis gets a thumbs down from me.
Mitchell

Any advice for me?

Is there any indication that this problem will be fixed in the next build and/or when the next build will be available?

Is there another product that will do a Universal Restore? Mitchell, you say you used another program. Did you do a Universal Restore (aka Bare Metal Restore). If so, what product did you use?

Again, I have made a sector by sector image of a C: drive and restored it to a target machine as a test that I am doing everything correctly. When I make a similar image from the machine I really do want to restore to different hardware I get the error/warning "... maybe not enough space to boot windows...". This should be a warning that I can ignore but it WILL NOT allow me to proceed. Obviously there is enough space and this warning should be ignored.

Arbalest,

If you are willing, could you see if you get the same error message if you don't make a sector by sector image but a complete disk image and either try to restore the complete disk or partition by partition.

The C: drive on the machine in question is (I think) a partition
and the D: drive on that same machine is empty and unused.

I have made a sector by sector image of C: with, and without,
the unused space.

So, if I understand, you are suggesting switching from partition
mode to disk mode when creating the image. I would be willing
to visit the friend/owner of the computer for a 3rd time and make
a third image if there was reason to believe it might work.

As it is, I already look like a fool for saying "I have tried this procedure
on my own machine and it works". I am willing to try though. Do you
have reason to think that this BUG in ATH will not manifest itself when
the image is made in this way?

May be I'm being confused by some of the terms used.

You stated that you've used the sector by sector method. By this, do you mean you ticked the sector by sector option, or you did a straight disk image which images used sectors only?

What I'm wondering is if this problem is only manifesting itself when sector by sector images are made or if indeed it is happening when standard used sector only images are being recovered.

From the main screen I select Disk and Partition Backup. In the Configure Disk Backup Process screen (and in Partition Mode) I select the C: drive then click on the Backup Scheme. On that screen I select the Advanced Tab and check Back-up Sector by Sector. On various trials have and have not also selected the option for Back-up unallocated space. All other settings are left as the defaults.

I think you are suggesting I do the same thing but use Disk Mode rather than Partition Mode. And in disk mode I ought to use the sector by sector option. If that is what you are suggesting my question is just to clarify why you think that might work. I want to be able to explain why I am going to someone's office for a 3rd time to make a back-up and not have a stapler thrown at me. I have done this exact process successfully on a test machine where the C: partition is 24Gb and it works fine. It fails when the C: partition to be restored is 15Gb.

Also, what about unused space - include it or not?

OK, under normal circumstances there is no need to select the sector by sector option unless you are attempting to image a MAC/Linux or OS2 or other non Microsoft formatted drive.

TIH will automatically only image used sectors, making the image much smaller and taking less time in making the image.

What I am wondering is if Acronis have altered something in the sector by sector algorithm which causes a disk size reporting problem either on disks over a specific size or with recovery of such an image full stop.

If you are able to make a full disk or partition image (I'm actually suggesting full disk) but not selecting the sector by sector option, if the same problem occurs on attempting to restore that. If it does then it is a fundamental problem with TI somewhere under specific circumstances, if it doesn't then the problem can be narrowed down to only occurring with the sector by sector code.

Arbalest,

I would think that the backups you have should work. I think Colin is suggesting a backup created NOT using Sector-by-Sector mode (i.e. a "Normal" backup). You shouldn't need to include the unallocated space.

The backup you have now is just about as complete as it can be since it includes every sector and the unallocated space.

Did you ever try restoring the image to a different drive? I was trying to figure out if it was something in the backup image that's causing the problem or if it's something with the destination drive. If you don't have another physical drive and you have enough space on a local drive, you could setup a VM and try restoring to the VM drive. At this point, you're just trying to find out IF it will restore -- worry about the size later.

Also, have you only tested using the Plus Pack version? If so, try the restore using the normal version. I've had problems before where the Plus Pack version didn't restore properly. If the restore works, you could then try creating a new image and restoring that image with UR.

Windows requiring reactivation is completely normal, especially since you're moving to different hardware. Normally, you would want to restore the Disk Signature and have the partitions placed the same on the drive. Other that that, there's not much you can do about it. I suspect the "other" software is more important than Windows, so the main thing is if it remains activated.

Arbalest,
regarding your question dated Wed, 2011-01-26 19:05, I purchased a Toshiba 1 TB external drive a few months ago. Included with it was an installed program named NTI Backup EZ. I purchased the full version from NTI. That program restored my C drive successfully, with all partitions. That backup I had was a few months older than I preferred, but it restored easily.
The version that I had for restoration did not include Acronis True Image 2011, therefore i reinstalled it. I then installed the newest build for it. (I did not use the Check for New Version during installation) I was then ablt to go to my Acronis file and find the files that I wanted to get. It allowed me to restore a few files at the time. If I attempted to restore , say more than 5 files at once, Acronis would give me an error. When I got the error, I would click on the cancel button and begin again. It seems that this Acronis TI Home 2011 is very qwerky. It should not take hours to get it to do what I need.
I hope that this helps,
Mitchell

ColinB: In my case I must do a sector by sector image (explained below). Also, I have imaged a different disk this way and restored to the same destination machine/disk with no problem.

MudCrab: I did not try a different destination drive since I tested my process, the drive and the destination machine with a different source image (just bigger) and it worked. Also, XP did not need to be activated. It just worked as if it was the other machine.

One clue is that if I restore and not request the sector by sector restore it seems to work -- just requires XP activation. I have not tried this without the Plus Pack version. The back-up image validates and I can mount the image and look at individual files without a problem. And I have made the image twice -- once with the free space included and once without. Isn't this enough to indicate the problem is not with the image?

You are correct in assuming that the other piece of software is most important. It runs a business, is no longer made/supported and requires a license key that was misplaced years ago. My assumption is that if XP knows that it isn't licensed/activated the other package will also.

The current machine that the business is running on seems to be failing so ATH, the target machine and drive were all acquired for this one purpose. I first tried to find an identical copy of the source machine but it is both uncommon and old. So, the Universal Restore is the key feature. If I can run the sector by sector image in a VM that would be considered a fine solution to this problem. But I think you are suggesting I do a non-sector-by-sector restore to a VM, right? The non-sector-by-sector restore does work on the intended target already but, as mentioned, XP isn't activated and I am pretty sure that means the other S/W will not be. Maybe I am wrong here and should activate XP with the *hope* that the other S/W will work.

As far as the location of the buggy code in ATH, I still think that the warning about "maybe not enough space..." is a valid "warning". The BUT seems to be that I cannot just say OK and let the chips fall where they may. It just will not let me continue. Another clue is that I have done several more restores with my test image of a 24Gb drive and there have been a few times I also got the error/warning. But no amount of trials with the 15Gb drive image have let me slide past the warning.

MitchellG: Thanks. I checked it out briefly and so far it doesn't seem like it will restore to dissimilar hardware. I'll keep reviewing the specs.

The business software activation might depend on what it uses to check it's validity.

I have an autorouting program that checks BIOS and hard drive serial numbers amongst other things so if I either replace the drive or the motherboard, the product becomes de-activated, no matter how I image using TI this problem occurs.

If you are able to restore this disk into a VM then at least you would be able to test to see if the program becomes de-activated. This should be quite separate from XP activation.

I agree with Colin. I don't think the Windows activation would be linked to the other software's activation.

You can do a sector-by-sector restore to the VM drive. The main point was to allow you to create a new image (hopefully, one that TI wouldn't have a problem with).

I assumed you could easily try running the other software and tell if it's been deactivated. Is this not the case?

This is a very interesting discussion about a BUG of Acronis TIH 2011.
I don't know if someone of Acronis support reads this forum, but I have sent a request to Acronis, as I am entitled to during the first 30 days after purchase, but unfortunately I have got no answer.
I have been a user of multiple versions of True Image for years, to do what is expected from a save/restore product : take images of my system to be able to come back to a welle running version whent I get a problem. I am used to take an image of C/ let's say every week.
In previous versions, restoring an image in the same partition it had been taken from was done without any problem.
Starting with TIH 2010, a check has beeen added by Acronis, and, whent you had few free space on your original partition (2 to 3%) in my case, you got at restore the warning "insufficient space on target, boot could be impossible..", but you could either click OK and you came back to the previous screen, eithe click ignore and your retsore was done as ususal.
In TIH 2011, you have the same control, but the ignore button has desapeared, so that your backup becomes uniuseful.
Fortunately I had a recent backup done with TIH 2010, and I have restored with this version of TIH.
Afterwards I have managed to get more free space on my C partition (more than 5%). I have then backuped then restored my system with TIH 2011 without any problem.
If someone of Acronis team reads this comment, please restore the "Ignore" Button as an answer to the warning.

Thank you in advance.

Thanks Yves, that rules out the sector by sector versus a standard used sector idea.

Do you have your case number still? If you do a PM to one of the Acronis moderators might be of help.

Hello all,

Thank you very much for posting and thank you for helping Colin.

Yves, I will do my best to assist you.

I have followed-up with the responsible parties and you should receive a reply very soon. I am very sorry for any inconvenience.

According to our internal resources, the issue you are facing needs additional investigation and the support engineer working on your case asked you for additional diagnostic information.

Please let me know if you have additional questions.

Thank you.

Hi Colin,

I just received an answer to my request (12:15 GMT+2), and inthe object there is a reference : ref:00D3Zcb.5005BV82Z:ref .
I am not sure if this is the case #, but anyway, I'll send to Acronis what they asked me to provide to help investigations.
According to their post which followed my post, it seems that they are working onthe topic.
It should not be a great problem for them to skip the control of free space in the target partition !
This problem is similar to Microsoft defragmentation software which refuses to work if you have not at least 5% free space in your partition..Fortunately competitors have developped efficient softwares which accept to defragment even when fre space is reduced.
Let' hope Acronis will be performant in fixing our problem.

Best regards.

Yves - thanks so much for your input on this. Do you know (or anyone else out there) if ATH2010, or even ATH2009 has a Universal Restore feature built-in or that can be bought? I am looking at older versions for sale on eBay as I need to get this restore done soon before the source machine dies.

Acronis - you can answer this as well.

Colin - thanks for noting that there are other ways to ensure validation and that this might all be for naught anyway. I assumed (incorrectly I guess) that if I had an exact image I would be OK.

MudCrab - I have not activated XP to see if the other S/W works. Assuming that the need for XP activation meant that the S/W would not work I was avoiding finding the original XP packaging or what ever info was need to activate XP. If the consensus is that the S/W might work with a non-sector-by-sector restore then I will go ahead and (attempt to) activate XP. Again, if my restore mode is not sector-by-sector (which disables the Universal Restore option) I can complete the restore -- but have a unactivated XP.

Off hand I don't know what I need to do to restore to a VM either. Maybe someone can PM on this but if I install VMware Player on another XP machine can I use ATH2011 to restore the image to that? Can someone point me to more details? If this works it will be a sufficient way to keep a small business operating.

Hi Arbalest,

Sorry but I have no experience with universal restore which is designed to tranfer a system from a hardware to a different hardware as its purpose is to update drivers according to the target hardware.
Anyway in my knowledge, it's still available to purchase on Acronis website.

Best regards.

Arbalest,

If you don't have VM software already, you could use VMware Player since it now allows creation of a VM. Other options are VirtualBox and Virtual PC (from Microsoft). You need a computer with enough resources to run a VM also. I usually use Workstation 7. You can send me a PM if you want to pursue this and have questions.

Regarding the XP activation, are you using pre-SP3? Microsoft changed the activation in SP3 (if I remember correctly) so that you had three days to reactivate instead of it just shutting you out. Personally, I think I would go ahead and try the reactivation. If you need to call Microsoft, just explain the problems you're having and I don't think it will be a problem. I've had to do that several times and they were fine with it.

If it's just the "used space" size in the image that's causing the bug/problem, would it be possible to Mount the image in Read-Write mode, delete some files, and then restore the newly created Incremental image? You could then copy any deleted files back to the drive. For example, if there's a big database file or video file that could be deleted and copied back afterwards.

Is it possible/likely that I could buy and use Acronis Backup and Recovery 10 Workstation with Universal Restore to restore my existing image where ATH11 has been failing?

Will I need to make a new back-up first?

p.s. I was going to try it with the free trial download but I keep getting an error message on the registration page!

MudCrab - I have the same problem regardless of whether free space is included in the image. I didn't know I could mount the image in read/write mode. I tried to mount the image and delete files before but the image was read-only. I'll see what I can do.

B&R 10 should be able to read and restore the TI 2011 image. It's definately worth a shot. Are you using IE? If not, you might try it and see if the registration goes any better.

Hi Arbalest,

Coming back to your post dated 2011-01-02 : if your problem is cloning your system to the same kind of hardware on another machine, it's seems to me you have 2 ways to restore your system :
1) resize your target partition to let's say 17 Gb. Then restore your backup. With more than 10% free space on target TIH 2011 should work.
2) if you can't allow enough space on your target device, move some files to another partition of the source system to obtain a percentage of free space of 10%. This is what I have done on my own system moving pagefile to another partition than C:. Then backup your source system and restore it on your 15 Gb target. This should work.

Hope this will help.

Regards.

Well, I have mounted the image in read/write mode and deleted all but about 35% of the total drive space (i.e., 65% free space) and the error is the same. I think this proves that the SPURIOUS ERROR from ATH2011 happens before it even looks at the percentage of free space that will be available on the target drive. Rather, it just decides that some arbitrary size of the destination drive is big enough and refuses to proceed otherwise.

And to others who have suggested it, I cannot choose to do a sector by sector restore to a different sized partition. ATH2011 does not allow that and it doesn't seem to matter if that partition is on a new disk or not. I am not sure why it might work if the disk is on a virtual machine rather than a physical machine. So, I haven't tried that yet (but I will).

Doing an non sector-by-sector restore results in XP being unactivated after a restore and I cannot even log in. It seems that it is not the rev of XP that allowed for 3 days of use. I guess I have been avoiding this step of "activating" XP as I know it is not needed if the restoration works (as proven using a 25Gb source partition).

Next, the free trial of Acronis Backup and Recovery 10 does not include the Universal Restore option (as far as I can tell). And neither Acronis or anyone else has gone on record saying this bug that while CLEARLY exists in ATH2011 does NOT exist in Acronis Backup and Recovery 10. Otherwise, I would be willing to spend the ~$100 to try it.

It seems that Acronis monitors these forums and doesn't mind watching me squirm. They have not offered a work around or even suggested their alternate product. You would think that they would be chiming in here if not offering me Acronis Backup and Recovery 10 for free -- or discounted. Mind you, I am not asking for a free copy but at least they could say the if the BUG is in BOTH versions or JUST ONE.

The problem is so easily reproducible I'll wager that if I had access to ATH2011's source code I could find this bug in less than a day. Yet, I have spent days trying to work around it and a business (my client) and myself are suffering.

Arbalest,

Are you using a Dell PC?

ABR10 is not based on the codeset of 2011.

Why not register for the trial version of ABR10 and see if you gett he same problem?

You cannot have 2011 and ABR 10 installed at the same time.