SOLVED: True Image 2011 - Single Version Backup - How To Configure?

OK, strange, it should be overwriting the file each time.

I'll see if I can duplicate your problem.

I'm not sure if it was designed to image hourly, but I'll see what happens.

This is also happening to me with TI2011. I set single backups but is does not overwrite the existing file!. I have given up on TI2011 and uninstalled it, reinstalling TI2010. At least until it works as it should - too many bugs for me.

SOLVED:

After having some more time (as it's now the weekend in my part of the world) to look at this issue and try different things I have solved the issue I was having.

I spent time in the help screens and came across information which said that 2011 uses metadata to store information about the backup.

This got me to thinking.

What I had been doing was using my EXISTING backup files which had been around for a very long time (probably created by ATI2009 originally.)

I was "pointing" ATI2011 at these and thinking that they would just be updated - as this is what I did with 2010 and it had no issues.

I have now successfully tested many times creating BRAND NEW backup files from scratch of my partitions and these behave correctly.

So the solution in my case: Abandon previous backup files made with older versions and start afresh with NEW backup files which have been created by ATI2011.

Regards

Well, I have had no such luck! I am starting with fresh Home 2011 installs, set for daily INCREMENTAL backups, and I still and getting the same nonsense if (.) extra FULL backups each day!!!

Lester,

Is the period part of the problem?

What build of 2011 are you using?

Does your problem show with new tasks as well as existing ones?

How many tasks do you have?

How are your tasks composed and do you have things like duplicate images ticked?

Are these images stored on an external or internal drive?

If you have just one task, it might be worthwhile opening up the script file to see if anything strange lurks within.

I've used Acronis for years, as well as a lot of other software. This release simply is not user-freiendly to use -- even though the coders might like it.

I have build 5519, backing up to an internal drive. I have this same setup on two Win7 hp dv8t machines. Both suffer the same problem.

I do not have duplicate images checked. I use CUSTOM to get INCREMENTAL backups -- itself a strange way to get into incremental backups -- just see how many people get that far down your menus.

No, there is nothing strange in any script files. It is Home 2011 that is strange.

When ABR was first released, multiple labeled backups were forced on the user. I note that in the latest version there is an option to use True Echo files systems, since many people did not like that.

Will it take Home 2012 or 2013 for Acronis to realize that 2011 is just not user-friendly. In fact it is worse than that: How can someone simply get the results they had in Home 2009 or 2010!?

See http://forum.acronis.com/forum/8293

Lester Ingber wrote:

I do not have duplicate images checked. I use CUSTOM to get INCREMENTAL backups -- itself a strange way to get into incremental backups -- just see how many people get that far down your menus.

Lester,
This is the setting I use to get multiple incrementals or it works equally well if you choose differentials. I would certainly agree that for proper settings, the user must know what and where to look and you don't know what you don't know.

For full view, click picture.

GroverH:

I have those settings, but I still got a second full backup the second day. From my Cygwin shell:

ls -tr d:/ACRONIS
LESTER1.tib LESTER17.tib LESTER33.tib LESTER4019.tib LESTER40125.tib
LESTER2.tib LESTER18.tib LESTER34.tib LESTER40110.tib LESTER40126.tib
LESTER3.tib LESTER19.tib LESTER35.tib LESTER40111.tib LESTER40127.tib
LESTER4.tib LESTER20.tib LESTER36.tib LESTER40112.tib LESTER40128.tib
LESTER5.tib LESTER21.tib LESTER37.tib LESTER40113.tib LESTER40129.tib
LESTER6.tib LESTER22.tib LESTER38.tib LESTER40114.tib LESTER40130.tib
LESTER7.tib LESTER23.tib LESTER39.tib LESTER40115.tib LESTER40131.tib
LESTER8.tib LESTER24.tib LESTER40.tib LESTER40116.tib LESTER40132.tib
LESTER9.tib LESTER25.tib LESTER4011.tib LESTER40117.tib LESTER40133.tib
LESTER10.tib LESTER26.tib LESTER4012.tib LESTER40118.tib LESTER40134.tib
LESTER11.tib LESTER27.tib LESTER4013.tib LESTER40119.tib LESTER40135.tib
LESTER12.tib LESTER28.tib LESTER4014.tib LESTER40120.tib LESTER40136.tib
LESTER13.tib LESTER29.tib LESTER4015.tib LESTER40121.tib LESTER40137.tib
LESTER14.tib LESTER30.tib LESTER4016.tib LESTER40122.tib LESTER40138.tib
LESTER15.tib LESTER31.tib LESTER4017.tib LESTER40123.tib LESTER40139.tib
LESTER16.tib LESTER32.tib LESTER4018.tib LESTER40124.tib LESTER40140.tib

GroverH:

It looks like this is a case of trying to "compare apples and pears". If you are using Win7 (or perhaps any other Windows?), then your screenshots do not match my screen shots of the latest Home 2011 build? (My Consolidation window pops out). I already mentioned that some previous versions do not have these issues.

Thanks for your reply anyway.

Lester

So what OS or VM are you using?

If you are using CYGWIN then that might be a pointer to what is causing the problem, it might not of course.

Did you actually open up the task script and check that there was nothing strange there? Looking at the disk read output it looks to me that the task scheduler has become corrupted.

I don't get the same screen as Grover either, but then I believe he uses XP whereas I'm using W7 64bit. If I click on the Automatic consolidation settings link, then I do get a form (with a different title bar) with the same options.

You didn't answer my question on whether a new task has the same problem or only tasks imported from a previous install?

I think you might need to run the Acronis task Zapper and start again.

Lester,

The type reaction you are describing ( hidden taasks running) did occur in the 2010 version and there was a new scheduler released in June which is available for download as a separate install. It was not part of the 7046 release but must be installed separatelyi. The folder you illustrated would be most difficult to manage and discern what is when. Is the drive containing your backups a FAT32 or an NTFS file system?

If, by chance, you installed the 2011 overtop of a prior install, there still could be some residue leftover.

My solution for you ( and probably is not something you may not want to do) is to
1. Uninstall 2011 and run the 2011 cleanup utility (check my signature below).
2. Create all new tasks.
3. Optionally: install and use Chain2Gen(C2G) as mentiioned above and inside my signature. I have successfully used C2G in the 2009, 2010 & 2011 versions. After my initial installation of C2G, I have been able to use the same C2G settings for each successive versoin. All I had to do was to point the 2011 version tasks (Pre/post options) pre option to the folder containing the C2G control files. C2G will perform as promised and you are in control as to how many files you retain. Whatever little time is spent is setting up C2G will be returned in dividends because it will run without any issue--or at least it has for me and others that have used this program.

Chain2Gen (C2G) is a helper program for TrueImageHome (TIH). C2G was written by forum contributor MVP Oracledba

TrueImage runs the tasks which does the scheduling and creates the backups, whereas, C2G provides the controls on when the full backup should be created. or how many to be retained. C2G offers many choices.

If interested, click on my signature index below (or my guides (index) listed under the Useful Links option along the left Window margin) and select items 3-B & 3-A within the index reference. Plus, feel free to ask any questions.
=================================================

If you wanted to further troubleshoot your current problem, you can look inside the Acronis folder containing the log files and examne the one that occurred at the time of the backup creation today. Its contents might point you to a specific task which should not be running.

Your custom incremental screen and mine are identical except that I have displayed the contents of the consolidation screen into my display so I could display both in one screen.

This is a clean install of 2011 on Win7 x64. Cygwin is not used at all with 2011, etc., so that is not relevant.

Four times on each machine, I removed all backup tasks and tried again, and each time it is messed up. If the program can't clean itself properly, then I really cannot address that. I have no idea where to get the "zapper" or if it is supported by Acronis?

There are just too many peripheral questions, that seem to dismiss the fact that other users than myself are having such problems (else I would not have posted).

Logs? You want Logs? I do not see any clues here, but perhaps you do. All I see is the decision of the software to (re)start numbering with a different suffix.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

Create Incremental Backup Archive</bold><endl/><tabpoint value=30><indent value=4><textcolor value=0x00ff0000>Password Protected</textcolor><endl/>From: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">Disk 1</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/>To file: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">"D:\ACRONIS\LESTER401.tib"</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/>Compression: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">Normal</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/>File Split: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">700 MB</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/></indent><endl/>" />

Validate Backup Archive</bold><endl/><tabpoint value=30><indent value=4>Location: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">"D:\ACRONIS\LESTER40140.tib"</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/></indent><endl/>" />

I read the pdf that comes with chain2Gen_v2.6.2. This does not address an issue that I and others have had with 2011. As I said, once a full backup is performed, Incremental backups do not work as that have on previous versions. (Yeah, my d: drive is NTFS.) See above.

Another (probably related problem, is that even if the backup dir is emptied, unlike with previous versions, the new files contain extra "([0-9]*)" which is a bit more than a nuisance. In the past, with both TIH and ABR10, I used prescripts to move the contents of the backup dir to a new dir, so I could easily save weeks and months under my own simple file index.

Before I leave this thread, here is just one of my simple pre-scripts which shows a simple scheme, easily enhanced, to take care of indexing chunks of backups. It is a Unix script which will run under any number of shells available for Windows. In this case, I had three hard drives on my Thinkpad, and every week I moved that week's backup from drive e: to g:

#!/bin/tcsh -f
set LOG=e:/ACRONIS_INFO/log_acronis
c:/cygwin/bin/touch $LOG
set DATE=`c:/cygwin/bin/date`
set DAY=`c:/cygwin/bin/date +%a`
set FULL="Fri"
if ( $DAY == $FULL ) then

if ( -e g:/BACKUP ) then
echo Pre Full $DATE >> $LOG
cd e:/
c:/cygwin/bin/rm -rf BACKUP_OLD
c:/cygwin/bin/mv BACKUP BACKUP_OLD
c:/cygwin/bin/mkdir BACKUP
chmod 777 BACKUP
cd g:/BACKUP
c:/cygwin/bin/rm -rf lesterBackup.0
c:/cygwin/bin/mv lesterBackup lesterBackup.0
c:/cygwin/bin/mkdir lesterBackup
cd ./lesterBackup
c:/cygwin/bin/mv -f e:/BACKUP_OLD/LESTER_BACKUP* .

else
c:/cygwin/bin/touch c:/cygwin/home/ingber/g_BACKUP_does_not_exit
echo Pre Incr $DATE >> $LOG
endif

else
echo Pre Incr $DATE >> $LOG
endif

Dates (and also some tags) can be suffixed to dirs/folders with:

#!/bin/tcsh -f
#setenv TZ GMT
set DATE=`date +%Y_%m_%d`
if ($#argv == 1) then
mv -i $1 ${1}_${DATE}
else if ($#argv == 2) then
mv -i $1 ${1}_${DATE}${2}
endif

If you are moving the full backups from drive_a to drive_b or partition_a to partition_b, TI will autorecreate them each time it runs as the image file is 'missing'.

If you are rotating drives for TI to image to this is likley to cause problems at some stage as TI embeds the drive ID in the task file. Often it will fail completely if that drive is not available when a task is to be run.

Colin,
Most likely, he would be moving the entire set since he cannot create an incremental without the first full base backup being present. When using Chain2Gen, moving a whole folder (full backup set) is not an issue as the first backup in the replacement folder is always a new full backup anyway. When a backup set is complete (1 full + X incremental or differential, C2G moves the set along the chain for retention. This movement has not been an issue with any version of TIH. He is not using C2G but I have recommended that he give it a try.

Lester,
A couple random thoughts.
1. As you have found out, it is diffucult to use a batch file for movement if you cannot predict what the exact name of the backup is going to be. Most certainly, there is a distinct problem with (1) or (2) being added to the file name. The cause is unknown but it is happening. This is not a problem for Chain2Gen as it moves is not based on a file name.

2. In prior versions, having the file name end in numbers was an issue. The fix was not to use numbers but a dash or an underscore as the ending character. This procedure I continue to use even in 2011. I find the easiest place to assign a file name in 2011 is when pointing to the destination folder. The name assignment is much easier there than on the home page of the task.

3. When doing daily backups, the Win7 defrag (or other 3rd party defrags) must be disabled as TIH records any movement of data as changes and includes these changes inside the incremental/differential. Sometimes when an incremental is as large as the full backup, the defrag issue is the cause.

4. While often times starting a new task will cure the issue, the residue of the old tasks is still in the Meta-fle database. This is why one of my suggestions was to un-install--run a cleanup--re-install.

5. I am unsure as to the cause of your problem but hoping that a fresh install plus the caveats above would provide something that works for you.

.

A number of us have found that to reliably control the number of ati2011 backups, we need to use windows explorer and ignore the My Backups screen -- or go through the MyBackups screen every now and then and remove-from-the-list the eventual buildup of items -- a lot of us find the My Backups screen too confusing anyway. a power user out in Oregon first suggested this method to me and although it sounds Draconian, it actually works pretty well. Basically you make backups within ATI2011 but you manually manage the number (the limit), naming, and/or final locations of the backup files yourself using Windows Explorer.

An alternative managing manually is to go back to pre-ATI10 days (i.e., the 2007 version of ATI) and, instead of using ATI to manage the number and naming of backups, using homemade batch files or the Chain2gen batch-file set that one of the ATI users put together. Admittedly, batch files are not nearly as simple as managing backups from within a program, but it works, and once set up it's very reliable.

Otoh, on one machine on which I've tried ATI2011, it doesn't append numbers and seems to properly follow user-set limits fo the number fo backups to keep. Still trying to figure out what might be different from one machine to the next that accounts for such a difference.

I understand from the above, that it is not possible to continue backing up stuff with ATIH 2011 incrementally, when the backup was originally created by version 2009?

Can anybody confirm this?

I *have* strange problems continuing my backups ...

The program should at least say something about this, IMHO.

Thomas,
The real purpose of a backup is the abilty to restore your data or system in case of need. A system retsore is best done by the Rescue CD so it can be said that validation of your backups when booted from the CD is a very important chore.

Have you validated your backus lately with the 2011 Rescue CD? Remember an incremental (for example) created by a 2010 or 2011 module cannot be restored by the 2009 Rescue CD so the validation by the 2011 CD is important.

One important point about restoreing incremental backups is that a chain in created by the base backup to the most recent incremental. If any of the incrementals along the way become non-usable (data or bytes not readable), then all the incrementals from the bad to the most recent cannot be used. I don't know how many incrementals you have but crossing versions would not be something I would want to do with my data.

You are in the best position to answer your own question and you may have that condition possible. Each new version brings different methods so my recommendation would be to start new backups via new tasks.

GroverH, thanks for your reply!

I automatically validate my backups directly after creation - and i copy them with a validation copy to external storage.
So, i never realy tested the validity after creation.

But, my goal is to mirror my system over it´s complete existance - meaning, that i do not want to be forced to create a new full backup with each new version of ATIH ...
What you wrote seems to imply, that i should better start with a fresh backup with each version.

This is something, that i did not expect ... and from my experience with professional backup tools like NetBackup, Legato Networker and TSM, i am not used to this - you should *always* be able to restore an old backup - and may it be of age.

So, just to be sure i would like to ask:

Is there something *technically* you know about, that would imply creating a new backup with each version?

If not, i would rather continue with my old habit of mirroring all stages of my system over years - with incremental and partly differential backups that can be used many years later ...

Thank you!
:)

BTW, i still have lots of backups created by ATIH 9, 11 and 2009 ... at least i will try to validate some of them!
:)

Thomas,

With 2011's new ability to export and import tasks, it will hopefully mean in the future that the next version of TI Home will be quite happy with either auto importing tasks or having them manually imported.

Your current problem is quite possibly down to the fact that some major changes were made to TI 2011, which makes the importation of the 2010 tasks go awry occasionally.

As version progress, the backup file format changes somewhat. Usually, a version can handle backups made two versions back, so ATI10 could handle backups from ATI8 and ati9. Ati2009 could handle backups from ATI10 and ati11. Iirc, Acronis has said that ati2011 can handle backups made one version back but I used it to restore a backup made with ati2009 the other day and it worked fine. So if you keep going to newer versions, you probably should recreate the older backups.

HOWEVER, please noter that you have the option of keeping the bootCDs you made for each of the prior versions. If you made a backup with ATI10, for example, ati2011 won't recongnise the backup as valid, but the ati10 Bootcd will and could still be used to restore the ati10 backup.

Thanks for your replies!

Thomas,

Is there something *technically* you know about, that would imply creating a new backup with each version?

Acronis advises that prior backup programs cannot be used to restore backups created by the newer versions. Thus a 2009 backup cannot be guaranteed to restore a backup created by 2011. Likewise, Acronis indicates they cannot guarantee a restore of a prior version except for the just prior version. So 2011 is not guaranteed to restore a 2009 backup. It may but it may not. So it would seem to me that knowing the newer versions are different than the prior versions, why take the chance of mixing version when starting a new series is without any major effort.

I do not consider starting a new backup series as an inconvenience. Any prior TrueImage backup can be restored using the version CD which created the backup. So backups can be retained for a long period of time. We also know that storing data is subject to the hazards of disk failure or failure for data bytes to be read and if not read, the backup becomes useless. I would not want one problem backup to prevent me from restoring all my backups. So my personal preferance is to have many standalone backups so I have many choices from which to restore should one backup have a problem. These standalone backups cover a wide range of versions which created them but no one version is tied to another version.

Hopefully, you have tested your recovery procedure by actual tests. Hopefully, you have restored your backups to other new disks so you know by actual test that if your current hard drive fails, you know that restoration of your backups will produce a new bootable disk with a minimum of inconvenience.