A Month into ATI and it still doesn't work right.

These notes were taken as I started having trouble with ATI 2009 and then ATI 2010. They were taken as the problems happened and solutions were tried, so it isn't formatted as a nice and pretty story. It also doesn't include new problems, like "why doesn't consolidation actually consolidate the backups?". I don't really know if this software is worth my time anymore. I have blown far too many hours only to arrive at the same place I was at the beginning. And knowing how buggy the backup process is, I don't see how I am supposed to be confident that the backups are even valid or would work if I needed them.

here are my notes, starting around September 12. What a nightmare:

I have 2 backups: my system volume backup and a file backup. The first thing I did was create a system volume backup but then it never ran after the first time, though it said it was scheduled to run every day. It wasn't listed in the scheduled tasks if I click on a date in the calendar (only the file backup is shown) but if I click the "show all scheduled tasks, it would show up. There was no indication of any reason why the task doesn't show up in the list when I click a date but does show up when I click "show all"... it says "At 12:04:00 AM every day" as the "schedule".

So after a week of trying to figure out why that wasn't running, I gave up and recreated the task.

When I look at the "Manage Backups" page, the file backup was no listed, I had to browse for it.

I activated "Acronis Startup Recovery Manager" but, after reboot, it was no longer activated. I activated it again.

The emails I get from my backups list the location of the backup as "".

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a new version was released 2 days after I bought the other version so, a week later, I found this out and downloaded the new version.

a week after that, I installed it. While installed, I got a message to close the following programs: Windows Explorer. Not IE... explore.exe. Not a good sign.

rebooted after installation. "Acronis Home has encountered a problem and must close" error is the first thing I see.

I try to run Acronis from the start menu, get the User Account dialog box and allow it, then get an Acronis error: Acronis True Image Home is not installed. So I unstalled it via the windows control panel, but that didn't work at all. It did not unistall the program.

So I ran the installation program again and chose "repair". That appeared to have worked after rebooting.

Acronis now makes a "My Backups" folder for some reason. Eventually (after 2 or 3 failed backup task attempts in ATI 2010) I gave up and let ATI use that folder instead of the folder I had created and used for my backups.

But then I tried to set up and run a full system backup, scheduled for midnight, and it shows up as Status = "Queued" instead of "Idle" and did not run at the scheduled time. Rightclicking the task and choosing "start" does not start the task.

I had to download and run a commandline utility to delete all schedule tasks to attempt to fix this (see http://forum.acronis.com/forum/4214 )

I did this, deleted my old backups (thus wasting the last 2 weeks of labor trying to get ATI 2009 and now ATI2010 to work correctly) and recreated my 2 backups: a system backup that runs at Midnight and a file backup that runs a couple hours later. I used the "run now" checkbox to make the system backup run immediately but did not do that for the file backup. The system backup ran immediately and ran again on schedule. The file backup still said "Queued" the next morning when I got up. It did not run at scheduled time.

I deleted the "queued" task and recreated it, backtracking to make sure the "run immediately" box was checked (it is checked by default but unchecked when you change any of the real options, such as making it a scheduled task. Checking that box caused the task to run immediately and it also ran on schedule later.

So, finally, after slightly over 3 weeks, 2 versions, 3 installs, and way over a dozen attempts, I now have both of my backups running correctly.

Unfortunately, I don't really have much faith in them. How can I really be confident that my backups will actually work if needed when I know how buggy this software is?

I have now rebooted and seemingly confirmed that finally, after all of the problems I had with ATI 2010, now that I have it running correctly, it appears to have solved the initial problems I had with ATI 2009.

Also, the bootable Acronis Rescue Disk does work for me. The System Report didn't work by itself (failed to save the report) but does work from within the rescue software. That isn't a big deal but is yet another bug in the software.

Hopefully I'll never need these backups in an emergency. If it do or if something else pops up, I'll update this list. Otherwise, I think I'm through.

And then, on October 13, 6 days after I thought I was finished, one of the original problems popped up again: On the home screen of ATI 2010, there is once again a warning that says "Your system is not fully protected. Perform the following operations: Back Up My System".
So now I am creating a new system backup by clicking on the "Back Up My System" link and creating a new system backup (AGAIN) and scheduling it to run daily, being sure to backtrack and check the "run now" checkbox.

2009-10-14 7:30am That backup ran correctly and ran again when scheduled that night and now the home screen says "Your system is fully protected". But when I go to the Recovery tab, the backup is not listed under "disk backups" like it should be. I clicked "browse for backup" and added the backup manually. This problem is the 2nd of the 3 original problems I was having with ATI 2009.

I left for the beach and returned Sunday 2009-10-18. Again, had the same message: On the home screen of ATI 2010, there is once again a warning that says "Your system is not fully protected. Perform the following operations: Back Up My System".