Scheduled Tasks Continually Fail

One thing to try is to download the schedule manager from here http://kb.acronis.com/content/1859
Follow the instruction to manage the tasks and ZAP all your tasks. This will only delete the scheduler information, not the backup task itself and not the TIB files, so there is no risk for your backups.
After you have zapped the tasks in the scheduler, reset the schedules and see if this solves your issue.

If not, we will try a uninstall, reboot, reinstall.

Hi Pat L & Thank you for your reply.

I was wondering if you would be so kind as to advise/help me with a couple of questions

When I first bought my Notebook in it's factory state my computer was set up with the following Drives/Partitions:

C:/ D:/ & a third hidden Partition named 'PQservice'

I have removed a lot of unnecessary & unwanted programs & as a consequence I have now got the computer in the state I want.

1. I want to keep the current state of the computer backed-up as a sort of personal factory default, left alone on an external hard drive & not updated.
   How would I go about doing this with Acronis T.I.H.11 & the C:/ Drive aside what other drives do I need to include in 'my' factory default?
2. As well as having this redundant (My) Factory restore I would also like to to have a separate updatable/scheduled back up as I add programs, files, updates change settings etc
   My aim for establishing this type of backup would be in the event of something going wrong I could use the most recent backup in the schedule rather than doing a full factory restore.
   Also I would like only a few of these backups stored & the older ones deleted(?) when the backups reached a certain amount - something akin to windows 'system restore'
   Lastly what drives would I need to include for this type of backup?

Any advice/help would greatly appreciated & I eagerly await your response.

Thank You

You need 2 things to accomplish what you want:
- a disk and partition backup that include *all* partitions of your computer, including the hidden ones. If this backup is too big for you, consider excluded specific user content folders, but remember to back them up some other way: when you restore a disk and partiion backup everything is first deleted on the partitions your restore, and only the backed up content is restored.
- a recovery CD that you have tested: you have booted your computer on it and you have tested you can restore a couple of files succesfully from your backup.

That's great, thank you Pat.

Pat L wrote:

You need 2 things to accomplish what you want:
- a disk and partition backup that include *all* partitions of your computer, including the hidden ones.

This will be great for 'My Factory Restore Backup'

Pat L wrote:

- a recovery CD that you have tested: you have booted your computer on it and you have tested you can restore a couple of files successfully from your backup.

How do I go about doing this? Sorry I'm not that bright with these sort of things

What about my second question? How do I go about making a scheduled/updatable backup - Is this what is referred to an Incremental or differential backup?

Using ATI, click on create bootable media, and follow the wizard. This will burn a blank CD into a bootable CD. Once done, reboot your computer and press F2 immediately and repeatedly until you enter the BIOS settings. Verify that the computer is set up to boot on a CD if present and bootable. Put the CD in, and reboot. You will see a special version of ATI run from the CD. Follow the instructions to restore a couple of files. Don't restore your entire disk or partitions. Just a couple of files from the backup.

This will make sure you can restore your computer to a completely new disk if you ever had to.

To your second question, you will need to create a disk and partition backup from ATI running in Windows. Here are the steps:
- click on create disk and partition backup,
- in the upper right, click on swith to disk mode,
- check your main system disk,
- click on the destination, choose browse
- using the left navigation panel, double click your way until you have opened your target destination,
- enter a simple TIB file name, with no space, no special character. Ef: SystemImage
- click OK, you are now back to your backup configuration window.
- click on the blue version chain link, this opens the same window as clicking on the edit backup options blue link at the bottm,
- choose custom backup scheme, incremental. For a daily backup, choose create a new full after 6 incrementals. For a monthly backup, choose create a new full after 3 incrementals, for example. As a rule of thumb, never make the number of incrementals so big that you would never go back to the last full because it would be too old for you. Turn autocleaning on, choose store no more than X most recent version chains (X should be small enough that you always have a lot of space left to do a new full backup on your backup disk).
- click on the advanced tab, unfold validation, click to schedule a validation weekly. Unfold the advanced settings in this scheduler window, uncheck all boxes here unless you really want to enable them,
- click on the performance tab, choose normal compression, choose normal priority if you have a recent processor, high priority if you have a high end recent processor,
- close that backup settings window,
- click on the schedule link. Choose when you want the backup to run (daily, weekly, etc.). Note that some scheduling on events don't work well on all computers. Unfold the advanced settings of that scheduler and uncheck all boxes unless you really want them checked (leaving them unchecked may alleviate some behavior/scheduling issues depending on your machines and OS settings).
- click on backup now or later.
Atfterwards, just let the scheduler do your backups, or run backup now.

If you want to edit your settings, create a new task if you change the backup scheme one way or another, or if you want to rename your TIB files. Do not delete or rename TIB files manually.

From time to times, boot your computer on the CD and validate a backup and/or restore a couple of files.

If you are a beginner with backups, consider the following:
- diversify your backup locations (use a couple of disks, rotate them, take one off site when not used. If you do this, create 2 backup tasks pointing at each drive. Make sure you assign a fixed drive letter to each disk)
- double and diversify your backup types for irreplaceable content. For example, use a NSB, file backup or online backup for small, often changing files in addition to your disk and partition backup. Or use some simple sync software for big, already compressed, rarely changing files (like movies, videos, music, photos, etc.)
- diversify your backup software/technologies. Use the built in Windows or security sofware or third party backup software in addition to ATI.
Be paranoid about irreplaceable content!

Dear Pat

Thank you so much for your in-depth answers, however I'm still confused about a couple of things.

Pat L wrote:

Using ATI, click on create bootable media, and follow the wizard. This will burn a blank CD into a bootable CD. Once done, reboot your computer and press F2 immediately and repeatedly until you enter the BIOS settings. Verify that the computer is set up to boot on a CD if present and bootable. Put the CD in, and reboot. You will see a special version of ATI run from the CD. Follow the instructions to restore a couple of files. Don't restore your entire disk or partitions. Just a couple of files from the backup.

How do I know I've restored a file if it already exists? Do I need to make a full back up with file A & B in the backup, delete them, then run the CD to restore them?

Pat L wrote:

To your second question, you will need to create a disk and partition backup from ATI running in Windows. Here are the steps:
- click on create disk and partition backup,
- in the upper right, click on swith to disk mode,

I can't see this option; I am using True Image 2010

'The 2010 has a different design than 2011 or 2012. This is how 2010 looks for a full disk backup to include everything.

You may find this pdf helpful as well.
http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2009/11/5940/2010-ti…