Acronis9 not seeing disk
I was forced to reformat my FreeAgent external backup drive when its partition got scrambled due to an unrelated problem. It went uneventfully, and I can now read/write to it. I had formatted the drive in accordance with Seagate's instructions, which were exactly the same as the Acronis KB, and it does have only one partition, with no MBR. I do not know if it was like this prior to the crash or not--it may well have been.
However, Acronis 9 now does not see it, throwing the "E000101F4: Acronis True Image has not found any hard disk drives" error. It DOES see the disk in the Folders/Files function, but not in Disk/Partition backup mode.
Now that may be OK, dunno, since historically that's the mode I've always used, but I'd like to try at least one image, in hopes that this would be significantly faster than the Folders/Files backups (typically around 6-7 hours+). Um, assuming this older version even does that :)
The instructions in the Acronis KB relating to this problem state that I should (again) clean the drive, which I did, then initialize it, which I also did. It did not create an MBR, I still have just the single large partition, and Acronis 9 still doesn't see it, at least in Disk/Partition mode.
What am I doing wrong here?
TIA
elaine
charlottesville, va
Windows XP Pro SP3
Good thought, actually. I had just hoped it would be OK since the main HD hadn't been touched. That said, when I tested my script after getting the backup drive working again, it said my script was corrupted. I tried creating a new one (understandind it's been a LONG time since I last had to fuss with this :) and I didn't see the .tis file at all. Tells me something ain't right :) I'll reinstall and give it another shot.
Thanks for the pointer!
elaine
Elaine,
Is the FreeAgent external disk the 500GB size (465 actual) you wrote about in earlier postings?
What version of Windows
and does this external disk show as a basic disk when you open Windows Disk management Graphical view. The "basic" term will be to the left under the disk number id and size. your disk may have an mbr which is the normal way for a disk of this size.
Can you point me to the KB article you are using as a reference?
It is indeed, GroverH. This is on an XP Pro SP3 machine. And yes, it shows up in Disk Management, and the "Basic" param indicates 465.76 GB NTFS/Healthy. There is only one partition showing on it. I don't know if that's "normal" or not :) The KB is here:
http://kb.acronis.com/content/1515
and it's the second instructions option, it was seeing it if I chose Files/Folders, but not if I chose Disk/Partition. That said, tho, since I reinstalled TI, I do see it just fine now.
I'm going to try to run a backup now, a full image one initially, and see how it goes. If that fails, I'll go back to the Files/Folders one, but either way, I'll report back here.
Thanks!
elaine
Elaine,
Your external 500gb disk is a conventional basic mbr disk. The files and folder instruction you are reading are applicable to much larger disks and not really applicable to a disk which has been partitioned and formatted in the conventional manner. Your disk has been properly formatted.
You can install version 9 overtop your existing version 9. If you need the install file, you can download from your registration link.
Boot from your TI Bootable media rescue CD and see if you see your 500gb disk there. Don't forget to assign a name to you external disk and if you do not have a name assigned to your drive C, you should name that as well--such as
XP-Pro_C
If you used the external drive as the target for prior backups you should be able to again--without any drive issues.
(Whew!) I just completed a disk/partition backup, GroverH, with pretty much the default options. Interestingly, it created an image file that is about 126GB, vs the folder/files backups which ran about 65GB. In fairness, I'd moved a TON of older files that had been on the backup drive before (and thus not part of those .tib files), but even still, that seems like a lot more, about double. Does that sound plausible? Now that I have an image file, tho, I'll move those files back to the backup drive, which of course will shrink the c drive considerably, and thus the .tib file. I hope :) Oh, and this backup took SIGNIFICANTLY less time than the folder/files one, about 90 minutes or so, and I didn't even have that one set to high priority! I changed that in the defaults to be high priority so that will help too.
This leads to another question, tho. I had initially set all of this up back in '06, and it's been working silently and uneventfully since then, but now I've kindof forgotten how I set it up to run it that way! Here's one of the [7] bat files that I scheduled to run via the normal system scheduler. I know I could schedule it in TI, but I didn't want to have to keep deleting old backups so there would be room. This process lets me do that automatically each time it runs. Since each one runs weekly, a complete cycle will have only 7 tib files at a time:
f:
cd /d f:\backups
del mybackup_Sunday.tib
c:
cd \ cd "Program Files\Common Files\Acronis\TrueImage"
trueimageservice /script:weeklybackup.tis
f:
cd /d f:\backups
rem /U converts spaces to underscores
rem /y automatically responds YES to confirmations
rem /Z:"A" date format, where A is alpha day of the week
rem namedate is a utility I found that concatenates the alpha day of the week to the default tib file name
if exist mybackup.tib namedate /U /y /Z:"A" mybackup.tib
exit
When I ran the backup that just finished, I searched for the most recently created .tis file and found it in this folder: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\TrueImage\Scripts and all I did was copy it to the PF\CF\A\TI folder mentioned above, and renamed it to weeklybackup.tis for simplicity. I didn't remember it being there, but that's OK. So the idea was that when it ran (oddly from the Common Files folder rather than Program Files as I would have thought) it would use the listed script file, do its thing, and exit when done. I'm pretty sure that is correct--any thoughts?
elaine
Your paths are correct. As you used the change dir command, the full paths not needed. this link below shows some of the same info.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/9401#comment-24231
If your system works, use it. If you want to do some experimentation, I believe it could also be achieved by using the free program Chain2Gen (C2G) by non-active MVP OracleDBA. It too would be automatic and could be also be run by the Windows Scheduler. There is no provision for renaming, however.
What C2G does is to make sure the full is created when you want it created and executes your rules for chain retention. One chain per storage folder and the oldest folder deleted to make room for the newest folder--much likes the steps of an escalator.
I have not used version 9 in a long time so its exact features is a little hazy to me.
Link below inside signature to C2G.
Regarding size of the backup file, a normal size would be about 65-70% of your used disk space which was included in the backup. If it is larger than you might expect, then recheck the options checked what is to be included inside the backup. Video and picture files are already somewhat compressed so they are included in your backup at about the same as original size.
You might also check if version 9 includes an option to skip certain files or folders if they do not need to be included in the backup. If you are using Windows system restore, you could stop and restart the options so this feature would start fresh. If you do this, you would no longer have access to prior Windows system restore checkpoints. I personally have mine turned off as my backups are an offset to their need.
The last files/folder backup prior to the crash and reinstall of Windows was about 62 GB and took 5 hours and 50 minutes start to finish according to the log. After I got my system working again, and recreating the backup file's partition, I had moved a LOT of those older zip files from the backup drive (not in an archive) back to the C drive, since I wanted to capture those files just this one time, then did a disk/partition backup . The resulting file was about 126GB, and took 1 hour and 51 minutes. I moved those files back to the backup drive, and changed the priority to High (since these backups are run overnight) and the resulting file, still a disk/partition backup, is now 61GB, and took only 54 minutes :) The C drive currently has about 80GB of used space.
Unless I'm mistaken or missing something, it looks like I'm back in business, and also saved myself over 5 hours of processing time. Why would a disk/partition take so much less time than a files/folder backup? Just curious.
I'm fine using my method, btw, if only because this does let me easily "rotate" the backups without worrying about keeping so many I eventually run out of space, but thanks for the pointer to C2G, I'll check it out, tho.
elaine
If the used disk space is 80GB, a backup file of 50-60GB would be the anticipated size so 61 should be ok.
As for the time difference, I am no expert on the subject but I would expect that since TI restore disk sectors in a disk restore, it would have fewer disk reads and verification than searching for each file and then restoring each file separately. Most likely, less overhead.
It is always good to have some redundancy in backups. If you have an extra external hard drive, having duplicate copies of your important files is always a good idea. If you have some reading time, click on the first line of my signature below and locate index item #12. This shows how others backup their data. Also index item #3A and 3B may be helpful to you in the future--should you have a need.
Good luck.
That makes sense, GroverH, just one file, as it were vs thousands. Sortof :) And yes, I agree on the redundancy, which is why I've been running these backups daily, at least as long as the diskspace holds out, hence killing the previous week's same-day backup. Lately I've skipped like Tuesday and Thursday, mainly because this machine doesn't get as much usage as my work one does. My hubby uses it, but as he's something of a Luddite, he's just doing email and browsing.
I will check out the links, and thanks again!
elaine
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/25522
The redundancy I was thinking about also includes having your backups stored so that the loss of one storage disk does not cause you to lose all your backups-- as in this sad link above.
This redundancy is the theme of index item #12.
Good luck with your backups.
Please: When I Boot from cd and i want to backup the program say "No disk found". Run only if a put my WD USB External Disk. Version:
Acronis True Image Workstation® with Acronis Universal Restore® version 9.1 (build 3.887)
System: XP Uptodate.
I can't comment on Fernando's dilemma, but I wish to thank Pat for the uninstall tip. After years of working perfectly, my TI9.0 failed to recognize hard disks following a virus attack. I read Pat's tip above and tried a repair with the installation disk. Didn't work. Uninstall and reinstallation worked. Now my disk is cloned and data safe again -- thanks mucho.