Backup & Recovery 10 - MAJOR FLAW - doesn't overwrite archives in disk rotation

I'm guessing that only the name is recreated, but the archive contents will be different to that of the old archive of the same name if the system has changed in between.

YOU MAY RUN BUT YOU CANNOT HIDE!!

Re: Backup & Recovery 10 - MAJOR FLAW - doesn't overwrite archives in disk rotation

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Despite deleting the files as you say with a precommand you still end up with backups with names like:

RecreatedArchive_6CDAA0CF-5433-4BA9-A67F-1398AC379C9C_2009_08_06_11_30_06_093D.TIB. This despite removing all TIB files prior to the backup.

The backup was created in "Backups and Tasks" to be called ServerDriveC.tib, plain and simple. The first time B&R creates it with that name. All subsequent backups even if the first is deleted have these bizarre "RecreatedAchive" names.

The naming scheme in B&R is absurd!

Please fire the idiot who came up with that naming convention.

If I ever have to recover this disk how the he** can I tell by looking at the file name what disk it is??

This needs to be fixed and soon.

To make matters even more insane:

I understand the concept of incorporating the date into the title, but now even the date is deceiving. For example attempting to restore my C: drive on my SBS server in Acronis TI Echo Server I would select Server Backup.tib. Now it is called ServerBackupC_2009_07_22_11_30_06_093D.TIB. It would appear to be the backup from 7/22/2009, but actually selecting that backup from my Acronis Boot Disk shows that it also contains the backup from the following week 7/29/2009 as the Server is completely backed up to this drive every week (it keeps multipe copies). So the names have no useful purpose at all.

I am beginning to think it is best to backup using the command line and forget the crazy naming convention with the GUI interface.

Would this work for creating a weekly backup of the file server?

trueimagecmd /create /harddisk:1 /filename:\\VistaQuad\Server\ServerBack.tib /net_user:Jerry /log_net_password:mypass

Hello all,

I would consult with our Expert Team regarding this issue and would comment it.

I would like to comment one thing right now - about 'backup from 7/22/2009, that contains backup from the following week'. Most probably that these backups are part of one backup chain, so you can see all the backups in the chain if you're restoring one of them. You can choose to restore backup from 7/22/2009 or the recent one.

I submitted the original post at Wilders Security.  I continue to be frustrated by this issue which is preventing me from recommending the product to any of my existing or new customers.  The inability to do a simple backup rotation without having to delete files or run manual cleanup scripts is a dealbreaker for me and all of my customers.  In some of my installations I have a server with an attached USB drive that is used as the destination for my servers running Acronis.  If I were to delete .tib files and then have a bunch of archives with names like recreatedarchive_6CDAA0CF-5433-4BA9-A67F-1398AC379C9C_2009_08_06_11_30_06_093D.TIB how would I ever know which backup was from which server?

I moved to Backup & Recovery 10 because of the "Sector 63" issues in Echo that would appear to be fixed one week but come back again.  The "Sector 63" issue forced me into version 10.  Now the shortcomings of 10 are forcing me into looking for another product!  I am a reseller and need a solution ASAP before I have no choice but to scrap all of my Acronis leads in my sales pipeline.

Hello Shane,

Thank you for using Acronis Corporate Products

I suggest you to use Retention rules (the description is available in User Guide for Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Advanced Server available here (chapter 2.7).

You can select the Delete backup older than 1 day option (for example) and choose to apply this rule before the backup creation. The previous backup file will be deleted, and you will be able to create a new single archive.

Thank you.

In testing the retention policies they create Manual Cleanup Tasks that were not running before the backup.   I tested both the Retention Period by age of backup and by size.  When running my test by setting the size to the lowest value (1MB) I ran the job five times and it created five archives with different names.  It wasn't until I ran the cleanup task manually that anything was deleted.  Even then all but the first backup was deleted.  I can only fit 1 backup on a disk so I cannot rely on the cleanup task as it didn't remove the first backup. 

As far as the number of days retention rule I did a full week of backups rotating disks Monday through Friday.  Of course every day that I put in a new disk it made a file with a name like "RecreatedArchive_A9BEADFF-757D-448A-83F9-432ABA74BCFF_2009_08_05_20_00_11_138D.TIB".  The retention rule was set for 5 days.  The next week it didn't delete the archives off of the disks before the backup ran.  It appears that it might only delete it after the subsequent archive is written (if at all).  This doesn't work because I cannot fit 2 full backups on the disk in the first place.  I had to make sure that I was remoted into my client's server and delete the previous "RecreatedArchive...tib" file before the disk ran out of space.  As with the other retention it setup a MANUAL  Cleanup Task that DOES NOT RUN before the job to cleanup the disk. 

The RecreatedArchive naming is also a problem because in situations where I have images from multiple machines on the same media I have no way of telling which image is for which machine by looking at the names. 

Hello Shane,

Thank you for using [[http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/ | Acronis Corporate Products]]

Please set the retention rules to be applied after the backup. Specify the following retention rules:

- Keep archive size within 1 MB;

- Retain the backup untill all dependent backups become subject to deletion.

Make sure that you specified Full backups only.

The first full backup file will be deleted.

About swapping the hard drives. Please note that you should create a separate backup plan to every hard drive, i.e. every backup plan should correspond to the approrpiate hard drive.

Thank you.

Only 1  backup will fit on a disk.  With the method you describe you are assuming that a full backup will be on the disk and you will retain that backup "until all dependent backups become subject to deletion".  This will not work.  As noted I have tested this "Keep archive size within 1MB" and just backed up one of my smaller partitions (10GB).  It continued to create multiple archives until I MANUALLY ran the Cleanup Task.  I cannot accumulate backups on the disk because it is not large enough to hold 2 full backups.

I am using a rotation of USB hard disks M-F.  Each time I put a disk in it uses the same drive letter (K:) in this case.  Obviously I cannot create a separate backup plan for each disk as drive K: is the letter of each disk.

Again,  this version is useless unless I can simply rotate disks (with the same drive letter) and have a full backup overwrite the existing archive.  This is the most basic type of backup and has never been a problem in any of your previous True Image/Echo products.

 I think part of your problem is that although all the USB drives have the same drive label, their disk ID's in Windows will be different and ABR10 uses the disk ID's in it's task scripts to decide the image incrementation number etc.

Do you have the drives set up as local or centralised vaults?

I have possibly come up with a solution:

1.  Make a new vault on each of the removable USB disks pointing to a folder for the day of the week (i.e.  Monday disk will have a Monday vault pointing to K:\Monday, etc.)

2.  When configuring the Backup Plan make sure the Advanced box is checked.  This allows you to specify when the Cleanup task will be applied.

3.  I created a separate custom job for each night of the week and configured each job to be a full backup and go to it's respective vault. 

4.  I set the retention policy for 5 days.

5.  I set for the retention policy to run "Before Backup"

This should work and no "RecreatedArchive......" files should be created as the Vaults are going to be present each day of the week when the backup destined for that vault will be connected to the server.  I will see if this works.

Hello all,

Thank you for using [[http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/ | Acronis Corporate Products]]

Only 1  backup will fit on a disk.  With the method you describe you are assuming that a full backup will be on the disk and you will retain that backup "until all dependent backups become subject to deletion".  This will not work

This works on my computer.

Edit:

We have released a new build of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 (# 11105), in this build the issue with the cleanup task  that was scheduled to run "before backup" and doesn't start is fixed.

Thank you.

Shane, please let us know if your solution works. I am sort of in the same boat as you, except I have four hot swappable hard drives that I rotate for this customer. They swap drives out every Friday morning and we set the job to run a full backup on Friday night, then differentials Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. They have just put the fourth drive in today so I will start to see if things will overwrite or not after next week. Like you, the backups are going right into the drive, which has been given the F: drive letter.

Not sure how I will designate different vaults for different backups since they leave the drive in a week at a time, but I'm sure there's a way to figure it out. Maybe do a week 1 vault on drive 1 or something?

Thanks,
Chris

Like many other SMBs, we too rotate 2 USB hard drives nightly to ensure we have one drive offsite at any one time in the event that the premises (and server) are inaccessible due to fire/flood etc so we can then restore to alternate hardware if necessary.  I am therefore very keen to understand the 'best' way to configure ABR10 for use with multiple removable hard drives to make sure I can retain a number of Full/Differential backups on each drive before having to make room for subsequent backups.

Cheers

Nigel

PS: When will build 11105 be available from the 'Registered Products and Support' section as build 10287 is still showing?

finsbury 1 wrote:

PS: When will build 11105 be available from the 'Registered Products and Support' section as build 10287 is still showing?

It's there for me and it has been since yesterday the 20th.  You can probably get a link from chat if yours still isn't listed.

Beware of 11105 over 10287 Backup before you do and report what happens.

See my post about BSOD. Very bad.

Shane Linde wrote:

I moved to Backup & Recovery 10 because of the "Sector 63" issues in Echo that would appear to be fixed one week but come back again.  The "Sector 63" issue forced me into version 10.  Now the shortcomings of 10 are forcing me into looking for another product!  I am a reseller and need a solution ASAP before I have no choice but to scrap all of my Acronis leads in my sales pipeline.

Shane, what was the "Sector 63" issue as I have got a few of them in ABR10 - I assumed it was a genuine bad sector issue on my hard disk.

Cheers

Nigel

I just started getting these sector 63 errors as well and have to manually go in and ignore to get the job to run. This is frustrating! B&R has been running for four weeks and all of a sudden this starts happening. I have found no disk errors, etc so I do not know if it is software or hardware at this point. This server is running RAID and the RAID manager is also showing all drives healthy and functioning...

This is the error I am seeing:

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Log Entry Details
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Type:          Error
Date and time: 8/24/2009 9:30:07 PM
Backup plan:   DBHBackup
Task:          Differential backup
Code:          66,036(0x101F4)
Module:        1
Owner:         Administrator@DBHDOMAIN
Message:      
  Failed to read data from the disk.
Failed to read from sector '63' of hard disk '2'.: ?Retry/?Ignore/Ignore ?All/?Cancel
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

 Yeah, I can totally feel the "pain". I moved to ABR10 from Echo and moved back to Echo. And I am not moving again until ABR10 proves itself to be stable. In ABR10, Acronis tries to be "big boy" to align more closely with the "tradition" of commonly accepted backup scheme at the expense of it's very core advantage - simplity, effectivity. The very first reason that I went to Echo, from well-known names like Backupexec, is the fact that I can do it just the way I want it. It is particularly true when you use the external USB docking method - which is becoming more and more main stream than magnetic media. And Echo does backup as well as restore simple and effective and fast. Now with ABR10 Acronis tries to tell us "We'll do it for you that way it should be done!" and take away the very best core features that made it worthwhile to begin with. Why don't people know they just need to be who they are. The Corporate world does NOT need another "more powerful" player. Anyhow, yes, I have had the sector 63 error for sometime. It's annoying and there is no solution that I can find! Now I heard it's continuing into ABR10! Well, anybody has any solution for this in Echo?

Would someone please answer my question?

will the command line: trueimagecmd /create /harddisk:1 /filename:\\VistaQuad\Server\ServerBack.tib /net_user:Jerry /log_net_password:mypass, Allow me to backup with the name ServerBack and no addition date or modification to that name?

Would someone please answer my question?

will the command line: trueimagecmd /create /harddisk:1 /filename:\\VistaQuad\Server\ServerBack.tib /net_user:Jerry /log_net_password:mypass, Allow me to backup with the name ServerBack and no addition date or modification to that name?

UPDATE - THIS STILL DOESN'T WORK!!!

So now a week has passed and my method of creating a vault on each disk, creating individual backups to go to their respective vaults, and having a retention rule Cleanup Task run "Before Backup" has not proven to work for my simple disk rotation.  Here are the results:

• After creating the individual vaults on each disk and assigning the respective nightly backup to the appropriate vault worked well to all for an archive to with a "normal" name i.e servername_2009_8_27.........tib to be created on each disk instead of RecreatedArchive.........tib when I didn't have a separate vault on each M-F disk.
• The cleanup task ran before the job and the log said it was successful.  HOWEVER, despite being set to delete archives older than 5 days (the disks are used once every 7 days) the archive from the previous week was NOT deleted.  I even manually ran the cleanup task, it said it completed successfully but the archive from the previous week did not delete.  It did not matter whether the retention rule was set to consolidate backups or to keep dependencies.  Neither of which were relavant as I only had FULL backups in my plan.
• On the Retention Rule screen it states something to the affect that "Retention rules are effective if there is more than one archive in the vault."  Despite the cleanup task set to delete archives older than "x" days, it does not delete the first backup in the archive.
• If I open the vault and delete the archive then it deltes the .meta folder and the subsequent backup is a RecreatedArchive........tib.

I AM AT WITS END WITH THIS VERSION.  IS THERE ANY WAY TO MAKE THIS WORK FOR A SIMPLE BACKUP ROTATION WITH ONE BACKUP PER DISK?

Can we get some 'official' guidance from Acronis on the best practice configuration for implementing multiple removeable USB hard drives as Vaults and how best to implement Backup Plans and Retention Policies?

Can we get some 'official' guidance from Acronis on the best practice configuration for implementing multiple removeable USB hard drives as Vaults and how best to implement Backup Plans and Retention Policies?

Hello all,

Thank you for using [[http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/ | Acronis Corporate Products]]

Shane,

Please obtain the below information and create an e-mail request or contact Live chat service available on this page, under Contact us click on the Start here button and follow the step-by-step guide.

1. Download the file;
2. Run the downloaded file on the remote computer.
The gathered information will be put in adv_report.zip in the same folder, where the AcronisInfo was saved.
Running AcronisInfo may take up to 5 minutes.

finsbury 1,

We do not have a special official guide. Please contact our Live chat service, our Live chat operators will help you to set the desired policy step-by-step.

Thank you.

   I thought it was just me! According to Acronis I am the only person in the world having these problems! I too went to ABR 10 to try and correct the Sector 63 problem and wound up in Shane's boat about not being able to over write a previous backup because you have no control over the archive file name.

   What a bonehead move on Acroni's part! ABR 10 is about as functional as a screen door on a submarine and their Tech Support is absolutely worthless!

   I am ready to switch to StorageCraft! I don't need this kind of pain and suffering!

Guys

I have recently been speaking to 2nd line support about an issue I was having with another Acronis product.

I also have recently upgraded to Backup & recovery 10 from True Image and was astounded with this new naming convention and in-ability to overwrite the existing backup file. I would, at this point, add that I think Backup & recovery 10 is a big improvement on True Image in most areas.

I talked about this naming convention and overwriting previous backups issue with the 2nd line support engineer and he has indicated that there had been a number of complaints about this. I think (as someone else has previously stated) Acronis were trying to be a little bit "clever" instead of leaving the thing we all like about the product in place i.e. simplicity and the ability to tell the software what YOU want it to do.

The engineer has said that the issue of the naming convention and overwriting the existing backup will be addresses in the next release (sometime in October). He obviously could not give me any definitive yes but he said he thinks it will be.

I havent had the setor 63 issue so cant comment on that and in regards the deleteing of existing backups my is working fine. I simply set it to delete existing backups after one day and set it to run after the existing backup completes.

I have set a retention rule to keep the archive files under 500GB, but the retention rule does not seem to delete any old archives.  Each full archive is <250GB.  I would have expected it to keep the latest full backup and a few incremental backups around and delete the old one.  Why does this not work this way?  How do you keep your backup location from filling up.  The whole reason I upgraded was for this functionality.  Please advise.

What a convoluted mess they have made with ABR. TE was OK, but of course had its problems. I'm almost ready to go back to Ghost.

Lester

Hello all,

Thank you for using [[http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/ | Acronis Corporate Products]]

We have released a new build of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.0 (build #11133).  Please download and install the latest build. You can learn more on how to download the latest build here.

Update the components and see if the issue remains.

Thank you.

The whole new backup 10 is a complete joke - as well as all the problems above, mine keeps "forgetting" credentials to connect to network shares. Tried contacting the PREMIUM support line (UK), but eventually hung up after 50minutes on hold. The whole thing stinks - I've made the switch for new customers to Shadowcraft (what a difference in the way they do things!!!), but unfortunately still have a few customers running with Acronis.
God help you all if you are in an emergency restore situation and contact the premium support for assistance!

I am also having issues with the recreated archives.
I am using BR 10 workstation as a stand alone backup solution for our customers. No server or complex setups.

Simply doing regular system images to an archive on a second hard drive set up completely as a Secure Zone. Using GFS method to keep 6 months worth of drive C:\ images.
Plenty of room for multiple backups in Secure Zone (150MB) so clearing in advance should not be an issue.

Periodically I have these Recreated Archives show up. My regular archive name has been changed to the unintelligible recreated-file-name and my backup plan now shows errors which state the expected backup archive is no longer available???

A post from the Moderator says to upgrade to build #11133 and see if the problem persists.

"We have released a new build of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10.0 (build #11133). Please download and install the latest build. You can learn more on how to download the latest build here.
Update the components and see if the issue remains.
Thank you."

I am reporting that the issue is still there. My automatic nightly backup failed last night and I have a recreated archive in it's place. The File in the archive shows 0 bytes.
My backup plan was broken as the archive specified no longer existed.

I tried recreating the archive with the original name and it would never complete.
When I changed the archive name the Backup plan was able to create the archive.

This is extremely troubling behavior! I cannot in good conscience recommend this product as a backup solution to our customers. What kind of disaster recovery product corrupts it’s own backup archives?

Apparently this issue has been known for some time now without any successful resolution or effective response from Acronis.
I can tell by the number of posts this is common issue.

Build 11133 does not appear to correct the situation.

I think we need an authoritative, reliable response from Acronis or you will lose even more customers than you already have.

I am using B&R10 (11133) and like the way they have changed some of their options. However, I too, absolutely think the naming convention sucks beyond belief. The deletion of the archive does not work for me either.
I rotate 2 USB drives every other week, changing to a new drive on Fridays. My Fulls run Friday night with Differentials during the week. I have tried the "cleanup", manual and sheduled, and it doesn't work. Maybe I don't understand how to configure it correctly, that part to me, is not very clear. What I was doing with Echo was running a .cmd file before the full:
DEL /Q F:\*.tib
end
Which cleared my drive successfullly. I guess I'm going to have to revert back to that if they can't get it fixed.
As far as reliability, I have to say that the Acronis recovery and speed has been impressive. I actually restored a DC last night, and although there are extra things that need to be done in Active Directory because it was a DC (you can't just restore it), the restore process was very fast and successful.

Acronis, please fix the naming convention and retention\cleanup feature. It doesn't work. If I'm not doing it correctly, tell me how.

jeff

It has been a while since I have posted. I was waiting for the "October" update that was going to allow you to overwrite a backup archive. From the release notes of 11133 this does not seem to be the case. I am getting by with my configuration by running a batch file (like Jeff mentioned) before every backup that deletes the .tib files off of my USB disks that I am using in my rotation. I have found that as long as the .meta folder is untouched I don't get "RecreatedArchive.......tib" files.

The disk rotation setup is so tedious especially if you have multiple servers, requiring multiple vaults for each server and each day, multiple backup jobs each going to their respective vaults, batch files to delete .tib(s) since it won't overwrite, etc...... Also in a multiple server disk rotation setup the best the retention tasks can do is leave two archives of each machine on the backup media thereby doubling your storage requirement. I am seriously looking at alternative solutions as I have put tons of unbillable hours into trying to get this version to work in a basic disk rotation.

I just thought of, but haven't tried yet, copying the meta folder to each USB drive I use.
Has anyone tried this? Acronis, is there harm in doing so? Will it help?
Hmmm...

I've been having the same issues. Tier 2 likewise promised that these would be addressed in the October release. They were not.

I have been told to delete the .tib files and the Meta folder from my rotated destination HDD archive to prevent the RecreatedArchive file problem. This has been mostly unsuccessful. Occasionally a backup will be named properly, but the majority of them get the RecreatedArchive naming. This is frustrating. Fortunately the two servers I am backing up have obviously different backup file sizes, so it is easy to tell them apart, otherwise it would be a bigger pain for me.

Our backup scheme uses 4 HDD's in Weekly rotation and a dozen HDD's in Monthly rotation. All are 1Tb HDD's. I love hot swap SATA.

A Full Backup is created on the current Weekly on Monday night, and an Incremental is created on the same drive each Tuesday through Friday nights.

On Tuesday I manually copy the Full backup from the previous night to the Monthly HDD.

It would be nice if I could select different archive destinations for the Full and Incremental backups in each backup scheme. I would prefer to write the Full directly to the Monthly HDD, then write each Incremental to the Weeky HDD. However, ABR does not allow this flexibility, so the additional step of copying the Full must be done manually.

My opinion is the same as others on the file naming being so limited. Couldn't ABR keep the date/time data in the file itself and display this info in a different column when viewing the arcive, rather than making it part of the file name itself?

Another issue I have seen mentioned is the requirement for credentials when accessing a remote Archive destination. From the server I am backing up I can open Windows Explorer and access the files on my destination HDD on a remote server. But, ABR cannot access this drive without me providing a username and password. This is ridiculous.

After upgrading to the latest version new Acronis users were created in Active Directory, but were not installed in Local Policy "Log on as Service" and my backup failed. Even though I had originally installed ABR using Administrator user name and password and the same for accessing the destination HDD. This is maddening!

Archive access worked again once I added the new Acronis Users (one new user from each server I upgraded) to the Local Policy for "Log on as Service."

I originally came to Acronis for the simplicity and ease of use that the True Image product provided. This, after years of head scratching trying to make CABrightStor and Backup Exec work for me. I hated those overly complicated, tape-base schemed, backup software. Image copying was a relief.

Now it seems that Acronis is moving towards making their KISS-based product (Keep It Simple, Stupid) more complicated for those enterprise users who I must presume have asked for such features.

I would prefer that Acronis make such features options rather than mandatory. Or, at least offer another simple, straight-forward product for those of us who really don't want to see more bells and whistles.

Currently I no longer can depend upon the ABR product to provide a reliable backup and if these issues cannot be resolved I will be forced to find another product to do the job.

I have had very good support from the Moscow folks, both Tier 1 and Tier 2. The India support folks have been sketchy for me. I do think that the Moscow Tier 1 and 2 people are not getting the support they need from their software engineers. No matter what the cause, this is disappointing and will lead to a loss of business for the ABR product if not resolved in a timely manner.

Hi
I have the same issue with 2 of my clients. I am also disappointed by the lack of interest from Acronis to date.
My issue may be less complex.
My clients have 2 USB Hard drives that get rotated each day.
Disk space is not a problem so there can be more than one backup on each drive.
Although the Drives are identical the backup Schedule fails because it does not see the Vault on the second drive. It sees the second drive vault as being a different vault.
Can anyone suggest how to set this up using 1 Scheduled backup plan?
In Summary I need
A full backup to occur each night overwriting the last backup on each drive.
Eg
Disk 1 Backs up Monday
Disk 2 Backs up Tuesday
Disk 1 Backs up Wednesday
Disk 2 Backs up Thursday Etc

Note: I need to achieve this with 1 schedule plan because on occasion the user will forget to change the drive over. When this happens the backup still needs to run and overwrite the last backup in this situation.

Your assistance is appreciated

In the same boat you guys are in.

Mine's a little bit more complicated though.

Customer has a 2 bay esata system.

On Thursday's a full backup is done on the first drive. On Sunday, the files from the full backup are copied over to the second drive to keep a full backup connected in case we need to restore files, etc.

Mon-Thur, we do a differential backup, so I have a script that copies the full tib files from the second drive over to the 1st "Daily" drive.

Echo 9 worked flawlessly in this situation, v10 totally screwed everything up.

I wish they would hurry up and address this issue. Not only does it make acronis look bad, it makes the people who sell acronis backup solutions look like fools.

Indeed - I have many clients running prior versions of Acronis with the same scenario. Most are using 5 USB drives that are swapped daily. For simplicity sake, I usually set them up with a single full backup job that backs up to a simple 'Server_Daily_Full.tib' file. Others swap their USB drives weekly and for those I set up 5 jobs that back up to 'Monday.tib' thru 'Friday.tib' respectively.

I just want the ability to continue using this type of strategy. A backup job to a single tib file that overwrites each time.

Come on Acronis - I started recommending your product to client's over the last few years because of the simplicity after spending years fighting with products like Retrospect and Backup Exec.

SO has anyone managed to get anywhere with this issue yet?

Hi Shane, I am in the exact same boat and have been forever. The fix is simple! Do a pre-job command of "Del USBHD\*.* /s/q". It will delete all the files on the USB drive before making a backup. Uh ... wait .... Pre/Post commands don't work in ABR10 either! What a joyous product!

I stated out with the exact same sector 63 error as you. Rode Acronis about it forever but according to them I was the only one having this problem. I was promised the sun, moon and stars but got nowhere. As always talking to Acronis Techs is like talking to a brick wall. I, like you, decided to quit fighting their ignorance and went to ABR 10. OMG! Bad move! for the exact same reasons you mention. Then about 3 or 4 weeks ago the FINALLY released a fix for the sector 63 problem. Even though I was the only one having the problem! Too late! I tried uninstalling this piece of junk ABR 10 and putting Echo Server back on. Blue Screen of Death! ABR 10 doesn't uninstall itself cleanly!

So here we go. I'm stuck with it. So I figure at least half the battle would be to delete all the files on the USB hard drive before backing up with a pre command of del usbhd:\*.* /f/q. It worked from the command prompt but not as a pre-backup command. Chatted with tech support about it. I got the usual "download these files, run these reports, send them to us, etc, etc". I finally jumped the tech and suggested he try it himself. Simple 30 second test rather then me, as always, having to dump hours in fixing Acronis's problem. Lo and behold the tech couldn't get it to work either.

They have pulled some of the DUMBEST moves imaginable with ABR 10 and the biggest bone head move of all was not giving you explicit control over the backup archive name. By always appending [date][time] to it. Then you get in to the recreated bull and man ....

This is their history. One step forward and 20 back. They do a hail mary on a new product and want the end users to debug it for them. Their tech support is unknowledgeable and you would be better off talking to a brick wall and .... yes you are the only one having the problem!

A further note. The latest build did nothing to address the naming issue. I think it is abother case of "Promise them everything and give them nothing".

As far as the sector 63 issue.. back on 9/10/2009 Acronis sent me two files. Trueimage.exe and TrueImageService.exe along with installation instructions. This was their sector 63 fix. It did the trick as far as I could tell but I pretty soon after that went to ABR 10. Promises were free flowing in that they said they would incorporate the sector 63 fix in to the next build.

The build of Echo Server hasn't changed last I looked and the latest ABR 10 does not address the naming issue. Nothing but promises. I have not seen the sector 63 error rear its ugly head in ABR 10 but that doesn't mean it won't.

Shane I am a reseller too. I agree with you 100%. I haven't even quoted, let alone installed, ABR 10 to anyone and I will not. My customers want working, easy to use, functional products and ABR 10 it clearly not one of them. I too am evaluating alternatives. I hope Acronis wakes up before they go out of business ...

A further note. The latest build did nothing to address the naming issue. I think it is another case of "Promise them everything and give them nothing".

As far as the sector 63 issue.. back on 9/10/2009 Acronis sent me two files. Trueimage.exe and TrueImageService.exe along with installation instructions. This was their sector 63 fix. It did the trick as far as I could tell but I pretty soon after that went to ABR 10. Promises were free flowing in that they said they would incorporate the sector 63 fix in to the next build.

The build of Echo Server hasn't changed last I looked and the latest ABR 10 does not address the naming issue. Nothing but promises. I have not seen the sector 63 error rear its ugly head in ABR 10 but that doesn't mean it won't.

Shane I am a reseller too. I agree with you 100%. I haven't even quoted, let alone installed, ABR 10 to anyone and I will not. My customers want working, easy to use, functional products and ABR 10 it clearly not one of them. I too am evaluating alternatives. I hope Acronis wakes up before they go out of business ...

These people are unbelieveable! Chat took over an hour... 

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According to tech support, a new build was supposed to come out 10/31/09

Well that's came and went.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/4429

/sigh I give up

I am having the same issues. I was issued a case number three weeks ago, after two weeks I sent another email asking for a status on the case and still have not gotten a reply. I would like to know, from the Acronis Support Team (since I have Premier Support), an E.T.A. on the update that will fix these issues please.

You can selectively delete archives that are older than X amount of days using the FORFILES(windows) command. This is handy if you to want to keep additional archives up to a few days old.

Create a batch file similar to the example below, substituting "f:\daily backup" for whatever your backup destination path is, and changing the number to however long you'd like to retain the archive files for. Then add the batch file into Acronis' pre/post commands (Execute before the backup). If that doesn't work, then simply run the batch as a scheduled task 15-30min before the Acronis backup is scheduled to run.

sample batch file:
rem THIS WILL DELETE *.TIB ARCHIVE FILES OLDER THAN 3 DAYS
Forfiles -p "f:\daily backup" -m *.tib -d -3 -c "CMD /C del @file"

This is only another workaround. I hope it proves useful for some of you guys.

Welcome to Acronis's world. I have received case numbers until I am blue in the face. Acording to Acronis the Sector 63 article was put to bed in 2005 and doesn't exist any more. They bill you out the rear not only for support but for their software and ...

Cases go unanswered, promised builds never happen, first the acknowledge a problem then they say it doesn't exit, depending on which day of the week it is or current weather conditions you get completely different stories from support.

I have quit selling it. You are forced in to paying you a year of support on server products. You don't have a choice. Not only is ABR 10 broke big time but your 1 year of support is going to expire before they even start to address the issues. Why bother? I don't any more....

You want to know where this issue stands? Here is another couple of hours wasted in chat: 

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Agreed. It's pretty bad. I absolutely loved version 9, and version 10 hits, it reminds me of what Symantec does to companies when they buy their software and repackages it as their own, they turn it to junk.

Did Acronis get bought out by Symantec???