Salta al contenuto principale

True Image 2021 losing contact with USB backups.

Thread needs solution

My True Image 2021 just got silly since doing the most recent daily full backups to an external USB. This worked OK yesterday but the D: backup failed today saying a variety of things such as The backup cannot be started. Plug in the drive etc

and

The latest backup has been stopped. It will be restarted at (now)

The backup cannot be started. Plug in the external containing the files of this backup.

The C: drive backup isn't scheduled to run until 8:14 PM tonight but it appears it will also fail since Acronis can't open the location from the program drop menu for the backup.

Meanwhile, the drive is accessible in Windows 10 Pro Explorer, has no errors, still has correct drive letter and works like a champ. I can copy a 2.35 GB folder onto it in 35 seconds.

Acronis is also perfectly able to compete a brand new added D: backup to the drive. I imagine it will successfully run that again tomorrow, on schedule. I guess it isn't a big deal since I'm only keeping five days of D: backups and 10 days of C: plus an older original for both but it's frustrating because I can't figure out the problem to even have a chance of fixing it.

My other sets of full, daily backups from C: and D: to internal HDD E: are doing fine.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
DW

0 Users found this helpful

DW, first question: are you using more than one backup storage drive for the problem backup task?

KB 62741: Acronis True Image: rotating backup destination disks requires separate backup plans per destination disk

If you are only using the one / same backup storage drive and seeing this problem, then you could have a failing USB cable to the drive, a problem USB port, or if the USB drive is connected using a hub or dock, then there could be issues with that device.

In terms of USB ports, then it is recommended to try to always use one that is connected directly to the computer motherboard rather than with is connected (internally) by other cables, i.e. front or top panel ports on desktop PC's versus those on the rear connected directly on the motherboard (along with other ports for VGA, Ethernet etc).

Power options such as USB selective suspend being enabled can also cause issues if Acronis is spending a longer time in processing data before writing it out to the drive.  For incremental or differential backup schemes there is more background processing to identify changed data since the initial Full backup or the most recent incremental.

DW, please download the MVP Assistant (if you've not already done so). Go to the Acronis Configuration page. Select the backup task which is causing the error and look at the Script File. Under <volumes_locations> check the partition_id. Is this the same as what you now see for your new working backup job to the same location.Compare that with the partition ID shown in the System Configuration page for the drive in question.

I am wondering if a change in drive ID occurred with, say, a major Windows update that could have messed up the database linkage of the existing backup job.

 

Steve and Bruno,

Thanks for the tips. I did figure it out and I'll give the details on what it wasn't and what it was.

I run two daily backup tasks that go with the external Seagate USB drive. One for C: (Samsung 850 Pro SSD) and one for D:  (Seagate FireCuda).

 I have two more backup tasks that run daily for C: and D: and backup to an internal E: (Seagate Barracuda). All backups are Full. I don't like differential or incremental. This has been my basic routine since TI 11.

The cable wasn't a problem. I checked with a cable from one of my other computers. The cable is a regular USB 3 and plugs directly into a motherboard USB 3.2 port. Checking on another port didn't matter. Power options weren't an issue. The USB drive scored perfectly healthy with all the testing utilities I have, even though it's been in service for  nearly 10 years.

The scheduled C: backup did indeed fail as predicted but a new, test backup completed successfully, same as the test D: backup.

Now, here's what happened and what I believe must be the cause. My external USB backup drive is always assigned letter L:.

The next morning when I checked on the suspected C: backup failure, I looked a little closer and noticed my L: was actually an I: in Explorer and diskmgmt. I suppose I may need to upgrade my 24" monitors to 40" or so since I don't see all that well anymore. Then I noticed in Explorer a 3 port hub with card reader had taken over letter L: and bumped my USB drive to I: I moved this hub /card reader back to my main computer last month to start reading a couple of new security camera cards.

I believe this is what happened. I use a dongle plugged into a case front USB port for quick and easy connection of flash drives and since last month, this 3 port hub/card reader.

I have another USB 3 hub plugged directly to the motherboard that accommodates a couple of  perma-doodads. It sits on top of my tower. The day before the failure, I plugged this card reader into the directly connected hub on top. Somehow, that must have switched the drive letters since it was talking to a main motherboard port.

I repaired the damage in diskmgmt, plugged the card reader back into the dongle and everything is working fine ever since. The USB drive is stable and happy at L:  and the card reader or flash drive is staying on I: My regular backups are once again running successfully and on schedule. I deleted the test backups.

Thanks,
DW

Glad to hear it was an easy fix and you're back running.

Here's an article describing how to make sure you get the same drive letter assigned to a USB drive:
https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/windows-auto-assign-same-drive-letter-usb-external-drive/

Might be worth changing the drive letter to something like S which won't be easily confused with another letter.

At least I know what not to do now. Funny thing is that card reader has never bumped my USB drive before but then again, it's never been connected in that same manner before. I suppose it would be a good thing to assign a letter like S that's easier to notice.

Plus, all my letters before getting to I: are permanently taken. That doesn't leave much slop space before getting to L: where it's always been on every main computer I've used for a very long time.