ATIH 2012 fails to recognize removable backup drive letter changes
With ATIH 2012, TrueImage is finally becoming aware of removable backup drives.
Now, the removable backup drive recognition could be made even better by being aware that a removable drive can end up with a different drive letter depending on the order in which other drive devices are connected to the computer.
I tested this with ATIH 2012 and it failed. My original removable backup drive letter is F. I disconnected it and connected 2 other USB thumbdrives before it, in such a way that the original backup drive letter became H. ATIH 2012 didn't recognize the original F backup drive that became H. It tried to backup to the thumbdrive that became F and it failed with an error message.
2 other backup software solutions that I have tested, one from Genie9 and one from Altaro, do a superb job of always recognizing the removable backup drive, despite the possible drive letter changes (here from letter F to H). They both have a "Backup Drive Connected" indicator that came on, showing they recognized it, and were able to resume backup on the drive. Those 2 other solutions looked for the backup folder or backup drive name, not necessarily the backup drive letter that can change. ATIH 2012 failed here.
Johnny,
One of procedures I use is to assign either x or y or z drive letter to my external drives. Then point the backup task to a specific drive letter and folder. Then, the insertion of a other removables does not interfere with my backups as the specific drive letters always remains the same.
If you use the same external across several computers, you may have re-establish the correct drive letter in each of the computes but once a specific computer knows the correct drive letter, the drive letter will remain the same.
GroverH,
That's an excellent idea. Assign a drive letter so far in the alphabet that it's not likely to get affected by the connection/removal of other USB devices.
I have to say thanks to this company for allowing their clients to convince me not to buy or even try their free trial version. I was about to install the trial version of 2012 but decided to take the time to do a Google search about the company because I have never heard of it and I am very happy I did that search and found this forum. So this will be my 1st and last posting here. Good bye to what sounds like a company quickly drowning in cyber space. Quick, some one throw them an oxygen tank with out the mask.
Burnt Moon,
Hard to base your opinion on a user forum. People that are happy with the product don't post here. Only people with problems. Disk imaging software is tricky because you need low level drivers and that result in many hardware support issues. In addition, in general, consumer software quality is hard to get right, because the business model is hard to make work. Regardless of your direction to evaluate disk imaging software. you will need to try them on your system. If you do, remember you might not be able to completely uninstall them, so be prepared with at least one image you can go back to! Good luck!
As other posters have noted, Acronis doesn't recognize a drive letter change of my external hard drive from D:/ to E:/. I'm unable to edit the existing backup to point to the new drive letter - it fails because it continues to look for the D:/ drive. it would be nice to be able to perform this edit. So I figure I'd just delete the old backup and create a new one pointing to E:/. But Acronis continues to look for the old drive letter even when attempting to delete! My question is how can I delete the existing backup from Acronis?
Sorry - It looks like I found my answer. There's a "Remove from list" option. That did the trick.
It still would be nice to be able to edit the drive letter in the backup though!
I have the same problem. It would be nice to be able to edit the drive letter in the backup settings. I am sure I used to do that in 2009.
In the mean time I just plug in a thumb drive and then my external hard disk so that I get the correct drive.
I can't seem to find where you can set the drive letter for an external drive.
Drive letter assignments can be performed in Windows Disk Management. But, you should also assign a recognizable name, as if you ever use the bootable Recovery Media (such as to recover), disk letters will change. You want to be able to acccurately identify your drive by name.