How to safely delete a backup when there are multiple disk backups [Solved]
I have ATI 2013 on Windows 7. For a long time, I had two backups of my computer hard drive disk: an initial backup to external drive (1T Seagate "J") and a separate backup plan (also to J) which was then my ongoing one, which was full + incrementals, deleting earlier backups as the disk got full, but I always had my separate initial backup plan, just to make sure it wasn't accidentally erased.
I bought a new larger external drive so I could save more at a time, and planned to use the other drive for file backups.
I created a new backup plan for my computer hard drive on external drive "M" (2T WD Elements). I did the first backup and all was sweet. (So then I had 3 backup plans: Initial on J, Ongoing on J and M)
However now if I start ATI with the drives attached, it takes forever to open. When I do either backup it usually waits a long time then responds with the disk error that it can't read "Disk 2" and snapshot etc... the one where you are usually advised to run chkdsk.
The error is for one of the external drives, not the hard drive because the hard drive is disk 0 and the external drives are disk 1 and 2 in disk manager. Although each drive is hard-assigned a drive letter from disk management and the backup plans relate to each, it's as if with both attached ATI is confused as to which disk is which and must be trying to read the wrong one.
I can have them attached one at a time and still get the problem - eg start ATI with just drive M attached and it doesn't like what it sees.
My aim was to continue doing backups to the old plan for a few days whilst I get the new plan and drive up & running with confidence, then to delete that old backup plan & just use that drive for file backups.
It seems if I open ATI with nothing attached and then attach the drive it works OK, but having either or both drives attached on opening causes problems. (note I don't keep my drives attached, but I was in the habit of attaching prior to starting backups, so when ATI opened they were "ready")
What is the best way to go about deleting the old backup plan? I would like to save the backup files on there for the time being, so is it possible to delete the backup plans (initial and "J") without the J drive attached, as I think it is, from memory?
I am not sure whether I should have the M drive attached when I do this - since "J" might be drive 1 and "M" might be drive 2 - I just want to be sure after the J backup plans are deleted and "M" is attached that as it will now be drive 1, that ATI will recognise it and not go looking for an expected drive 2. And I don't know whether the best way to avoid this is to have it attached when I delete the old J backup, or to remove it, delete the J backup and then reattach - I'm thinking probably the latter would be safest but would like some guidance on this so I don't end up with a drive that can't be recognised.
I don't want to have to delete the "M" backup and start again if there are problems after I have deleted the J backup as that would leave me without any backups.
Your wise counsel appreciated!
In risposta a ozeannie, please see the… di truwrikodrorow…
Thanks for your response Steve.
On my ATI2013 version, there is a gear cog at the top menu and one on each backup. I assume I use the one on the specific backup. On that cog there is an option "Delete" and an option "More" . the "More" option has a sub-option "remove from list" . So is it best to have the backup plugged in, and to use "remove from list" - rather than to just delete the plan with the backup not plugged in?
Yes my drive letters are always the same - that's what I meant when I said they were "hard-assigned" from disk manager. I chose to assign them a letter.
Thanks for explaining the difference between drive numbers for Acronis and Windows. That explains why I couldn't figure out why there was a problem finding a particular disk.
So if I delete (remove) the old J backup plan, should the remaining one work OK - ie will Acronis automatically adjust to drive M now being drive 1 rather than drive 2 (ie does it look for it based on it's assigned drive letter rather than which drive number it was previously allocated?)
ozeannie, if you are going to use the 'remove from list' option, then there is no need to have the backup drive plugged in as this just affects the main GUI and the Acronis metadata database that stores information for the backup plan.
Personally, I rarely ever use the option to Delete everything from within the Acronis GUI - I find it easier to just remove items from the list in the GUI then manage my actual backup images via Windows Explorer.
I am not sure that I fully understand what you mean when asking "will Acronis automatically adjust to drive M now being drive 1 rather than drive 2" - there should be no issue with the number of drives connected provided that the drive letter(s) is/are the same as shown for the backup plan configuration for the target drive. Acronis remembers drives by their assigned drive letter and also the unique disk signature (UUID) of the drive - this is stored in the metadata database.
In risposta a ozeannie, if you are going… di truwrikodrorow…
Well I'm still having troubles. About disk 1/2 I meant that if in Windows these were disk 1/2 and previously Acronis saw these as disk 2/3 then if I removed disk J so that disk M became disk 1 in windows and disk 2 in Acronis, would that cause any issue with Acronis? I couldn't see how, because it ought to adjust to whatever is plugged in, and as you said it reads it by the drive letter, not the drive number. But it seemed to me that I was only getting the new drive to successfully backup if I had the other one in and backed it up first.
I was hoping that by removing the J backup plan that it would simplify things, but I was also concerned that it might also remove my ability to back up at all if it could only back up to M after a backup to J. Now I know this all sounds rubbish, because Acronis just shouldn't work that way, but that's what appeared to be happening. But looking back, that was probably just co-incidental.
I can start Acronis without any issue with M drive not attached. I attach M drive and M drive pops up on my screen, it is there to open and view files which I can do OK. There are no issues with the M drive in windows explorer. I will add at this point that it came pre-loaded with a setup file for it's own backup software (which I didn't touch), an Autorun file and an autorun folder, which sole purpose is to put the WD logo on the screen, and a readme pdf file. I have since deleted these since I don't need them, to see if that helped.
The reason for this is that with Acronis open, as soon as I plug in the M drive I get the "non-responding" rotating circle for several minutes instead of just nothing happening, even before I click to check settings, or do a backup. Then it clears, and if I then select to backup it ponders for quite a while "preparing" then I get the error message about not being able to read a sector on drive 2, and about the snapshot manager.
I attempted to run a chkdsk on drive M (from within windows) as I thought unlike the hard drive which needs to be done on reboot, that it was possible. However it didn't seem to be working so I cancelled that. I didn't run one from a cmd prompt as I knew that could take a while & I thought I would try deleting the unneeded files from the drive first, in case they were causing the issue. I must admit I did have an issue very early on with the drive when I chose to "safely remove hardware" and although I got the message it was ready to detach, the icon for the drive did not disappear from windows explorer, but changed from the WD icon to a windows generic icon. This caused problems when I attempted to shutdown, as the drive was obviously not properly disconnected. Since then the drive has otherwise operated fine in windows, just not with Acronis.
I also tried creating a new M backup plan (without deleting the old one) to start afresh, and I got the error message again and then tried retry and got the same message. I then clicked ignore and nothing happened. I then clicked cancel and it started backing up! I realise now that some of the other backups I got to run on drive M were after getting this message and cancelling it. The backup completes OK and I run a validation on it which is OK. I have attempted recovery of a file and it works. However I shouldn't always get this error message and it worries me whether if I ever need to do a whole partition recovery whether it will work properly. It is also annoying I have to wait such a long time after the drive is connected for Acronis to come back from being non-responsive.
Since the Acronis program has frozen at times, I have had to "End process" on it and at times I have also had to hard shutdown because in trying to shut the computer down it is frozen because of the issue between Acronis and the M drive not responding.
I don't know whether a reinstall of the software would be helpful, but I'm not keen to do this unless this was seen as the cause and the only solution.
My other thought is to try and do a format on the drive, even though it means I will lose the backups I have done.
Does it matter if you change which USB port you use? I would have thought not, and I had separate ones for each drive, however after the initial backup which worked fine, I did once plug the M drive into what had been the J drive port by accident, but have used the other one since.
What are your thoughts?
Edit: I have just run a validation from within the Acronis recovery console and it said successfully completed. I presume that means that the backup is valid and not just the validation completed successfully? If the backup was not valid there would have been some message at the end of the validation to that effect?
Edit 2: I just had a thought and checked the setting to see if it was disk or partition and if so, whether either J and/or M had been selected as part of the backup source - if so that would explain not being able to find a drive if it was expected to be there as part of the backup source and wasn't. However only the system reserve and C drive were selected. I then next decided to plug my M drive in - this time, amazingly it didn't cause a freeze and I was able to click to backup immediately. However I then got the message about the backup source not being located and retrying in 30 seconds. I let this run (it went on a lot longer than 30 seconds) and it must have then found it because it eventually then started backing up.
This is very confounding, because if I keep retrying by either cancelling the error message about the missing sector or retry the backup it eventually works, but something is obviously not right or it would start from scratch every time like it did with my other drive (a Seagate). Drive is WD Elements 2T - wonder if there is some sort of compatability issue.
Edit 3:
Well something very interesting. With my M drive still connected, having just finished the backup which at first failed, then succeeded, I decided to create a new backup plan to backup from my C drive to a network drive. I ran the backup and it came up with the same error about not being able to read a sector on drive 2. Now in disk manager, C Drive is drive 0, M drive is drive 1, there is no drive 2. The DVD drive is shown but not allocated a number. The DVD drive is not selected as part of the backup source. According to what you said before, M drive being drive 1 in windows would be drive 2 in Acronis. If I am only trying to backup the C drive to my network drive ("H") , why would it even be looking at a sector on drive M (drive 2)? After getting this error in trying to backup to the network drive, I clicked ignore and it started backing up.I have attached a screenshot to show the M backup plan I first started a couple of days ago
, then the new one I started today, both for drive M, and the one I just set up for the network drive. I would like to test whether I get this error in trying to back up to the network drive without drive M connected, but it is currently doing a full backup to the network drive which could take a couple of hours. I have attached a screen shot.
Yet another edit! please be patient with me, I am trying to supply as much information as I can and I may have found the culprit - but I am going on what little I know about disks:
I took another look in disk management, and I found that for disk M, there is a both a primary partition, and a partition with 33MB unallocated. Would I be right in thinking perhaps that is the part of the disk Acronis is having trouble reading? I got the same result with the network drive, but it is also Western Digital so probably has the same unallocated space. Clicking on the properties option, and then on the volume tab, it informs me that it is a GUID partition table.... so my question is:
Is this 2nd partition on the disk the possible source of the problem, and if so what do I do about it? There is an option to create a simple volume - do I do that or do I need the GUID? Would I only need that if I wished to further partition the drive? I'm guessing if I was to reformat the disk it would be removed and I would have one volume on the disk, not two. Am I on the right track here?
ozeannie, there is definitely a problem with your drive M: disk.
The 'Failed to read from sector '-387,938.129' of hard disk 2' confirms this, and this has nothing to do with the 33MB unallocated space at the end of the drive.
The recommendation in the error message to run CHKDSK for this drive is the action you should be performing even though this may take a while to complete given it is a 1TB drive.
Before you run CHKDSK you should ensure that any autorun programs from WD for this drive have been ended and that you have no Windows Explorer windows open to this drive, so that there are no locks on the drive that would force CHKDSK to have to be run on boot instead of being able to run this from inside Windows.
I would suggest opening a Command prompt windows as Administrator (type CMD at the Run prompt, then right-click on the CMD.exe shown and select Run as Administrator.
In the command window, type
CHKDSK M: /R
This will check the drive for any bad sectors and will attempt to reallocate any found if this is possible.
The other option would be to download the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows software and use this to do a comprehensive diagnostic test of this drive. This may provide an option to do a complete reformat of the drive and map any bad sectors to unused areas.
Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows
File Size: 605 KB
Version: v1.31
Release Date: 10/2016 | Release Notes
Description
This is a Windows version of the Data LifeGuard Diagnostics. It will test WD internal and external drives. In additional, it can provide you with the model and serial of WD drives attached to the system.
Supported Operating Systems
- Windows 10
- Windows 8 32/64-bit versions
- Windows 7 32/64-bit versions
- Windows Vista 32/64 bit versions
- Windows XP 32/64-bit versions
Instructions
- Download the Windows Data Lifeguard Diagnostics, .zip
- Extract and run the program, WinDlg.exe. If running Windows Vista (or later), you will need to Right-Click on the WinDlg.exe file and choose to Run As Administrator.
- Read and accept the license agreement to continue.
- On the main program screen, there are two windows. In the top window, you will see the drives in your system that are available for testing. The model number, serial number, capacity, and SMART status of each drive will be displayed. In the bottom window, the partition information for the selected drive will be displayed.
- Highlight the drive and select the icon on the top row to test or run SMART status.
- When you select the run tests icon, the "DLGDIAG - Select an Option" window appears.
- You will see the following options:
- QUICK TEST - performs SMART drive quick self-test to gather and verify the Data Lifeguard information contained on the drive.
- EXTENDED TEST - performs a Full Media Scan to detect bad sectors. Test may take several hours to complete depending on the size of the drive.
- ERASE - writes zeros to the drive with options of Full Erase and Quick Erase. File system and data will be lost.
- VIEW TEST RESULT - displays the latest test results.
- Select the test you wish to perform and click the Start button.
- When the test completes, you will be notified with a pass/fail message. Click the Close button.
Applicable Products
My Book, My Book, My Book AV-TV, My Book Pro, My Book Duo, My Passport Ultra, My Passport SSD, My Passport, My Passport Ultra (WD Backup), My Passport Ultra Metal, My Passport Pro, My Passport Air, WD Elements Desktop, WD Blue, WD Blue (Mobile), WD Black, WD Black (Mobile), WD Gold, WD RE / WD RE4, WD Re+, WD Se, WD Ae, WD Red, WD Red (Mobile), WD Red Pro, WD Purple, WD AV, WD Blue SSHD, WD Black SSHD, WD Desktop Performance, WD Desktop Mainstream , WD Laptop Mainstream , WD S25, G-RAID Studio
Thanks Steve
I will do this when I can have a long stretch available at the computer so will have to wait until end of the day. Just a few notes - it is 2T not 1T (so it will take quite a while); I deleted the autorun off it, so that won't run, noted to not have it locked on anything. I think I might try the WS diagnostic as it may do a better job. I clicked the link and noticed that there is also an edition of Acronis True Image specifically for WD products. Note that I do not have this, I just have Acronis True Image 2013. Is there any significance in this - is the WD version just a branded version of Acronis put out by WD or is it a version specifically for use with WD products which is more compatible?
P.S This is a brand new disk so it shouldn't have errors. If this isn't successful I may see whether I can take it back to the store.
Also, if I am able to return the drive, I think I would like to uninstall it first so I can start afresh. I know the drivers are just supplied by Windows... I assume the way to do this would be with the drive plugged in, to go to Device manager, right click the drive and uninstall? As mentioned, I also have a Seagate drive and I wonder whether there is some sort of incompatability going on with the 2 drives. Perhaps I should have stuck to Seagate.
The WD version of ATIH will probably be a later version than the one you have but is an OEM version and as such may be limited in functionality compared to your full version - you will also need a license key from WD to use it.
You shouldn't need to uninstall the device drivers for the WD drive in Windows as these may well just be generic drivers when supplied by Windows itself. I have not encountered any incompatibility between having Seagate and WD drives, and I have a number of systems with both makes of drives, plus also use WD external My Book drives.
Thanks again, currently running Chkdsk on the drive, been going several hours already, looks like I'll have to wait until the morning to see the result as it's now late here. No errors found as yet. I have since tried a backup to both J drive and the network drive without M drive attached and they worked fine, so looks like it is something to do with the M drive. If no joy tomorrow I think I'll be taking it back to the store, in which case I should probably format it first to make sure all data is erased.
I think I give up. Chkdsk ran and found no bad sectors, nothing.
I next went into the disk management tool on Acronis, but couldn't go anywhere without getting the same drive read error "from sector -387,938,129". I did notice however from the disk properties tool that the problem sector ought to be in part of the unallocated space, which went down to -387,938,xxx. The healthy partition was at the other end of the sector numbering.
I next went into Windows disk management, and decided to have a go at deleting volume "M", with a view to re-formatting the whole drive and getting the unallocated space back. However I got the same error, unable to read disk. I tried formatting with the same result. I then tried to create a simple volume on the unallocated space and got the same result. I then tried extending the M partition ... but always I got the error that was unable to read what is obviously a critical part of the disk, not viewable to either the M partition or the unallocated part.
At this point I went from the computer I am typing this on back over to the other computer to check the exact sector numbers of the unallocated part, and found despite the errors that I had got stating that the disk could not be read and/or the process was unable to be performed, that for some reason there was now a drive there with one full healthy partition!
I thought since a new partition had been created, I ought to now format it and reassign it a drive letter, as it had defaulted back to drive E. So I tried to format - so after thinking for a while, it stated not able to complete format, and then converted to a drive in RAW state rather than NTFS. Quick format, full format, didn't matter. So now the drive is completely unreadable.
I had rung the guy at WD the other day and he had suggested to remove volume M and repartition and reformat the drive, so I think the best plan of action now is to return the drive to the store.
Sounds like you have definitely got a bad drive there unfortunately. It does happen from time to time though thankfully, not that common a problem in my own experience.
You shouldn't be having these problems with a new drive so going for a RMA is the way to go and get a new replacement which hopefully will work just fine.
In risposta a Sounds like you have… di truwrikodrorow…
Thanks again for your help, much appreciated. I see you do a sterling job on these forums for which many people are no doubt very grateful. I'll let you know how I get on with the return, fingers crossed.
Took the drive back, no problems once the guy plugged it in and it didn't read squat. Got another drive (different brand just to play safe) & Acronis is happily backing up to it as I type (on another computer)... hoping this one lasts the distance. Thanks again for your help, I didn't expect a brand new drive to have problems but I guess it happens....
Great to hear that you got a replacement new drive and all looks good on that one! Long may it be so!