Missing Latest Backups in TI Explorer - Cannot Restore via Windows

I’m running Acronis TI Home 2011 build 6868 on a virtually new core i5 Windows 7 Pro 32 Bit PC equipped with 4 GB RAM and two local drives – one of 1TB and one of 2TB. I’ve been a customer of Acronis for more than 10 years and have always been a fan. It’s helped me out of many a tight spot in the past – but I’m on the verge of abandoning the software for Norton or Paragon because a problem has emerged which has caused me to lose faith.

Here’s my story.

I have four scheduled backups that run each week. Two go to a local drive – two to a network dive – and those cover a backup of my C: Drive [OS and Apps] – and E: Drive [Personal and other Files]. The backups are all ‘custom’. One full backup – followed by ‘incremental’ backups. There is no consolidation – and no further full backups. This seems to have worked fine for the past 14 weeks – until last week when I went to have a check on them via TI Explorer.

All the backups on the network appeared to be fine – but the backup versions on the local drive started playing silly ‘Bs’.

When I first clicked click on ‘explore all versions’ – the C: Drive versions were ‘there’. Happy – I then went on to check the E: Drive versions – only to discover that some of the last ones were missing. [To be absolutely clear – they aren’t missing – they are still tucked-away on the local drive – just don’t appear in TI Explorer].

I then went to ‘browse for backup’ in the TI window – and ‘re-associated’ them. Only they didn’t appear. In fact there were even less of them now in the TI window. Updating the back-up list, changing the sort order – none of these has any effect on whether they appear or not.

Thinking I was going mad - I then went back into the TI window to look to ‘explore all versions’ of the C: Drive backups – that were all there a minute ago. This time – the only one was the original ‘master’ backup – all the other, subsequent incremental backups did not ‘show’.

I’ve tried validating the backups. No joy. They do ‘validate’ [no signs of any corruption] – but refuse to appear in TI explorer. There is a label against each backup schedule to say when last backed-up [and that does correspond to the last actual scheduled run] – but in TI Explorer – the nice neat chain of backups is truncated to just one or two ‘old’ versions. The latest versions [and many others] are all ‘absent’.

I’ve tried browsing and re-associating the backups and although sometimes more appear and then disappear [no logic to this] – I cannot get back to the latest versions.

If I go to the actual backups themselves – and right click, Archive, Recover – I get taken back to the ‘Available to Recover’ window – and my only choice is then a much earlier backup archive – the one listed in TI explorer. So there appears to be no way through TI to recover the most recent backups. Very alarming.

I’m trapped!

So my only alternative is to use the Acronis recovery disk or F11 and start Acronis loader. Using this method – I can see the archives and access them [at least on the local disk] – but the interface selecting the right file is just incredibly slow. Navigating to the right archive and loading it can take half an hour.

My PC is running the latest version of Norton AV and is fully patched with OS updates. It’s not overburdened with other software and generally runs fast and efficiently. I’ve not installed any new software for the last 2 months or so – so I don’t see it as a conflict. It feels like a nasty bug to me.

I have tried updating my build of Acronis TI 2011 to the latest version – and even downgrading to the previous build. No change. I have even tried downloading the latest version of Acronis TI 2012 as a ‘trial’. Uninstall, re-install, etc. Again, no joy.

The total size of 14 weeks of backups is quite large [c.130 GB for C Drive – c.65 GB for E Drive] – but surely it’s not a size limitation issue?

So my questions are these.

1. Why aren’t all my backup archives appearing in TI Explorer – specifically the latest versions?

2. Why – when I go to the actual archives in Windows Explorer – there is no way to use those backups directly? Right click/recover does not work. I have to boot using an Acronis Recovery disk – and then wait an age. This isn’t a reasonable solution as far as I am concerned.

I’ve spent a couple of days re-imaging the system backwards and forwards to earlier states – and the problem seems to persist. So there I am with a backup system that seems to be flaky at best.

Please help!

Thanks.