Nonstop Backup Fails - Cannot read from storage
Nonstop backup was functioning fine for months. Then it suddenly stopped and has never worked since.
Here's the exact error message from the log:
Event details: Cannot read from storage.
Event code:
More information about this error and solutions may be available online in the Acronis Knowledge Base.
To access the online resource manually, enter the event code at: http://kb.acronis.com/errorcode/
Event code: 0x00640293+0x00E4003A+0x00E40007+0x000B007F+0x000B0421+0x000003E9+0x001703EE
The storage for Nonstop Backup is located on an e-SATA HDD attached to my computer. Nothing is wrong with this disk and I can read it just fine. I can see the "Time Explorer Storage" hidden folder on the root of the drive. That's the only thing this HDD is used for; Nonstop Backup.
My Computer:
- OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64
- Memory: 8GB
- Nonstop Backup protected disk: 300GB
- Nonstop Storage disk: 2TB
- Acronis Version: Acronis True Image Home 2012 Build 6131
Sorry it took me so long to see your reply.
Nonstop backup was already stopped; it won't start due to the cannot read from storage error.
I renamed the Time Explorer Storage folder to "Time Explorer Storage.old". Then I re-opened Acronis True Image Home 2012 and found that the Nonstop Backup was no longer present in the backups list. So there was no way to attempt to restart it at that point. Since that didn't work, I renamed the folder back without the *.old suffix.
I've paid the $9.95 to call Acronis about the issue now. I must say that I have been very disappointed with my phone-based support experience thus far; the technician's knowledge, communication skills, the phone connection to whatever is their location, and the general response to the issue. He told me to delete the original nonstop backup and create a new one since the old one is apparently corrupted. I told him that a) I have this issue on more than one PC, so it isn't PC-specific, and b) even if that fixes the problem, it doesn't explain how to avoid the same problem in the future.
So I've uploaded a system report to them for now and haven't deleted the old backup that has the "corrupted metadata" until they come back with some sort of additional information beyond just "delete and try again".
Kevan,
After you have renamed the folder, just try to create a new non-stop backup. Is this working? This is the same as "deleting and redo".
The problem will remain true: it might happen in the future. And NSB is not flexible: once you move to a new backup, it is unsure you will be able to retrieve data from the old one.
NSB is a packaged solution that you can emulate with a traditional file or disk and partition backup (depending on the goal), and customized scheme and auto-consolidation settings.
I know that the default schedule for a traditional backup is not as frequent as NSB, but you can schedule it with Windows Task Scheduler to get any frequency, trigger you want.
What I did that solved it (for now):
1. Changed the name of the hidden backup folder from "Time Explorer Storage" to "Time Explorer Storage.OLD"
2. Deleted the Nonstop Backup task
3. Created a new Nonstop Backup task, and stopped it right after it started running for the first time.
4. Closed True Image
5. Moved the Nonstop Backup files from the folder that's inside "Time Explorer Storage.OLD" to the folder that's inside "Time Explorer Storage"
* Don't move the folder itself, only the files inside it, because the new folder name is different (the one with all the letters and numbers - like: ED20E138-4B0D-4AC7-9337-BEA99D2F4D6C)
6. Started True Image and ran the task. It calculated for a few minutes and then began the backup.
This actually escalated into a support case with Acronis and has been running since April 2012. They've identified it as a product bug in Acronis 2012 and provided me with a custom nonstop backup service executable that seemed to fix it but was incompatible with the product GUI. So they asked me to upgrade to ATIH 2013 once it was released, which I did, and we are now continuing to troubleshoot it as the upgraded version did not resolve the issue in the nonstop backup service.