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TI 2010: Can't Delete old Backup Files from External Drive

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I have just installed Acronis True Image Home 2010 Build 7154 on Windows XP Pro SP-3.

I had old backups (full & incremental) on 2 external drives. I wanted to delete the oldest full backup & it's incrementals to make room on my E:\ drive. When I try, I get a message that the file is in use by another program & can't be deleted.

Just before attempting to delete, I started to perform a backup using the wizard. Then I realized there wasn't enough room, so I cancelled the backup...I never pressed the "proceed" button. Then I closed TI.

What I've tried:
I shut down TI.
I stopped the Timeout Monitor Service
I rebooted, after taking the Timeout Monitor Service out of startup.

Nothing has worked, even after the reboot. If I can't delete these files, I have no room for a new backup. Any help would be appreciated?
Thanks in advance,
Phil

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You could try booting into Windows Safe Mode and deleting them. Or connect the drive to a different computer.

Thank you for your quick response. I tried Safe Mode & don't have access to another computer. Can you think of anything within TI that would be using the files & telling Windows that it is?
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Phil

I can't think of anything right now. I take it Safe Mode didn't work. You could boot to the TI CD and try deleting it from there. Select to Restore and then Browse for a backup. Change the "Files of type" to "All Files" and then browse to the folder you want. Select the file and then click the "Delete" button on the toolbar.

Thanks for your information. I went to Support...Live Chat. He was able to delete it from within TI. Windows still complained. Then we stopped services & rebooted & Windows was able to rename (if it can rename, it should be able to delete...I didn't want to take a chance of deleting backups I might need).

My only problem with Live Chat is that it took about 2 hours using remote desktop & I would have been able to accomplish the same thing in about 10 minutes, if I knew how, or if I was told what to do?

I also learned that, at least within TI, you can't delete just one incremental backup...it deletes the whole chain. That's too bad. With TI 8 or 9, if I screwed up, I could just delete the last backup & continue making incremental backups.

Thanks again for your time!!
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Phil

Phil,

I think the difference between v8/9 and 20xx onwards is that TI is using a database to keep track of every task, file, settings, etc. When you delete a file using Windows Explorer, the database is not updated and TI gets lost.
If you want to delete archives, do it from within TI.

You can either delete entire backups or single versions but you might run into issues:

From my experience:
- if I delete an intermediary version of an incremental backup, all increments done after that version are also deleted as expected, and the backup validates
- if I delete an intermediary version of a differential backup from within ATI, it deletes the desired archive only as expected, but when I validate the backup, I get "Specify the location of volume R" R being this Gamma character message. If I deleted the last differential backup, it validates normally.

Thanks for the explanation. However, both the Live Chat person & I tried to delete just the last incremental backup from within TI & TI deleted the entire chain...all the incrementals & the full backup. I just tried to delete the last incremental backup in a chain. TI wouldn't delete it & said it was being used by another person or application.

When I close TI, I can delete the file using Windows Explorer. But I just tried again to delete a single file at the end of the incremental chain & TI said it would delete the entire chain. I'm not sure what method you're using to delete a file, as I'm not used to this interface.

I went to Recovery, Browse for backup, & then either right clicked & choose Remove or click the X button at the top. I just noticed that I can't select 2 consecutive files. Maybe I'm doing something wrong in the way I'm deleting. How do you do it?
Thanks,
Phil

The way I delete it is the following:
- on the backup, I click on explore versions,
- in the backup explorer that pops up, I right click on one of the versions at the bottom of the screen, and select delete.

If you choose "delete backup" from the "operations" drop down, you delete the entire backup files and the backup entry in ATI.
If you choose "remove", you delete the backup from the backup list but the backup files are unchanged.

Hi Pat:
I'm having trouble following your first step (on the backup, click explore versions). How do you get to the backup? Is this in Windows Explorer or within TI? If it's within TI, where? And where is explore versions?
Sorry for sounding so dense. I appreciate your time.
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Phil

Yes, you are using 2010. I was describing the 2011 version.
I am doing this from within TI. There should be a way to see older versions of backups in 2010, but I don't have it running on my computer.