Acronis -Corrupt Backup File

[Sam Ceccola]

OS-Windows XP Professional SP2
Acronis True Image Buid 2323

Every month, I backup my entire "C" drive using Acronis True Image Backup. This backup is done to a external hard disk that is connected to the system via USB.
The "c" drive crashed. I tried using the Recovery files created on floppies. I had a read error. I then reloaded Windows XP Professional SP2 and Acronis, and then created New Recovery files. Rebooted with the recovery File CD. I tried running the complete Recovery of my "C" drive using the correct "tib" file. During this process, I got an error message "Backup file is corrupt". I have also been getting a message in the "Active Task" window -- "Invalid Script File".Any suggestions in helping resolve this problem?

[kelly]

I would contact Acronis.
-td

[Sam Ceccola]

I would contact Acronis.
-td
Kelly:

I sent them a support request early this morning. In fact my post is a copy of that request.

Sometimes they say "Patience is a virtue". Something I do not have much of. I want it fixed and I want it fixed NOW.

Sam

[mylanta]

Sam if you make regular image files, try going back and using older ones...they cannot all be bad.
I just had a situation where Ghost, and Acronis would not make an image file on my new system so I tried NTi Backup which worked. Shortly after that I got a message of "imminient hard drive failure: from S.M.A.R.T (that I normally turn off but must have missed this time)...the big image file that NTi said was good would restore but would not run at all. A smaller one I had made with just the OS and drivesr and updates, TG did install. Needless to say with a new hard drive, Acronis and Ghost all worked again creating image files. Wish I had thought of that before I tried 4 different full installs in 2 days. How old are your hard drives?

[Sam Ceccola]

Great Idea Rich but I already thought of that. I didn't do the "Grandfather-father-son" rule only the "grandfather-father".

Sam

[Sam Ceccola]

I am doing something wrong?
I start Acronis Recover
- Choose the "Recover" module
- Select the correct "tib" file and date
- Select "Restore Specific Files or Folders"
- Select "Original Location"
- Expand the "recovery-tib file"

at this point I will get a list of directories on the tib. Example "Program Files" but there is not a "+ (expand)" sign to the left.

I don't want to reload complete Program Files only specific applications.

Sam

[kelly]

Sam - I followed the steps you provided and found no problem. So I don't know what's going on. Try Mount Image (or Plug Image on v8). This will create a virtual drive on your computer where you can manually drag/drop or copy/past files to your hard drive.

You won't be able to load specific applications. When an application is installed, it puts files in various places. As far as I know, Acronis TI isn't smart enought to figure all that out.

-td

[Sam Ceccola]

I need to take a break for about an hour but wanted to share this info regarding Recovey problem.

On my Backup disk, I have 2 tib files. They are for the same drive. My backup drive is "D" The drive backed-up is "C". I have:
D:\Backup\C-BkUp-05-03-06.tib
and D:\Backup\C-BkUp-05-03-062.tib
Apparently Acronis in creating the backup and after a certain size splits the file.

IN the Recovery: If I try to use "D:\Backup\C-BkUp-05-03-06.tib", I am getting the problem noted above (no expansion). In the early tries, I went this route and nothing was recovered.

If I use "D:\Backup\C-BkUp-05-03-062.tib" , I will get the expansion but during the Recovery stage, I'll get the message "Corrupt file".

[mylanta]

Sam there is a point at where you can set the size of the increments. The old rule was that an image file could not be more than 3.999 but now it can be any size. If Acronis split image files in increments, you need to choose the first one to restore with. Go "view" "details" so you can see the date made and be certain they are the same image file split.
I am not understanding what you are expanding etc and you do not want to chose restore files and folders yopui want to choose "restore disk or partition"...that makes it one function. Also if this is the first time you are restoring, I would use the rescue disk and boot into Acronis Restore Environment which creates a Linux window, separate from everything going on in messed up pc...

[dbarrow]

Sam, let's go over your overall backup strategy...

A backup that can't/won't restore is as good as doing no backups at all!

Relying on only one backup is a crapshoot as the slightest corruption renders it useless.
Yes, corrupted and unrestorable backup files do happen in Acronis ... and all other backup software.

Having everything on one huge C: drive is another receipe for disaster as the larger the backup, the more potential for corruption.

I subscribe to the multiple partition approach...
OS is on a partition all by itself.
Programs are on a partition by themselves.
All large critical data files are on individual partions.
Each of these partitions has its own dedicated image backup and schedule routine depending on frequency of changes.

Multiple images in multiple locations with multiple incrementals....

Murphy's Law dictactes that the drive that will crap is the one that has the backup on it....
It is extremely simple with Acronis to create multiple 'backup jobs' and schedule them to run to alternate locations on an alternating date range.

At minimum, maintain at least two images of the partition where your OS lives as that is the most likely source of a crash.
You can setup the Acronis Secure Zone and it will create its' own secure partition to protect the OS files.
Maintain one backup on an internal hd, one that gets the least use and is least likely to take a dump.
Maintain an external backup on your USB, which you may or may not be able to get to depending on the nature of your crash,ie: a hardware problem.
Use the external ONLY for backup storage to limit use.
If you need one for extra storage space for files, have two and beat up the non-backup drive.

Incrementals are just as easily created and run fast.
Schedule a DAILY incremental to cover your OS partition along with a WEEKLY full backup. This, at least, gives you a full weeks date range to revert back to in cases of "oops, I didn't want to do that." or a virus/malware attack.
Using the full .tib and the incremental, you can step back to 'yesterday' or any other day within that week.
I have seen different "daily" incrementals within a set fail... had to choose a different date and the set restored ok. Having an alternate full weekly on another drive is the "backup to the backup" just in case the whole set with incrementals fails for any reason. At least you are current within one week.

TEST your RESTORE from a BOOT RESCUE CD!
I can't stress this enough and had to spank myself for my own fubar for not doing it!
Everything may appear to be working just fine until that one time you go to restore from a no boot BSOD with the Acronis boot cd ... and it don't work!
Create a small partition and copy some files into it.
Run a full and incremental backup.
Boot from the Rescue cd and do a restore.
Make sure it works 100%!!!

Note that there are numerous .ISO versions of the restore cd that are NOT the same as the one you create. If the one you create fails, there is a process to send that to Acronis Tech Support and they will send you some different versions to try until you have success.

Murphy's Law says that the one time you need a backup is the one time it won't work.....
Thinking you are safe and your bases covered with one backup is false hope!
With the price of external drives as cheap as they are, there is no reason not to have adequate capacity to store MULTIPLE image files covering MULTIPLE date ranges.
With the ease of creating and scheduling automated backups in Acronis, there is no reason to be doing them manually and finding you 'forgot' to do one for the last two months!

I never do a backup!
Unless, of course, I make some major changes and want to ensure a fresh image.
Each machine does its' own internal backup and daily incremental of the OS to an internal hd.
Each machine does an alternate backup to the network storage machine with several large drives dedicated to backups only.
One machine has an external USB drive for duplicate backups as it has critical work files.
All are set up on an automated rotating schedule to keep multiple backups up to date within one week.
I never see them run or bother with them except to check now and then to make sure they have been doing their jobs on schedule, which they have.

[Sam Ceccola]

Again your comments are well taken and do come at a proper time. After endlessly fighting this recover battle for 3 days and now TOTALLY frustrated, I was thinking about my overall system recovery plan and trying to decide the best way to handle things whereby I will never have to go through this situation again.

I am going to sit on things for the rest of the day (no more attempts to recover). I am expecting a package in the mail tomorrow they may help. If it does not--I am them going to wipe and clean the "C" drive and my backup drive. Redo everything from a clean start. This will also help to get rid of many orphan files and directories.

Before passing some of my strategies before you, let me review my current hard drive situation and their use.
"C" drive-internal (80 gig)- primarily system drive - one partition(see note)
"E" drive (80 gig) - used for almost all data files and downloads(saved) - one partition. This is an USB external drive.(see note)
"D" drive-internal (160 gig)- used to hold backup and recovery files. - one partition.

NOTE: Any apps that have data files I try to place those data files on the "E" drive. Many apps don't seem to allow this feature. Therefore they are placed on the "C" drive.end note

Using the multiple partition approach, I hear you saying this:
"C" drive - one partition strictly for the "Window directories and subdirectories",
a another partition strictly for "Program Files" and a third for any other stuff.

Backup, Recovery, Span, etc. software I have is Nod32, Zone Alarm, AutoSave2, Acronis True Image.

Each partition on each drive should be backed up separately.

Subscribe to the "grandfather-father-son" backup philosophy vs. "grandfather-father".

Get another external hard drive for second backup (seta, USB?)

This has been a costly and time consuming experience. I hope no-one ever has to go through this. I hope my comments will cause people to think it through before doing it and avoid the frustration level that has caused me to go one-step-forward and 5 steps-backward. I should (and do) know better.

If anyone could shed any light on what I have said with suggestions,helps, strategies they went through from pass experience. ALL are welcome.

Thanks,
Sam

[dbarrow]

As I noted before, 99% of all major crashes are caused by a bad or incomplete file write "saving your settings" during the shutdown. These are often one of the reg hives and usually the hardware hive.
The easiest escape from these is booting from the XP install cd, going into Repair Console, and copying the blown files from the Repair folder.

The other 1% is HD failure where the drive is going south and the next bootup may be your last. This is where full image files are most important to rebuild what you had on a new drive.

One thing I have yet to fathom is dealing with bad blocks and sectors and how an image restore handles them.
All drives have extra unused capacity to account for bad blocks and sectors. A chkdsk will find and mark off bad sectors so they are not used again. Sectors do go bad through routine use and part of the function of chkdsk is to find and exclude them so they are not written to again.

Now, if you have a drive that you have not run chkdsk on for quite a while, and it has bad sectors, if you restore an image file to it ... does it skip those sectors or write to them with a possibility of corruption?

Note that you can run chkdsk from the Repair Console and maybe it is a good idea to to that before restoring to a partition or drive just to verify the integrity of the drive.

Does it pay to verify your backup? I've seen files that verified but would not restore. Just how do you tell with 100% certainty that your image is good and will successfully restore until the time comes when you actually do run the restore?

I always looked at resurecting a working OS from the catastophic BSOD as all the other files usually remain intact on the drive. If you can get the OS back and booted, everything else is almost always accessible and still good.
That's why I pay more attention to staggered multiple backups of the OS. You have to have all the critical registry keys for the programs or they won't work even if their files remain intact.

Installed program files, unless you make a bunch of additions, don't change as their "working files" are usually stored elsewhere. I only backup the Program partion once a month. Even if I have to restore the OS, the Program files remain untouched and even the oldest of my backups contain the necessary reg keys. If, last ditch necessary, I could even fresh install the OS and import the keys from one of the other machines and still have all my programs work as they all have an identical setup.

Stored data, like a huge MP3 or video collection, is best kept on its own partition. These need no reg keys and unless a major hd failure takes out the whole drive, they will remain intact. A monthly backup is adequate unless you make a lot of additions.

Critical data files, like documents, spreadsheets, or other ongoing "works in progress" that change daily and you need the most recent work up to date, are an item for daily and even hourly incrementals to an external drive.
I've looked at a few "real time" backup solutions that will automatically copy these to an external or network upon any file changes. This is a whole different approach to ... oops, just lost 6 hours of work when the file crashes for some reason. For daughter's application where she has just spend the entire day working on these critical files, they not only get picked up by the daily incrementals but the "real time" backup as well.
I have to take the time to investigate the new Acronis Workstation version which has these capabilities.

Network storage is a great thing to have...
Take an old machine that is good for nothing else, throw a Promise controller card and a couple 250g hd in it along with a NIC and put it on the network. It does not have to be fast. At 10/100, even a PIII machine is adequate.
Acronis does not balk at network backups and the Rescue boot cd will read any network just fine. Even if my machine goes up in smoke, I can replace the hardware and have it back to its former state in hours. If an internal hd with the backups on it goes south ... not to worry as they also live on the network machine.

My huge music library has backups resident on each machine, despite the space they consume, as the collection was years in the making and one thing I will not lose no matter what. It's even on the USB external, which is one of the first things on the evacuation agenda if the house burns down.

Now if you have a real sense of paranoia, there are a couple of safe companies now making a water/fire proof vaults with power and usb/firewire/lan connectors that hold an array of external drives. Just plug it into the ac and lan and you're set to go. Actually, quite a logical solution!

[mylanta]

I agree with most of what DB says except what I call the confusion of multiple partitions. That further involves the cance for error doing backups of the multiple partitons and the reason, just doesn't grab me. I put my email on the backup drive because bacling that up becomes a nightmare, and run file backups of the email folder to an external drive but the big single partition is so easy to copy and verify and I always know where everything is.

[mylanta]

Again your comments are well taken and do come at a proper time. After endlessly fighting this recover battle for 3 days and now TOTALLY frustrated, I was thinking about my overall system recovery plan and trying to decide the best way to handle things whereby I will never have to go through this situation again.

I am going to sit on things for the rest of the day (no more attempts to recover). I am expecting a package in the mail tomorrow they may help. If it does not--I am them going to wipe and clean the "C" drive and my backup drive. Redo everything from a clean start. This will also help to get rid of many orphan files and directories.

Before passing some of my strategies before you, let me review my current hard drive situation and their use.
"C" drive-internal (80 gig)- primarily system drive - one partition(see note)
"E" drive (80 gig) - used for almost all data files and downloads(saved) - one partition. This is an USB external drive.(see note)
"D" drive-internal (160 gig)- used to hold backup and recovery files. - one partition.

NOTE: Any apps that have data files I try to place those data files on the "E" drive. Many apps don't seem to allow this feature. Therefore they are placed on the "C" drive.end note

Using the multiple partition approach, I hear you saying this:
"C" drive - one partition strictly for the "Window directories and subdirectories",
a another partition strictly for "Program Files" and a third for any other stuff.

Backup, Recovery, Span, etc. software I have is Nod32, Zone Alarm, AutoSave2, Acronis True Image.

Each partition on each drive should be backed up separately.

Subscribe to the "grandfather-father-son" backup philosophy vs. "grandfather-father".

Get another external hard drive for second backup (seta, USB?)

This has been a costly and time consuming experience. I hope no-one ever has to go through this. I hope my comments will cause people to think it through before doing it and avoid the frustration level that has caused me to go one-step-forward and 5 steps-backward. I should (and do) know better.

If anyone could shed any light on what I have said with suggestions,helps, strategies they went through from pass experience. ALL are welcome.

Thanks,
Sam


Sam,
The last thing I would do is add another external drive into that situation and personally I think where you suffer from, is the multiple drives. You have a good sized internal backup drive and they are the most dependable as i have found that extrenal drives sometimes for no known reason lose or corrupt their files easily. It would be so much easier for you to manage if you had one drive with OS and programs and files on it which you daily backup incrementals on and weekly do full image files for. Simple is the best Sam.
You have tools to to determine if the image files are corrupt or not in Acronis. "Validate backup archive" will answer you and I don't think your image files are corrupted, It sounds to me likeone or both the drives are if they will not install. That is one of the ways you find this out early unfortunately.
Why not turn on S.M.A.R.T in bios and let the drives be monitored. And yes you have sata controllers on that board for at least 2 drives to add.

[Sam Ceccola]

Well, getting away from it for a few hours helped. 75% re-established. Totally lost and can-not recover my address book. This will be built into my new backup and recovery plan.

Thanks to everyone for the patience, understanding and help. I guess we have all been there?

Sam

[mylanta]

Well, getting away from it for a few hours helped. 75% re-established. Totally lost and can-not recover my address book. This will be built into my new backup and recovery plan.

Thanks to everyone for the patience, understanding and help. I guess we have all been there?

Sam Sam,
Use Acronis to read any of the image files by choosing "mount image". That will create a virtual drive that you can enter then go Docs and Settings,You, Application data, Microsoft, Address book and simply copy and paste. You can retrieve any files and data that way. The virtual drive will remain until you reboot.

[Sam Ceccola]

Sam,
Use Acronis to read any of the image files by choosing "mount image". That will create a virtual drive that you can enter then go Docs and Settings,You, Application data, Microsoft, Address book and simply copy and paste. You can retrieve any files and data that way. The virtual drive will remain until you reboot.

I can not find the answer to this question -- maybe you know? When a backup tib file is created, is it a "read only" file?

I can't help wonder in my haste to get things back up, did I accidentally delete portions of it?

Sam

[mylanta]

No never "read only"

[Sam Ceccola]

No never "read only"
Maybe that's what happened.

Thank you

[dbarrow]

Do you still have the *.tib files?
Were they sized to a specific limit and split into a set?
Can you mount any of them, in Windows, with Acronis and browse them?

If they were part of a set with limited size, Acronis may not mount the volume as the set is incomplete if any are missing or corrupt.
If you had one full .tib and incremental .tib1,2,3 etc., it should give you a date range and let you choose *.tib + date. Try them all.

If you have them all, still intact, and can't mount or open the volume, check with Konstantine at Acronis Support and see if there is any way to recover/fix the image. He may be able to disect it and get back what isn't corrupt.

[Sam Ceccola]

Will do I'll try it now

[Sam Ceccola]

Do you still have the *.tib files?
If you have them all, still intact, and can't mount or open the volume, check with Konstantine at Acronis Support and see if there is any way to recover/fix the image. He may be able to disect it and get back what isn't corrupt.

Do you have an email or phone number? If you would like, send a private message or email to me.

Sam

[PeteF]

Sam,
The last thing I would do is add another external drive into that situation and personally I think where you suffer from, is the multiple drives. You have a good sized internal backup drive and they are the most dependable as i have found that extrenal drives sometimes for no known reason lose or corrupt their files easily.

Sam, I agree with Rich here about the internal drives being most
dependable. With Acronis, I mainly backup to internal drives.
I have not had enough good experiences with external USB hard drives
and Acronis to feel comfortable using them for regular backups. I want
a very high level of reliability so I mainly use internal drives. For
portability, I utilize those removable hard drive trays.

As for external USB HDs, the Maxtor One Touch is one I had good
success with, but even that failed me once so I abandoned it.

---pete---

[Sam Ceccola]

Sam, I agree with Rich here about the internal drives being most
dependable. With Acronis, I mainly backup to internal drives.
I have not had enough good experiences with external USB hard drives
and Acronis to feel comfortable using them for regular backups. I want
a very high level of reliability so I mainly use internal drives. For
portability, I utilize those removable hard drive trays.

As for external USB HDs, the Maxtor One Touch is one I had good
success with, but even that failed me once so I abandoned it.

---pete---

WE POSSIBLY NARROWED DOWN THE PROBLEM. Without any rime or reason, the system crashed again toinght. When this system was built over 3 years ago, several parts were taken out if it's predicesor and used in this machine(money saver). I figured my current "C" drive is over 5 years old. My system runs 24/7

I'm committed to bit the bullet and get a new system, new components, etc.

I'll keep this strickly as a back-bones system to back up.