Running TI9 on Windows XP with two partitions.  OS has been freshly
installed and no other backup applications have ever been installed.
>From XP desktop, I have successfully created an image of drive C
(active partition holding OS).  I stored this image on drive D.  This
image restores just fine without a hitch.  This was a full partition
backup using normal compression and all default settings.

I would like to have a backup of my active parition stored on media in
case of a hard drive failure.  From XP desktop I was able to burn an
image of my C partition spanning it over 4 CDs.  No problems.  Size was
correct.  All default settings used including normal compression.

I rebooted and using my rescue disk I went to restore pre-OS boot.  I
inserted disk one, but then was prompted for last disk in series, disk
4.  I put in disk 4, located the last part of the image and clicked
proceed.  In less than a minute, I got a pop up saying restore was
successful.  This was supposed to be a full partition restoration and
during the restore the active partition was actually deleted and was
supposed to be recreated.  However, it appears that the unallocated
space was never re-partitioned.  Naturally, upon reboot nothing
happened because there was no partition.   So, I rebooted using the
rescue disk and restored my active partition using the image on
parition D as a source.  Everything back to normal just fine.  I used
the exact same procedure, settings and prefrences each time, but when I
try to restore from CD it fails and when I restore from a different
partition (same hard drive) it works.

I repeated the procedure with 4 new CDs but the results were exactly
the same.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?  Would it help to create the image
pre-os boot using the rescue disk?  I checked the Acronis FAQ and
searched usenet for a while, but if there's a solution out there I
wasn't finding it.  I like the product and would like to keep using it,
but I just don't know where to go from here.

FYI:  I did not use the "Acronis Startup Recovery Manager" feature at
any time.

Thanks if you can help.  I'm stumped.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

mydeadpresidents@yahoo.com wrote:
> I repeated the procedure with 4 new CDs but the results were exactly
> the same.


I don't have an answer to your question, but rather than spanning over 4
CD's, do you have access to a DVD burner?

Following these instructions, you can burn your images onto a single
bootable DVD and not have to worry about spanning.   (Though spanning
multiple CDs *should* work fine...  not sure what the problem is in your
case)

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=48186



-WD

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

I'll soon be trialing Acronis TI.  I've studied the user forums at Acronis.
Those forums are full of complaints about corrupt images stored on optical
media.  You are not alone.

Did you burn those 4 CD's using Acronis?  If you did, that could be a
problem, I think.

Acronis says it has to use 3rd party packet writers to do a direct burn to
optical media.  Nero calls its packet writer InCD.  I think Roxio calls
theirs Direct To Disc.

Either way, packet writing to CD and DVD is just prone to error.  There
aren't sufficient data integrity checks in the writing scheme.  Some people
may get it to work, but, it's just pure luck.  Even "Mount Ranier" capable
drives produce too many errors when packet writing a disc no matter what
software we may use.

I've used PowerQuest DriveImage (PQDI) for years to back up to CD and DVD
with absolute success time after time after time.  I'll use Acronis in the
same way as I've used PQDI so that I'll have the best chance for success wit
h
Acronis.

I always use the boot CD method (or boot floppy method) to create the images
.
I just don't trust any imager to be able to create images of OS hard drive
sectors while the OS is active.  M$ Windows is just too powerful at locking
down OS sytem files and the sectors in which they reside.  If I boot the
computer to a floppy or boot to a CD, I know the hard drive is totally under
control and I know that the image software has complete and unrestricted
access to each and every sector on the drive.

After that boot, I use the software to create images and I have the software
break the images into appropriately sized chunks so I can later burn them to
disc.  Then, I use conventional mastering software to create a CD or DVD in 
a
standard ISO9660 format.  Using Nero, I can burn a CD/DVD and have it run a
"data verification" after the burn is complete.  When I burn the disc, I bur
n
it "disc at once" (DAO) and I "close the disc" so that the Table of Contents
(TOC) and the data on the CD are just as simplified and standardized as
possible.

When I restore, I will again boot to CD or floppy and restore in that mode
from the DVD's.

This method has worked perfectly for me for years using other imaging
software.  So, to give my Acronis trial the best odds for success, that's
what I'm going to do.

If it fails even when doing it that way ... I'll move on to something else.

//rus//


mydeadpresidents@yahoo.com wrote in news:1138842813.523294.8860
@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

> I would like to have a backup of my active parition stored on media in
> case of a hard drive failure.  From XP desktop I was able to burn an
> image of my C partition spanning it over 4 CDs.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

I agree DVDs are certainly a better way to go, but in this case I need
to use CDs.  Drive Image 2000 never had a problem doing this. Maybe
I'll go back to that.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Thanks for the response Russ,

>I'll soon be trialing Acronis TI.  I've studied the user forums at Acronis.
>Those forums are full of complaints about corrupt images stored on optical
>media.  You are not alone.

That's too bad because I heard good things about TI9.  What good is
backup software if it can't burn to media?  How much more of a primary
function can you get for an Imager?  For a different PC I burned to DVD
and that seemed to work fine, but now I guess I'd better go back and
test it to make sure.

>Did you burn those 4 CD's using Acronis?  If you did, that could be a
>problem, I think.

Yes, the OS was newly installed and updated and everything was done
with TI9.   TI9 reocognized the image and even told me it had restored
successfully when it was obvious that nothing had really happened.  (It
only looked at 1 of the 4 CDs and for less than a minute before telling
me ti twas finished).

>Acronis says it has to use 3rd party packet writers to do a direct burn to
>optical media.  Nero calls its packet writer InCD.  I think Roxio calls
>theirs Direct To Disc.


>Either way, packet writing to CD and DVD is just prone to error.  There
>aren't sufficient data integrity checks in the writing scheme.  Some people
>may get it to work, but, it's just pure luck.  Even "Mount Ranier" capable
>drives produce too many errors when packet writing a disc no matter what
>software we may use.


>I've used PowerQuest DriveImage (PQDI) for years to back up to CD and DVD
>with absolute success time after time after time.  I'll use Acronis in the
>same way as I've used PQDI so that I'll have the best chance for success wi
th
>Acronis.

You took the words out of my mouth... Untill recently I was using Drive
Image 2002 to backup the PC to CD.  I've never had a problem.  The only
reason I stopped using DI is because I was have permissions issues.
Again, how stupid is it that Imaging software can't write reliably to
CDs?  I guess I'll go back to DI2002.

>I always use the boot CD method (or boot floppy method) to create the image
s.
>I just don't trust any imager to be able to create images of OS hard drive
>sectors while the OS is active.
>M$ Windows is just too powerful at locking
>down OS sytem files and the sectors in which they reside.  If I boot the
>computer to a floppy or boot to a CD, I know the hard drive is totally unde
r
>control and I know that the image software has complete and unrestricted
>access to each and every sector on the drive.

That's a good point.  I raised it in usenet when I was shopping around
for a new Imager after DI but everyone kept assuring me it wasn't an
issue.  After today, I'm going to run TI pre-os.  However, for the
issue at hand I don't really think this is the problem.  TI9 isn't even
bothering to create the parition from the unallocated space and to hear
it from TI9 everything is working fine.


>After that boot, I use the software to create images and I have the softwar
e
>break the images into appropriately sized chunks so I can later burn them t
o
>disc.  Then, I use conventional mastering software to create a CD or DVD in
 a
>standard ISO9660 format.  Using Nero, I can burn a CD/DVD and have it run a
>"data verification" after the burn is complete.  When I burn the disc, I bu
rn
>it "disc at once" (DAO) and I "close the disc" so that the Table of Contents[/vbcol
]
(>TOC) and the data on the CD are just as simplified and standardized
as[vbcol=seagreen]
>possible.

Good advice and it crossed my mind to do this too, but again, that's a
long way to go every time I want to back up data.


>When I restore, I will again boot to CD or floppy and restore in that mode
>from the DVD's.


>This method has worked perfectly for me for years using other imaging
>software.  So, to give my Acronis trial the best odds for success, that's
>what I'm going to do.

Well, if you're right about TI writing to media then I wouldn't
recommend you buying it.  Another thing I like about DI2002 was that
you could just tell it to restart and restore the active partition.
With TI9 you have to go through all the prompts and selections as if
you are about to restore the image and then when TI finds out it's an
active partition you have reboot anyway and go through alll the prompts
again.  No big deal for me but I'm building this PC for somebody else
and that just makes things twice as complicated.  I made them a rescue
CD too, but then they'll have to change the bios to launch that which
is just more hassle.  TI9 does have a automated partitioning backup
system in which it creates some kind of hidden partition for backup
use.  Maybe that would work more smoothly but I haven't played too much
with it.  I'd rather be able to see my backup image and be able to
directly manipulate it.  Sadly, I find TI9 lacking compared to the
simply more antiquated DI2002.  M$ bought out power quest.  Hopefully
they took the best of it and put it into Ghost.  Mabye I'll give that a
try.

>If it fails even when doing it that way ... I'll move on to something else.

Agreed, but you just shouldn't have to do all that.  Thanks for your
time Rus.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 13:54:34 GMT, Rus <me@meander.net> wrote:

>I always use the boot CD method (or boot floppy method) to create the image
s.
>I just don't trust any imager to be able to create images of OS hard drive
>sectors while the OS is active.  M$ Windows is just too powerful at locking
>down OS sytem files and the sectors in which they reside.  If I boot the
>computer to a floppy or boot to a CD, I know the hard drive is totally unde
r
>control and I know that the image software has complete and unrestricted
>access to each and every sector on the drive.

I can understand your hesitation, but I've restored over a dozen
images that were created under WinXP by TI7 or TI8 on a wide variety
of PCs.  I've never seen any difference between these and restoring
images created from the boot CD, which I've done several dozen times.

It's the only way to make automated backups, which is my goal.  It's
far simpler to let it run under Windows.


--
Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

mydeadpresidents@yahoo.com wrote in news:1138893939.130600.41930
@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

> Thanks for the response Russ,

You are most welcome.  I just try to give people benefit from my mistakes.  
I
jumped in on the packet writing wave when it began.  Experts in UseNet tried
to warn me.  I blew them off.  A couple of years later I cried the blues whe
n
I couldn't retrieve some file that I really, really wanted from some packet
written CD's.  I've learned my lesson.

>I guess I'll go back to DI2002.

The Acronis boot CD is cool.  That's what drew me in--Linux boot--without al
l
the work involved in making Knoppix utilize my chosen tools.  I made some
images to hard drive with the Acronis boot CD.  I stopped the trial because
of all the people reporting problems with opticals.

But that Acronis trial left me with an overwhelming desire to have a boot CD
with tools that offered something more than a 16-bit DOS environment and som
e
RAM limit that was too small to be useful.

Then I discovered Bart.  Bart's PE builder.  Wow.

Have you tried using BartPE with DI2002 and PQPM8?  You use your Windows XP
installer disc to create a disc like the Windows PE (Pre-installation
environment.)

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Boots from CD to a 32-bit Windows environment.  People all over the world
help to build plug-ins for it so you can add tools.  FireFox with Java and
Flash are easy to plugin so that you can even Google a problem while CD
booted.

DI2002 works really fast in there.  I'm still working on getting
PartitionMagic 8 to work but I'm close to success.


> M$ bought out power quest.  Hopefully
> they took the best of it and put it into Ghost.  Mabye I'll give that a
> try.



I just try to avoid the "giants" when I can, so I'm avoiding Symantec's Ghos
t
for now.  To tell you the truth, if you look around the web at user forums I
think you'll see people complaining about Ghost as much as they complain
about Acronis.

There's also people who used to complain about DriveImage.  Yet, you and I
now swear by DI as the gold standard.

Before jumping into a Ghost purchase, you might want to look around the web.
People complain about Ghost in many ways--especially the CD and DVD backup
reliability.

One thing about Ghost does impress me, however.  It claims to be able to bac
k
up Windows Dymanic Disks.  I don't know if it's truly successful at doing so
but I'm pretty sure it's the only one to make that claim.  I really wonder i
f
it could even do that on the fly while you work in an active OS?  That would
be cool.  I'm not laying out cash for it until I see some good reports--a
whole bunch of good reports.

//rus//

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Neil Maxwell <neil.maxwell@intel.com> wrote in
 news:j3s4u114dfmr24qa4aeordkbflidebtnjj@
4ax.com:

>
> I can understand your hesitation, but I've restored over a dozen
> images that were created under WinXP by TI7 or TI8 on a wide variety
> of PCs.  I've never seen any difference between these and restoring
> images created from the boot CD, which I've done several dozen times.
>
> It's the only way to make automated backups, which is my goal.  It's
> far simpler to let it run under Windows.
>
>
> --
> Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

Well.  Okay.  You've convinced me that I'm a fool for totally overlooking th
e
possibility.  I'll try it.

I finally got some removable drive bays that work so I can go back to
swapping boot drives in this computer.

I'll use TI9 to make some experimental active backups and recoveries to see
how things go.

I really want some automated backup method because if it's easy I'm more
likely to do it more frequently--but--I don't want to give up reliable just
to get easy.

//rus//

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Rus <me@meander.net> wrote
> mydeadpresidents@yahoo.com wrote
 
[vbcol=seagreen]
> You are most welcome.  I just try to give people benefit from my
> mistakes.  I jumped in on the packet writing wave when it began.
> Experts in UseNet tried to warn me.  I blew them off.  A couple of
> years later I cried the blues when I couldn't retrieve some file that
> I really, really wanted from some packet written CD's.  I've learned
> my lesson.
 
[vbcol=seagreen]
> The Acronis boot CD is cool.  That's what drew me in--Linux
> boot--without all the work involved in making Knoppix utilize my
> chosen tools.  I made some images to hard drive with the Acronis boot
> CD.  I stopped the trial because of all the people reporting problems
> with opticals.

> But that Acronis trial left me with an overwhelming desire to have a
> boot CD with tools that offered something more than a 16-bit DOS
> environment and some RAM limit that was too small to be useful.

> Then I discovered Bart.  Bart's PE builder.  Wow.

> Have you tried using BartPE with DI2002 and PQPM8?

The problem with that approach is that DI has one hell of a problem
with permissions when restoring NTFS partitions which basically
means its essentially unusuable with modern XP configs.

> You use your Windows XP installer disc to create a
> disc like the Windows PE (Pre-installation environment.)

> http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

> Boots from CD to a 32-bit Windows environment.  People
> all over the world help to build plug-ins for it so you can
> add tools.  FireFox with Java and Flash are easy to plugin
> so that you can even Google a problem while CD booted.

> DI2002 works really fast in there.

But has a massive problem with permissions and NTFS partitions.

> I'm still working on getting PartitionMagic 8
> to work but I'm close to success.
 

Symantec did, not MS.
[vbcol=seagreen] 

Its grossly inferior to TI, you cant even create an image
from a bootable CD at all, it has to be installed on the
system before you can create an image.

You cant even clone from a bootable CD either, and that
means its completely useless for cloning hard drives.
[vbcol=seagreen] 

I did, and dumped it quick smart when I did.
[vbcol=seagreen]
> I just try to avoid the "giants" when I can, so I'm avoiding
> Symantec's Ghost for now.  To tell you the truth, if you look
> around the web at user forums I think you'll see people
> complaining about Ghost as much as they complain about Acronis.

Much more actually, partly because ghost is more widely used
and also because it just cant do some of what TI can do at all.

> There's also people who used to complain about DriveImage.
> Yet, you and I now swear by DI as the gold standard.

No it isnt, it was completely XXXXed with nic support when the
nic wasnt in its native list, tho not quite as XXXXed as Ghost 2003.

> Before jumping into a Ghost purchase, you might want
> to look around the web. People complain about Ghost
> in many ways--especially the CD and DVD backup reliability.

I've never thought that creating images to CD and DVD directly
made much sense, particularly when more than one disk is involved.
Makes more sense to make disk sized image files to the hard drive
and then burn them all at once to the optical media.

> One thing about Ghost does impress me, however.  It claims
> to be able to back up Windows Dymanic Disks.  I don't know
> if it's truly successful at doing so but I'm pretty sure it's the only
> one to make that claim.  I really wonder if it could even do that
> on the fly while you work in an active OS?  That would be cool.

No technical reason why it couldnt, but it basically gives up much
too easily with incremental images and starts again from scratch,
losing the whole point of incremental images in the first place.

> I'm not laying out cash for it until I see some
> good reports--a whole bunch of good reports.

I always run a pirate copy for a while, not going to waste my money
on that steaming turd now unless they can demostrate that they have
fixed all the problems that are inevitable with ghost. And I certainly
wont be bothering with it until it can image and clone from a booted CD.

The other XXXXed thing about ghost is that it needs net framework too.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Rus <me@meander.net> wrote in  news:Xns975ED128018D19827098230498710239
8@
216.148.227.77:

> Neil Maxwell <neil.maxwell@intel.com> wrote in
>  news:j3s4u114dfmr24qa4aeordkbflidebtnjj@
4ax.com:
> 
>
> Well.  Okay.  You've convinced me that I'm a fool for totally overlooking
the
> possibility.  I'll try it.
>
>
> //rus//
>

I worked night shift last night so I was up most of the night last night.
During that time, I used Acronis TI9 to store an image on another hard
drive.

I triple boot Win98se, Win2K, and WinXP from the main drive.  I created
images of that drive and stored those images on another hard drive.  I
performed the process from Windows 2000.

I broke the image into 1.2GB chunks.  So far so good.  Image chunks were
created and stored without a hitch.

I'll burn those chunks to DVD.  It should take 2 discs.

I've got a duplicate hard drive partitioned exactly as the one from which I
created the images.

I'll try restoring those DVD archived images to the duplicate drive and
then see what happens.  I'll be using the Acronis bootCD to fire up the
process.

I'll be burning the DVD's using Nero in conventional mastering format using
strict ISO specs.

If Acronis turns out to be successful, I guess I'll have to add a command
line to the process so that I can set the computer to make a full backup
and then shut itself down when done.  In that way, I can set the backup to
occur when I'm done using the computer and it will shut itself off when the
backup process is complete.

//rus//

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]