True Image - Corrupt images

[Phil Rabichow]

I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem. I save an image to an external hard drive. Then I save incremental images to the save hard drive. Eventually, they corrupt. I called Roxco support & they told me NOT to defrag an external drive, unless the manufacturer specifically says to. Using Perfect Disk, the drive shows as not being fragmented. Using Windows deframenter, it shows 90% file fragmentation. If I defrag with Perfect Disk, the images stay corrupt & good ones become corrupt. If I defrag with Windows defragmenter, it sometimes "cures" the corruption. Anyone have any ideas? I don't know whether to be disappointed in True Image, Perfect Disk, or my external drives.
Thanks,

[JohnGray]

I defragment my external hard disk occasionally using the ordinary Windows XP defragmenter. I found it took absolutely ages until I changed the cluster size from 512 bytes to the usual NTFS default of 4 KB.

A defragmenter should <big>never, ever</big> corrupt files on a disk! A TrueImage file should just be Just Another File to the file system and to a defragmenter.

"Assignment of Blame Meeting" for Raxco, I would suggest! (Presuming that TrueImage has written the files correctly...)

John

[bleduc]

Hi Phil,
I use True Image and store my images in True Image's Secure Zone - a drive partitiion that only True Image has access to. Can't see it, can't save to it (other than images), can't defrag it. Maybe that says something (insinuates it) in the background <img src=/S/question.gif border=0 alt=question width=15 height=15>.

Bob

[Phil Rabichow]

I agree, John, although I've also had the experience of running True Image & having a file verified for several days (as I do incrementals), & then show up corrupt. I can always explore the corrupt image & copy files (of course, I can only spot check). There are times that I can make a complete image & it will start out corrupt. However, if I choose a fixed size of about 3.1 Gigs, TI will divide up the image & it comes out OK (even though both externals are NTFS). This is without doing any defrag.

I also have an external firewire drive (FAT 32) & I can back up to that drive without problems. I have a feeling that more than one thing is going on. I took the computer to Comp USA for a diagnostic, but they couldn't find anything wrong (except that they said the drive was fragmented).

I also have Norton Protected Recycle Bin on the computer. When I checked the drive once with Windows defragger, it showed about 47% fragmented. I purged all the protected files & the count went down to about 3%. Trying to put all this together makes my head swim. <img src=/S/dizzy.gif border=0 alt=dizzy width=15 height=15>

[Phil Rabichow]

Hi Bob:
Thanks for responding. I haven't used the SZ yet. The problem I see with it is that I would like to make backups that I can remove from the computer, in case something happens. With SZ, as I understand it, if that drive gets trashed, your backup is toast. I'd use CDs, except backing up to an external hard drive is so much faster.

[viking33]

Phil,
I don't know if I'm getting this right or not but if you create an image using True Image, then leave it alone!
You can use TI to verify the image that was created OK. If all is well with the image, I don't see how it can then become corrupted by another process. I really <big>don't think you should try to defrag an image file.</big>
The people at Raxio Perfect Disk have already said this and I think TI will agree.

How do you tell that the image is being corrupted?


You might want to send an email to ACRONIS at: support@acronis.com to get their opinion of this.

[Pilgrim]

Phil,

Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers after reading your post. Granted, this first question is very elementary but it won't hurt to ask. When you create your Incremental image(s), and then when you are asked to point to a previous image you have created, you are clicking on the Full image, correct? and not the last Incremental image you created? Secondly.... I cannot understand how an image can be corrupted after it has been verified as being okay. Even if you defragged the partition where your images are stored, the images themselves aren't (or supposed to be) defragmented since their component parts (individual files) aren't used such as is done with an application which interacts with various other files on your HDD. I have defragged a partition with Perfect Disk on my external USB drive where I store backups of all my applications and some important data because they are changed almost daily (overwritten, deleted, moved, etc.) and I've never had a problem with any of them being corrupted.

Like I said, I'm left with more questions and no answers so forgive my not offering any help. <img src=/S/grin.gif border=0 alt=grin width=15 height=15>

Jeff

[skitterbug]

Does it make any difference what drive letter is assigned to your external HD when the original image is created and then when the incremental images are created? I have assigned a drive letter to my Seagate when their program couldn't find the proper path to do routine scheduled backups for my XP box. And now that I used True Image to make an image of the Win98SE HD (that I am "STILL" fussing with - that story will be continued in the appropriate thread sometime soon!, I also made sure to use my designated drive letter. I kept getting corrupted images until I did this. And I restore from the same drive path too! Maybe I am paranoid but it did make a difference for me! <img src=/S/yep.gif border=0 alt=yep width=15 height=15>

[Howard Kaikow]

Whether a drive is external or internal matters not.
Defrag is a file system issue, got nothing to do with the drive itself.

[Howard Kaikow]

NO file will be affected by defragging, unless a brain-dead image format is used.
A file is nothing more than a stream of bytes.

If TI is using an image format that is sensitive to defragging, then avoid TI.

[viking33]

Howard,
Just what is it that you have against True Image?
It seems that at every opportunity, you will lash out about SOMETHING pertaining to TI.
Why is that?

[charlotte]

And can you suggest a non-brain dead alternative, Howard? It's very easy to criticize but unless you can suggest an alternative, the criticism isn't particularly useful.

[Howard Kaikow]

If the assertion that defrag screws up a TI image is true, and it is unclear from the posts here whether it is, then the TI format has serious shortcomings.

The alternatives would be another "image" backup program, if it does not have that same shortcoming, or one of the traditional back up programs.

I think that they ke is the following from page 7 of the Acronis user guide:

"An incremental image created after a disk is defragmented might be considerably larger than ususal. This is because the defragmentation program changes the location on disk and incremental images reflect these changes."

So defragmentation is not precluded with TI, but it appears that their format is sensitive fo defragging working correctly and the way TI creates a, for wont of a better term, "virtual image".

I suspect that ALL the image based backup programs have susceptibility in this area. Which does it best, I dunno?
Phil seems to have run into a problem situation.

Traditional backup programs are less prone to get in trouble due to defragging, unless they too make dumb decisions in their backup format.

TI is not really creating an image, rather it is creating a "virtual image" that does NOT include ALL sectors on a drive. See clause 1.3 in the TI user guide.

[charlotte]

But what would be the point of defragging an image file in the first place? I must be missing the point. <img src=/S/shrug.gif border=0 alt=shrug width=39 height=15>

[Rebel]

Off the topic of this thread, but what product did you use to change the cluster size? Apart from the length of time for a defrag, what other benefits are there to a 4KB size? One of my notebooks shipped with the FAT system and I did the "convert" routine (which I believe defaults to a 512 byte cluster size).