Trouble Making Image Backup with Acronia True Image 2016 -- apparent misread of space

Anonymous
2020-06-18T23:54:58+00:00

I have been trying for days now to make a backup image of my internal Windows 10 hard drive, fully updated to current Windows 10 level May 2020. I have been using Acronis True Image 2016, as I always do. I have been backing up to an external, USB2 connected hard drive with 160 GB of free space on it (a 320 GB hard drive), the same drive I normally backup to. This is a Gateway laptop, NE56R from 2012, which shipped with Windows 8.

I have been trying to backup all partitions, including the C, and recovery partitions (including the Push Button one, which is about 15 GB) and whatever others are there. In total, they are about 109 GB. So I ought to have plenty enough free space.

I have checked all partitions to back up with True Image. It runs the whole backup, takes a good five hours. At the end, it throws up amessage saying ther eis not enough space for the image.

I have never had this problem before. The machine is booted from the True Image disk, so that should rule out some issue wiht my Widows 10 OS. I am doing a full disk backup, and I am even using Maximum Compression, which is what I always use, so I should need something lessthatn 109 GB of free space. and Ihave 160 GB of free space on the external drive.

I have a backup of Win 10 I made in April, shortly before the new OS level cam out on the drive -- I always keep two, just because. I deleted the older of the two on there, so now have only the one. I certainly don't want to delete the one on there, and still have this problem but no backup at all. But Ihave more free space than shudbe needed.

The external drive has been used only for backups since I started using it brand new, and I make a backup once or twice a year -- and I have been using it no more than four years. So, the external drive has very little, hardly any actual use on it, it is not far from brand new.

I read something this morning about a real problem found in the new Win 10 update, something to do with Storage Space, that is some sort of function in the OS now. I don't know what that is, or what it does. But the story said if your drive is not showing as RAW, then it should be OK, not affected. I checked Disk Management, and none of my volumes nor the external drive are marked as RAW. So, that should mean that issue is not the case here.

I have done enough backups in the past four years using the Acronis True Image 2016 software. It has always worked fine, and actually with less free space (I had another item on the drive too, but have deleted it. I also have deleterd about 32 GB of stuff from my C drive in an attempt to make this backup fit, but to no avail -- that is, my last two backups were actually larger than this one, and they fit fine.)

So, why do I keep getting the message about not enough space? I should have way more than enough.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-07-19T02:10:49+00:00

    Hi,

    As we discussed... There may not be Bad Sectors on the actual new drive... It does not seem possible that both drives physically could have bad sectors on the same partitions.. It is possible there were bad sectors on the original drive and Acronis was unable to get a good read of the Data on them.. As a result, Acronis copied the data as best as it could, and is now appearing as Bad Sectors because of the odd way the data was written.. A Bad Sector is normally a failed spot on the magnetic coating of a HDD platter... It can not be copied to another drive... But the corrupted data can be, giving the appearance of a physical problem..

    What usually happens when Windows repairs Bad Sectors is that it rewrites the data somewhere else if possible, and marks the bad spot on the drive.. This normally would appear in the SMART data which tools like CrystalDiskInfo read.. I did not see any evidence of this..

    If you deleted partition 5 and expanded C:, which is what you would need to do, the physical bad sectors would end up on C:.. But... After the upgrade, that same area would mostly be used for the replacement Recovery partition... But not all of it..

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-19T02:34:12+00:00

    Well, it might or night not have bad sectors. But if was made by the February image, not the OS now on the old hard drive. I think that one had bad sectors in C as well.

    But chkdsk says no bad sectors. CrystalDiskSomething reading is there, I don't know what it says about sectors. But of those, I least believe Acrponis. Yo might reall, that issue we had some yeas back turned out to be that the size Acronis was saying it would turn out was very false, not even close. It was well more than that, which was about 5 GB more than the empty space. I deleted that much, and the backup worked. So, after that, and at least the chkdisk in conflict with Acronis, I believe Acronis the least.

    And I'd rather let any bad sectors not get to C.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-07-19T02:48:06+00:00

    Hi,

    That being the case, anything you put there could get corrupted, and what is there now may be useless..

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-07-19T03:03:20+00:00

    Yes. Yet if I leave it there, nothing useful gets corrupted. But, if I change my mind, can delete befor =e upgrading next time, and get a new #5.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-07-19T05:00:58+00:00

    (1) CHKDSK examined your clusters/sectors in partition 5 & found no problem. Had it found a problem, it would have attempted to recover any data & put it into a .chk file(s) (written onto partition 5, maybe in a "Found" folder). Also, it would mark the sector(s) as unusable. Then Windows wouldn't use it for folders & files.

    I'm thinking CHKDSK, itself, wouldn't consider a sector(s) already marked bad in its next run. So, there may be bad sectors marked unusable from a prior run (Windows might even run it automatically) -- that maybe Acronis does still see. I see in my DiscWizard .pdf there is a way to have Acronis ignore those errors. Maybe just do that.

    I also guess the HDD itself has firmware aboard that marks sectors bad when necessary. Then Windows & CHKDSK won't see them & won't ever use them. But maybe Acronis does see them.

    (2) Partition 5 has an old WinRE.wim inside. Older ones are not supposed to be used. If you want, we can try to move the 2004 WinRE.wim from partition 6 into partition 5. I would move the entire Recovery folder. If you put the letter R back on partition 6, then...

    DIR  R:\Recovery  /a  /s

    ...will show all the folders & files I'd want to move...

    Then, we can point Windows to it using ReagentC. Otherwise, I believe Slance310 when he says you may just delete it & let it regenerate when the next Windows version comes in. Actually, maybe that's best. But you'd have to use an external recovery environment until then. That means plugging in your Win Installation USB drive, booting to it, & selecting "Repair your computer" (instead of to install).

    (3) I know Shift+Restart didn't work for that computer. You say the other way works...?...

    "START, Settings, Update & Security, Recovery, Restart Now (under Advanced Startup)"

    That's where you have the "Choose an option" screen. If there, what version does the Command Prompt say it is, at "Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt"? I think it will be 2004, but with a lesser OS Build (which is OK)...

    And that will prove the WinRE.wim on partition 6 is the active one.

    (4) I think partition 6 should be repurposed to hold Acronis images. We'd delete & recreate it with a letter. Then, see whether Acronis will offer the letter when asked to make an image. But I don't think you'll be able to make sector by sector images. Also -- it isn't as good as putting images on an external drive. If the internal drive crashes, it takes all the partitions with it.

    You could have just one/two images on the internal drive for when you go on the road. But bring your Bootable Media with you.

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