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
    2020-08-03T04:31:59+00:00

    (1) What we discovered (I think) is that -- once the BCD is rewritten with a letter in it -- every reboot brings the letter back to the partition in Windows too. Partition 6 is not mentioned in your BCD, so a letter on it won't matter. Only your Windows partition (C:) & your Recovery partition are mentioned in your BCD. So -- go ahead & do that DISM. You'll be able to remove the letter afterward.

    (2) "and we now have cleared those files from BCD, so those are no longer available to delete in order to force BCD to re-whatever"

    You've got nine more useless entries in your BCD. Here is the next one...

    Windows Boot Loader

    identifier           {49275add-50fb-4501-8b3b-7df483700c94}

    device              unknown                                       <<< Nothing to load -- where is it?

    path                  \Windows\system32\winload.efi

    description       Windows

    osdevice           unknown

    systemroot       \Windows

    nx                     OptIn

    It's harmless, but unsightly. It used to load a copy of Windows, or it was in construction to load one. But it's got no device (partition that holds Windows). I can only guess why you've got so many of those. Something sloppy must have been going on. Delete it with...

    BCDEdit  /Delete  {49275add-50fb-4501-8b3b-7df483700c94}

    That deletes the entire entry -- all of the lines above. And you'll have eight more entries to go. Careful, only delete the ones that say "device    unknown", though.

    (3) "Yes, I can male a backup of the drive today. Although, don’t we need only a backup of part 6?"

    It locks in the good we've already done with Partition 5 (WinRE.wim) to back it all up. Also, we're going to mess with settings in parts unknown, if we do a ReagentC /SetOSImage regarding Partition 6 (Install.wim). I thought they would be in the BCD. They aren't, but must be somewhere.

    I wish it wouldn't take hours for you to make an image, though. If/when Acronis no longer forces a sector by sector, it should be much quicker, just as you say. Anyway, DiscWizard is well under 15 minutes for me -- & I expect that would only triple, if I had a horribly bloated Gateway Win 8 like you.

    (4) "BTW, your comment about getting space moved between sectors, I might be able to basically leap frog over partitions by using Partition Wizard."

    If we grab sectors from C:partition (shrink it) & leap frog them rightward past Partition 6 (so that we can have a partition 7), what happens is that Partition 6 moves leftward into sectors once held by C:partition.

    (5) I found this...

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/add-a-custom-tool-to-the-windows-re-boot-options-menu

    Add a custom tool to the Windows RE boot options menu

    -

    That could be required to establish the actual push button we've been looking for. I think Gateway did something like that to put it into Advanced Startup. And it's gone now because Windows decided to wipe it in 2017 when it overwrote the WinRE.wim that was in Partition 6.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-03T04:54:25+00:00

    OK, will do DISM tomorrow.

    1. Well, you saw the R on BCD, but later when I looked, it was not there. Who knows. It worked.
    2. Already made the backup. You have to expect mine to take at least twice as long as your’s, it have twice as much. Still, I find it hard to believe you are doing a full disk back in 15 minutes. Are you sure you’re not simply doing an incremental backup, that’s about the time an incremental backup might take?

    RE what we are doing, we can delete the wim on pat 6 now, my thoughts when I said to keep it were as backup if something went bad for us on part 5, but that is now fixed. We only want the one file on part 6 now. So, I don’t think we will need to Reagent anything, but I don’t knowhow the wim on part 5 will sync with the OS on part 6.

    1. Oh, it moves to new sectors, and big reason to deal with part 6 now is— sectors, that’s the main point. OK.
    2. Not following that, but that tool might be handy as we work on part 6, OK.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-03T07:04:04+00:00

    (1) Right, R was in the BCD because we put one on Partition 5. That's immediate, but it won't cause the BCD to rewrite even with a reboot. Something did cause it to rewrite -- ReagentC, I think -- with the R in it. Then, no matter how many times we would reboot, R came back onto the partition (because it was in the BCD). We could take it out of the BCD by taking it off the partition. That's immediate too -- but it wouldn't rewrite just by doing that. We had to force it to rewrite. Partition 6 won't have that problem because it isn't in the BCD. If all of that isn't true, then I'm not a full 86% genius.

    (2) "I find it hard to believe you are doing a full disk back in 15 minutes. Are you sure you’re not simply doing an incremental backup,"

    No incrementals for me. Finally, I made my DiscWizard image of 2004...

    Each of my images is in a .tib of its own. That's all the partitions in a single .tib. I just did it, don't ask why it says yesterday's date. It took 11 minutes to make & another 3 to verify. It said 46.5 GB were getting imaged (Windows says C: is 46.2 GB), so that's somewhat less than 50% compression. It isn't a sector by sector. The DVD booted to a screen that said "Starting Acronis UEFI Loader (x64) (v.1.1.36)".

    And here is my Windows system image backup really made yesterday...

    Because I rename the computer folder (to include OS Build) immediately after making the backup, it won't be an incremental. That one has a separate .vhdx for each partition. The compression is much less. It took 13 minutes to complete.

    Edit: That's on an external USB 3.0 Seagate 2TB HDD plugged into a 3.0 port. USB 2.0 can be over 10 times slower.

    (3) We have to think more about Partition 6. I think it is dysfunctional now & may require a 98% genius to fix. Also, it's madness to fix it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-03T15:39:03+00:00

    Just ran your DISM cmd. Here is the readout. Odd, says it is 25 GB, so how does it fit on a 15 GB partition?:

    Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19041.388]

    (c) 2020 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    C:\WINDOWS\system32>DiskPart

    Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.1

    Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.

    On computer: COMPUTER

    DISKPART> Select  Disk  0

    Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

    DISKPART> Select  Part  6

    Partition 6 is now the selected partition.

    DISKPART> Assign  Letter=X

    DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

    DISKPART> Exit

    Leaving DiskPart...

    C:\WINDOWS\system32>DISM  /Get-WimInfo  /WimFile:X:\RecoveryImage\Install.wim  /Index:1

    Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool

    Version: 10.0.19041.329

    Details for image : X:\RecoveryImage\Install.wim

    Index : 1

    Name : Factory Default Image Backup

    Description : <undefined>

    Size : 24,529,024,771 bytes

    WIM Bootable : No

    Architecture : x64

    Hal : acpiapic

    Version : 6.2.9200

    ServicePack Build : 16384

    ServicePack Level : <undefined>

    Edition : <undefined>

    Installation : <undefined>

    ProductType : WinNT

    ProductSuite : Terminal Server

    System Root : WINDOWS

    Directories : 21943

    Files : 109836

    Created : 9/3/2012 - 12:43:27 AM

    Modified : 9/7/2012 - 2:19:25 AM

    Languages :

            en-US (Default)

    The operation completed successfully.

    C:\WINDOWS\system32>

    C:\WINDOWS\system32>DiskPart

    Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.1

    Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.

    On computer: COMPUTER

    DISKPART> Select  Disk  0

    Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

    DISKPART>

    DISKPART> Select  Part  6

    Partition 6 is now the selected partition.

    DISKPART> Remove  Letter=X

    DiskPart successfully removed the drive letter or mount point.

    DISKPART> Exit

    Leaving DiskPart...

    C:\WINDOWS\system32>

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-03T15:49:56+00:00
    1. I don't see any reason to presume part 6 is dysfunctional. Nonetheless, we will be using a new one anyway. Its a partition we are going to delete, and then create a new one. And simply put one file on it.

    Other than that, we have to link that file as it might be supposed to be linked to the file in Part 5. I don't know, will the Recovery Folder on part 5 automatically look for this file and link? When an OS upgrade installs a new Recovery folder on part 5, will that automatically find and make the link? Or, will the upgrade go back to putting the Recovery folder on the same part of this file?

    I suggest we can copy or move that file on Part 6 to my external backup drive, and then when we have the new partition, move it back to that. Then do whatever we might need to make it all work.

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