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
    2020-08-14T00:13:02+00:00

    I’m surprised I have something to add already. This is related to our talk that I can always use my Win 10 bootable install DVD rather than rely on the Win 8 image of part 6. I just found out that might not be so.

    A friend had a Lenovo laptop from a woman he knows. They needed help installing some karaoke software on it. So I went over to help, he needed me because he doesn’t know anything, and because the software is in English and he’s not good at that, he is from Thailand.

    We could not get it to boot, because the password the woman gave him kept failing. To cut to the quick, everything I tried failed, several things.

    I agreed to take it home and try some things. Among other things, I tried running the Reset of the OS from Advanced Startup, it ran for a little but then quit, saying it had run into a problem, and so did not change anything. Oh isn’t that great.

    So, I fell back on the Win 10 May 2020 install DVD. Never mind the hell trying to get into bios, which I had to change to boot to Legacy rather than UEFI (have to do that to boot a DVD). After a lot of time, I finally got it booted to the DVD. I started the installer, it started running. After a little bit, it stopped. It gave a message saying that I cannot “upgrade” the OS when booted from the DVD drive (I think it actually said external or something like that). It said I have to boot from the internal drive and run it from there.

    Wow! Then its useless when your problem is that you can’t boot!

    From the message, it said “upgrade.” I don’t know what version of Win 10 is on the machine, but it is Win 10. But it might be that that installer was for upgrading to the May 2020 version, so might be that no matter what is on the machine, it recognized an upgrade installer and will not run it other than from the booted internal drive.

    The main point to even use that is because you can’t boot, the other functions are in Advanced Startup. But, now I learn you can’t use it unless you boot to the internal drive! If so, that is NOT a usable backup.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-14T01:10:09+00:00

    An Installation drive can do an upgrade/repair-install or a clean install. To do an upgrade/repair-install, you must boot to Windows (that's right), then plug in the DVD & one way or another start Setup.exe. So, a computer that can't boot to Windows can't do an upgrade/repair-install.

    To do a clean install, you must boot directly to the DVD which is what was done. But then you must click the buttons that start a clean install (instead of the ones for an upgrade-install). It's unfortunate the buttons for an upgrade/repair-install are still there under the circumstance. That's a failing of MSFT. What to click is in the following article, but...

    (a) Boot directly to the Installation DVD as you did before.

    (b) If you know she has a partition she wants to keep, don't delete them all.

    (c) Edit: As Slance310 says, set the BIOS for UEFI. Then insert the DVD, reboot pressing the F-Key that goes to the BIOS Boot Screen, & select to boot the DVD from the UEFI option, which probably is preceded by the word "UEFI:".

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4000735/windows-10-reinstall

    Reinstall Windows 10

    Use the installation media to perform a clean install

    Connect the installation media you created to your PC and perform a clean install of Windows 10.

    1. When the first Windows screen appears, choose the options that best suit your needs, and then select Next.
    2. Select Install now, and then check the I accept box. Select Next, and then select Custom: Install Windows only (advanced). Your device will now display a list of drives and partitions. If multiple disks are displayed, you’ll only need to delete all partitions from the disk where you want to install Windows.
    3. Highlight each drive/partition in the list and select Delete. When the Windows Setup notification appears, select OK.
    4. Complete step 3 for every drive in the list except the one that says Unallocated Space. When you’re finished, only Drive 0 Unallocated Space should remain.
    5. Select Next.
    6. The Windows setup screen will now display Installing Windows. When the installation is complete, your device will restart. When this happens, it may try to restart from the external storage device. If the initial Windows setup screen requests you choose you language/keyboard layout, remove the external storage drive from your device and select OK. This will restart your device.
    7. Once the installation is complete and your device has restarted, select the preferences and settings you’d like for your device.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-14T02:33:41+00:00

    Hi,

    If you are switching the Bios to Legacy to boot from a DVD, you will probably not be able to install into UEFI Bios, if that is what is in use..

    You need to try hitting F12, or whatever the machine uses and select the UEFI version of the DVD.. If this is not possible, download the 2004 installation media to a Flash Drive..

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-14T02:49:56+00:00

    I think in your first sentence, you must mean an installation DISK. And installation “drive” can only be any disk with an installer.

    There are no options for upgrade install or clean install. The options are only whether to keep all files and applications or not. And that only from the bootable install disk; doing the reset installation out of Advanced Startup allows only to save files, not application you have added, or not, there is noway to save the applications. At least that is all I had for options.

    Well, by repair/install, maybe you mean if I went into the repair function and used the Reset. I tried that from Advanced Startup, but by the time I booted the OS install drive, all I was trying to do was run the installer.

    The installer doesn’t delete partitions, it installs the OS on the designated partitions, which by default is the C partition. It generally will not install an older OS over the top of a newer one. I wasn’t positive it would install the Mat 2020 updates over an existing May 2020 update, but that wasn’t the issue I ran into. The issue I ran into is that the installer will not install to any partition other than the one it is running from.

    From these instructions you listed about doing it, that is how to doit via Advanced Started. Something seems to be missing between #2 and #3. At #2, it is doing a restart to Advanced Startup, so what is #3? Starting to Advanced Startup does not take you to a page asking you to select a device. I used the Reset function out of Advanced Startup, which is supposed to use the recovery partition with the basic OS install to install the OS anew, and gives the option only of saving the personal files on the drive, not the personal applications. I see no Use a Device options in Advanced Startup. I see only an issue of using what is on the internal drive.

    But, Advanced Startup is the drive I would be installing the OS to, so if I could access the DVD from there, it might actually do the installation. But, as I just said, I see nothing to pick a device to run something from.

    Unless it can be run out of Advanced Startup, then it can’t help if I can’t boot the drive. I see what those instructions are saying, but I’ve never seen any place to pick a device in Advanced Startup.

    The real issue is that its stupid to make you boot to the drive you’re installing to, yet Microsoft even explains how you can bale a bootable OS install DVD. I’ve never even heard of not being above to boot from an external drive in order to install an OS.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-14T02:58:57+00:00

    slance, yes, to boot a DVD (or USB flash drive), you must switch bios to Legacy. But you might have a point there, about it not nstalling to UEFI from a Lecacy boot. But there is simply a DVD, not Legacy or UEFI version, and same for the flash drive. Boot Manager on that machine doesn’t see the USB flash drive (I tried it with the install ISO on it) or the DVD until bios are set to Legacy. If set as UEFI, it sees nothing of those.

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