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
    2020-08-14T14:24:46+00:00

    Hi,

    By chance, is the machine trying to boot into Safe Mode ?

    There have been a lot of issues lately of machines refusing to accept a password when attempting to enter Safe Mode..

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-14T15:13:52+00:00

    I don't know how to tell if it is booting into Safe Mode. I just press the power button to start it, it goes to a login page, and with the user name being a gmail address, so I'm guessing it's an overall Microsoft account login.

    I just find some code torun when booted from an external install drive and going to command promot on that disk's Advanced Startup. It appears to delete the password file from the C partition, and then you use code to set a new one. Then restart. I hate to try a code on someone else's computer that I have not tested previously. I might or might not try that. First I will see if we can get the correct password from the friend. It looks like the code will work, from some other things I have seen from a Google. There is just one step in it that I don't like, until I've done it and see it is no issue.

    I see there are applications out there to do it (if you're afraid of running the code yourself), and even Microsoft puts out a disk to do it, although it is generally available only to repair shops. If you use your overall Microsoft account to do your login, you can access that on the Internet and make the change by verifying wiht your personal information. (Gee, I have no idea what e-mail and password I used when I first installed the OS on my Gateway and it makes you create a Microsfot account.)

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-15T01:55:01+00:00

    Hi,

    You might have your friend check the password again.. I do not think it is possible to use a gmail account as a Microsoft Account for a login..

    It would need to a MSN, Hotmail, Live, or Outlook email, although there may be additional Microsoft email addresses that I am not aware of..

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-15T02:33:19+00:00

    Oh, I did make my friend contact the woman again, but she knows nothing other than the one wrong password she had given him.

    I ran that code and the rest of the method. Strange, when I ran the code to get a list of all users on the computer, the one with the gmail address was not listed. It listed only Guest, and that as administrator. So, I did manage to change the password on that. But when it boot, it automatically gives you the gmail address as the user, and no way to change it. It does not list Guest.

    So, we can't do this. The woman can get online at Microsoft and change her passord, using some identifying info only she knows.

    While I was looking into things today, I saw something saying a LOT of Windows users now use their Microsoft account to log into Windows, and that is an e-mail address as user, apparently

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-15T02:44:32+00:00

    (1) OK, that's right, you have to boot to Windows in order to do an upgrade/repair-install. And it can't even be Safe Mode. So you definitely need that password, unless that trick you found will work. I've read they don't work anymore, not since the early days of Win 10. But I am too honest & straight-laced to ever know for sure.

    (2) "But, now I even more want to know how to boot to Advanced Recovery on my Gateway, I would be able to boot to DVD or USB without having to deal with bios switching from UEFI to Legacy."

    I clearly recall I had a problem booting DVD on this Dell Inspiron 3542 early on. There was a boot item for it that showed up whenever I went to the BIOS Boot Option menu (F12) whether I had a DVD inserted or not. That worked for my DiscWizard Bootable Media, but not for a Windows Installation DVD.

    So I constructed a boot item for the Installation DVD in BIOS Setup at the Boot screen by clicking "File Browser Add Boot Item". I can't quite recall the choices there, but I guess I went for Setup.exe. It worked to boot my Installation DVD, but I never knew whether that constituted an actual UEFI boot.

    Then, using "File Browser Del Boot Item", I deleted that one & also deleted the original one. After that, nothing showed up when I did F12 -- unless I had a DVD inserted into the drive. But the one that shows up then boots both the DiscWizard CD & a Windows Installation DVD.

    But I know nothing of Gateway.

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