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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

270 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-07T02:46:39+00:00

    Yes, part 6 appears to be just like it was to start out — although we can’t know that about everything, Now next time you get into 22 pages of a forum thread writing code for someone to play around with partitions, you will know that much more. :)

    I was surprised it did not much affect the time frame for the backups. I thought it might knock it back to maybe two hours.

    BTW, I kept much of the code we ran, I was putting them in text files. Will probably never need to use it, but I have it if I need it. I was able to follow much of it once you wrote it, and thanks for the explanations of what it was doing.

    So, as they say in Hollywood, that’s a wrap. :) And I really do appreciate all the work and effort you went to to help out, I know that was a lot. You’re one of the good guys.

    Oh, I did one more try holdng down Shift while doing a restart, and while doing a cold startup. No difference, still does not boot to Advanced Startup. And yes, I tried both shift keys.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-06T22:07:52+00:00

    So Partition 6 survived in /Info -- hmm. Well, it did come back as 6 after delete/recreate. Also, there was no reboot between the delete & recreate. So, I'm not overly surprised. Good to know it wasn't affected.

    My own system images seem to creep upwardly in size too. It can be lessened somewhat at "START, Settings, System, Storage, Temporary Files". I generally delete the big ones there before making a new system image. If the item named "Windows update cleanup" (or some such) exists, it can be several GB huge & is expendable. But careful you don't delete your Downloads folder.

    OK, I think we are done & have been successful. Good going making a new set of backups. Good luck. Keep us informed of any further developments.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-08-06T19:13:36+00:00

    OK, I have made the backups. And just for your curiosity:

    First backed up the 15 GB Push Button partition only. That took 8-8.5 minutes, only maybe a minute to maybe a 1.5 minutes faster. It was not a sector-by-sector backup.

    Just finished backing up all five partitions in a full backup, not sector-by-sector. It took about 2.5 hours, maybe 15 minutes to 30 minutes faster. The image file size came in agt 5 GB bigger than the one I made just a couple days ago to make sure I had a version with the good part 5 on it. I expected it might come in smaller, don't know where it found an extra 5 GB.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-06T14:36:23+00:00

    I just ran the ReagentC /Info command. It does see the Recovery image on part 6, and still sees the Recovery WindowsRE on part 5. I note, it says the Windows RE status is enabled. It does not say anything about whether the Recovery image is enabled. Not sure that means anything. But that's it, at least it sees the image, whether it could work, who knows, but not really important. 

    So, all that is left is to do those backups now. I'll let you know how much time they take now, with no sector-by-sector backup.

    Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19041.388]

    (c) 2020 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    C:\WINDOWS\system32>ReagentC  /Info

    Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration

    Information:

        Windows RE status:         Enabled

        Windows RE location:       \?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition5\Recovery\WindowsRE

        Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 06a7379d-d1bb-11ea-8997-b888e3b1b2f5

        Recovery image location:   \?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition6\RecoveryImage

        Recovery image index:      2

        Custom image location:

        Custom image index:        0

    REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

    C:\WINDOWS\system32>

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-06T04:36:33+00:00
    1. What is an RD? I have already reformatted it to FAT32 — I need that soI can use it on Windows or Mac, as my other computer is a Mac. You gave a command to erase it, your notes said there might be an problem with that, but since it ran smoothly and I see nothing, I have to think not.

    But no, we want it invisible on part 6, as it always was. Yes, if invisible and trying to delete, you can’t see if you accomplished it.

    1. Oh, just simply the general command ReagentC /Info, and it will check all partitions, I don’t have to specify any in particular?  Or is there more to the command,

    We did not do anything with part 5 today, so I don’t think it would have been affected. What we did was specified for part 6.

    Yes, I know it won’t give a final, definitive answer, but we can at least see if it even recognizes a recovery image on part 6. If not, that’s an answer.

    1. OK, so PCR is your initials. :) That’s why I couched the question in :”f I may ask.” :)

    If you confirm, just open Command Prompt, put in ReagentC /Info, nothing else, I will run that tomorrow, and I’ll let you know the outcome.

    Oh, BTW, re Command Prompt, up front I think you were suggesting you prefer Command Prompt because you are experienced with it, you are not so sure about Power Shell. My understanding is that Power Shell is pretty much just a renamed Command Prompt, but continues getting updates and advances. Command Prompt is not getting those updates anymore, its being phased out. I’m pretty sure these commands could have been run with same effect in Power Shell. BUT, I agree, when doing something like we have, use what you know, not a good time to be experimenting.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments