I need some advice. I recently had a C:/ failure on my music computer. I was copy and pasting directions to manually update Win 10 when the system went down and would not boot regardless of what I did. This C:/ drive only had my music and photography programs on it as all of my data, pictures, and sounds were on other drivers.

No problem so I thought. I had three Acronis 2019 verified backups. But all three were bad. What are the chances of all three backup drives going bad at the same time? Especially when one was in my bank safe deposit box!

After a month of installing all of my programs and linking them to my data I am almost finished.

Note that I have three backups of my other drives but they were all manually copied and not Acronis compressed like my C:/ drive.

My conclusion is that I will never use a compressed backup system again for fear of this happening again.

So my question is anyone using a cloning program that is not Acronis? If so is it reliable?

On the positive side I now have the latest Win 10 installed on my music computer. I guess that is some consolation.

Thanx in advance for your advice.

Don't write it off yet.

Are you getting errors that your backup disk is bad, or is the computer just not booting after doing the restore?

Not always, but occasionally, when I do an Acronis restore, the computer doesn't boot up properly. It usually just requires repairing the boot record. This can be done by running the Windows 10 Installation DVD (or recovery USB) and selecting Repair when the menu comes up. You can Google the particulars for repairing.

So, it looks like it is dead, but after repairing, it comes up and works like a champ.

You probably don't have this, but one of the things I do when I re-install an OS from scratch is to install the OS, then repartition my drive as I want it and go ahead and create the drive letters for the partitions. Before installing any content to those drives, I create a full drive image (not just the C: partition). That creates an image with the structure of my drive and nothing but the underlying O/S and existing partitions. If I need to replace the drive, I restore that image first (doesn't take very long, since there's not much stuff), but it establishes the structure of the drive on the new drive. If my new drive is of a different size than the original, I then use Acronis Disk Director to resize the partitions accordingly. I make sure the computer boots. I then restore my latest C: drive image to the new C: drive and my experience has been that it works fine, but again worst case, you may have to recover the boot record. Others may do it differently, but this has worked for me.

I don't generally backup my non-boot drive data partitions with Acronis, but instead I have a batch file that uses the "robocopy" command to back up changed data. Once my new drive is up and running, I then just restore the data to those partitions from that backup.

Works for me, but your results may vary. I know for a fact that Acronis does (and should) work, because I do test it and have had to use it. In fact, I just recently finished rebuilding all three of my computers and in the process testing Acronis recovery several times across the three computers.

Again, I'd try the boot repair first, unless you actually get disk read errors on your backup media.

The other thing I would ask is if you do your image backups from inside Windows, or use the Windows PE Acronis boot disk, or the Linux Acronis boot disk? I use the Linux boot disk (and have for the past 15-20 years or so) and have never had a problem. Of course, if you don't have a CD/DVD drive, that wouldn't work.

Mario,

I know this is a dumb question but sometimes the most obvious thing is the problem. You are using the Acronis program or your emergency acronis boot drive to access your backup drives right? Acronis puts the files in a proprietory format that is not accessible by other programs.

Edit: I see John is thinking somewhat on the same line so I don’t feel so bad asking now. :-)

Hi John,
1-I tried the repairing the boot record jus like you mentioned, i.e. no dice.
2-I reinstalled the last OS that was on the drive. It went Ok. Then I tried to restore, i.e. no dice again
3-This was for the C drive only, no other partitions were involved.
4-I have used Acronis for years with no problems. This is my first problem with it. I used the latest Acronis 2019.
5-Yes, I was getting disk read error.
6-I always use the Acronis Boot Disk for backing up my C drive.

Now I have the latest Win 10 upgrade installed as well as about 98% of my programs and program links to its patches. What I'm looking to do is to clone my C drive. I hope that I do not have to compress that drive with an Acronis backup. You know once bitten twice shy.

Like John, I love to use robocopy to make incremental backups weekly. I, however, use it on all disks including the boot drive. I fully realize that if my boot drive goes that I'll be reinstalling Windows manually but I have all files I need backed up so no biggie. Another thing I do is redirect all the default Windows folders like MyDocs, MyPics, MyMusic, etc. to the D:\ drive.

I've used Carbon Copy Cloner for several years. I'm a mac person so I let the mac Time Machine do my hourly backups but I also use CCC for a full back up every couple of weeks. Like you I alternate copies (for both backup protocols) keeping one in the bank. CCC is very highly rated.

Sorry you are having problems. FWIW I've never used a compressed format.

EDIT: Oops - My bad...CCC is mac only.

Bud

I do the same with Mypics, Mymusic etc. Installing my music and photography programs is not the issue. My issue is that I have a ton of Kontakt, FM8, etc patches that it takes weeks to get them all linked with the programs.

Ugggh. Sorry to hear that sir. Too bad there's not a way to automate those patch installs.

Mario,
I settled for Windows image backup (native)
and for monthly Microsoft SyncToy folder backing. There are only 5 folders on my PC where new files are added, so SyncToy will sync all of these (plus subfolders, of course) to external drive in one button click. I do not see a reason to re-backup whole drive gazillion times just for a few GB of new files. And...you do not need proprietary software to open folders on target disk. Just folders.

BTW, I haven't upgraded to Acronis 2019. I'm still in 2018. I wonder if something weird got introduced with 2019.

Of course, if you are getting disk read errors, that could be where the problem lies, and as such the files are corrupt.

I know I'm late with any help but if there are "disk read errors" does that elude to some possible bad sectors on the hard drive.
If so, sometimes running 'check disk' Windows will move files from the bad sectors and not write to them anymore.

Mario....did you have any AV running in the background during your Acronis process?
I've experienced that oversight before.

Hope all is well now Mario.

Just shooting from the hip....carry on.

No antivirus or anything except Acronis from a boot disk was running.

I remember one with a disk errors but the other two, as I now recall, had an error message. Something about missing files, but its been over a month now and I have a very bad case of CRS.

Chuckle...I hear you Mario.
What were we talking about, again...?

Back to it....

I don't know! You were suppose to be keeping track

I used to endorse Easeus products because they powered through bad sectors but the last time I used their stuff it was almost impossible to understand the steps to clone a drive and that is the only way I do my backups.

Ha...I know, I failed miserably at that task.

Back to it....

This is my experience with Acronis after using it for many years.

I had been using 2010 version for many years with great success both with boot disk and from within windows 7.

Decided it was time to upgrade it a few years ago as not compatible with windows 10.

I hated the new GUI, I only do full backups anyways and the old Acronis 2010 has a brilliant simple GUI and is very reliable.

Problems with backups as well with Acronis 2018 as it doesn't backup all my data within windows 10, seems to be leaving out onedrive (if that is what its called) about 16gb of data, there is a seting to disable it but its not disabled to backup.

Long story short, I truly hate the latest Acronis.

As I have a dual boot with windows 7 as well as windows 10 I am still using Acronis 2010 to backup. Seems to be totally dependable so far.

Sorry I even bought Acronis 2018.

I have tried Macrium Reflect as well but its not without its problems.

If you do have an old copy or boot disk of older Acronis around Mario maybe it might be better to use them instead.

Glad to know you are getting it all sorted as rebuilding is not an easy feat, from experience even months down the line when I went from 32 to 64 bit widnows 10 I was still installing.

Good luck.