Learning a hard lesson (Should one pay more attention to Chkdsk?)

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I use Acronis True Image to make a backup of my full system once a week (incremental backups). Every couple of months I start a new sequence of incremental backups and delete the previous set. The first of each sequence is a full backup. For years this has worked just fine; and being able to recover my system has saved me a number of times.

Two weeks back, I decided to increase the frequency of full system (incremental) backups to once per day just while my new Windows 10 installation settles down. (Probably over-kill, I know, but that’s what I decided).

Yesterday, whilst trying to get an update to Nero to install, the inevitable happened, and I messed up my system. I booted up with my Acronis TI Recovery Disk and selected to recover my latest full system backup,(one from earlier the same day). The backup had been validated by Acronis. After 20 minutes, ERROR: “The Backup has Failed – index corrupted”. I ran the recovery again. Same error. I then tried to recover the backup of the previous day …same error. to cut a long story short, I eventually went back to the first, full, backup of the previous incremental backup sequence of two weeks back (fortunately to just after the installation of Windows 10). It was recovered successfully. I then recovered all my documents/data from my Acronis Non-Stop Backup. Windows Update has since brought my OS back up to date.

After digging around on line, I discovered in an Acronis Forum that disk errors can give rise to a corrupted system backup; and that regularly running chkdsk /r can prevent this.

I then ran chkdsk and found that there were, indeed, errors on my system drive. Clearly (or so it seems), the incremental backups that had been made since the errors had occurred, were all corrupted as a result. So, whilst the backups were Validated by Acronis once they had been made, the corrupted index was not detected.

I assume from the foregoing that the full sequence of recent incremental backups was corrupted, presumably because the initial full backup that started the sequence was made from a system disk with disk errors.

So the lesson learned: Run chkdsk /r from time to time to ensure that your system backups are not corrupted and rendered “un-recoverable”. Simply assuming that validation of a backup ensures a recoverable backup is not enough.

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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…Or rely less on incremental backups. If you ask me, two months of incremental backups is asking for trouble. A problem in one of your interim backups will ruin every backup past that one. If you want to rely more on less than full backups, use differential backups every 5 or so incremental backups. In any case, I would take a full back every month, at the very least.

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A problem in one of your interim backups will ruin every backup past that one.

That is only a problem if you are using incremental system backups. If it’s a data backup there is no downside to a failed incremental, except a file changed post that incremental can’t be recovered to the time of the failed incremental. Subsequent backups will be fine.

cheers, Paul

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Good idea, glad you got most of it back!

:cheers:

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Hey Y’all,

Personally, YMMV!, I only do Full Images of my System Disk biweekly.

[*]Drive space is cheap.
[*]Why add complexity to the process.

I also Image my Data Disk biweekly. I also have my data disk changes sent to another internal HD by RoboCopy every evening at 6:30 while I watch the news. Occasionally, I also use RoboCopy to copy these changes to my NAS.

I also Image System Disk to a second internal disk before installing any “questionable” or trial software.

I backup my NAS monthly as it is mostly pictures my wife & I share and some archived documents that I may need occasionally, in other words stuff that doesn’t change often.

All backups are kept to at least three generations. I even have an Excel workbook that keeps track of all the backups by machine (4) and storage device (10).

OCD who Me? 41896-ROTFLOL2

It’s a system that works for me! YMMV.

HTH :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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OCD who Me? 41896-ROTFLOL2

:cheers:

Omniscient Computer Dominator? :mellow::flee:

:cheers:

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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It may be OCD but it makes sense.

It only seems like overkill until you need it.

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EaseUS ToDo Backup checks each disk BEFORE allowing a backup to be run.

Zig

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Many thanks for the comments and opinions. Regarding my specific “lesson”, I don’t believe full, or incremental backups of a disk with errors would have made any difference to the outcome in my particular case!

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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@RG,

Do you mean RoboCopy as opposed to RoboForm?

Joe

--Joe

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Joe,

There I go again! 😆 At least I was consistent…ly WRONG.

Thanks for the catch Joe. :thewave:

I’ve corrected it in the original post so as not to get people confused until they get here. :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Ya I only go with full images and always run it through the verify image process, no image corruption ever encountered with that method, so far.

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I’m with RG on this one. I started doing fewer incrementals and diffs years ago. Now I only do full backups unless there is some really strong reason why I cannot.

And the reasons are the same too. Simplicity, reliability, and most of our systems can easily handle the data volumes involved (Disk to disk backups really were a quantum leap forward). I’ll take a one decision, one step restore over a complicated multi-step restore any day of the week.

Even the redundancy angle is better with multiple full backups. If you have multiple full copies and your backup media has a point problem, you have multiple sources from which to recover the damaged backup files (potentially).

I’ve also grown more wary of proprietary backup formats. When you need to restore you need as much reliability and flexibility as possible. Files in their original format and directory structure decrease your reliance on special recovery programs.

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After digging around on line, I discovered in an Acronis Forum that disk errors can give rise to a corrupted system backup; and that regularly running chkdsk /r can prevent this.
…
So the lesson learned: Run chkdsk /r from time to time to ensure that your system backups are not corrupted and rendered “un-recoverable”. Simply assuming that validation of a backup ensures a recoverable backup is not enough.

I also use Acronis (for full weekly backups).

I have no routine procedure for running CHKDSK / R (maybe never done). I assume there is no way to automate this, since it requires a restart of Windows.

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Hi, I have a ? regarding backups on Win 7. I do a weekly image and something else that creates individual files as zip files. The zip file backup seems perfect for retrieving individual files (once you find it). But can I recover individual files from the image? I’m a rookie when it comes to backups, and I have never needed to do any kind of recovery yet (knock on wood) so I’m not really sure of what I’m doing. My total backup uses >100GB per week and I’m running out of space. I used to backup to an internal drive, but have switched to an external drive which is offline except when backing up. I have backups going back almost a year, what is a good length of time to store backups for? I’d like to clear the backups off my internal drives and just use the external drive (2GB) which would be around 15-20 full backups (incl. zips if necessary more if not). Would that be sufficient if I do weekly backups? I have never done incremental or differential backups. My PC is extremely stable as I write this so this might be a great time to implement a new strategy.

Another point I’d like to ask is I bought Acronis true image 2014 last year on sale, but then read horror stories about it destroying peoples systems so I never used it. Is there any truth to that, should I use it or stick with Win 7 if I end up just doing Image backups.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide to a backup newbie!

Norm

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I also use Acronis (for full weekly backups).

I have no routine procedure for running CHKDSK / R (maybe never done). I assume there is no way to automate this, since it requires a restart of Windows.

I don’t know which version of Windows you use, but a restart is not required for my Windows 7 Pro if you check “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” and leave “Automatically fix file system errors” unchecked. You can check for file system errors manually by reading the detail report after CHKDSK is completed. When I check mine, the file system errors are always zero. The instructions that came with my first desktop computer 15 years ago, a Dell, said to leave the “Automatically fix file system errors” unchecked, although I don’t remember their reason. So, I’ve always done it that way and never had a need to change.

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I don’t know which version of Windows you use, but a restart is not required for my Windows 7 Pro if you check “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors” and leave “Automatically fix file system errors” unchecked. You can check for file system errors manually by reading the detail report after CHKDSK is completed. When I check mine, the file system errors are always zero.

Thanks for the suggestion – I will do that the next time!

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Acronis 16 is now available.

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Well, don’t confuse backup with copy; from the text you’re thinking about putting backups on one drive and no where else? That’s not a backup; the data must exist in two different locations (copy) to be a backup.

Zip files might be ok but anything that packages files is susceptible to corruption at some point; if you have the room it’s best to make a one for one backup (copy) of the data and I don’t have multiple versions of timestamped backups, just one in three locations. Have you ever had reason to go back to an earlier version of a file that was overwritten in a more recent backup? If so then you need more than one version but keep it reasonable.

As far as imaging file retrieval goes, third party image software from Macrium and EaseUS and Acronis allow for their images to be mounted as a virtual drive, making file retrieval from an image fairly simple.

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@Nartoon: I have used paid versions of Acronis 2013 and then 2014 continuously without any hassles (the only issue I experienced was the one that started this thread; and that was not Acronis’ fault!) I have tried Acronis 2015, but its user interface and reduced “extra features” caused me to revert to 2014. In addition to weekly full system backups, I also run Acronis “Non-stop Backup” to an external drive for my data. Additionally, I now run “Chkdsk” once a week on the evening before my scheduled system backup.

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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In addition to weekly full system backups, I also run Acronis “Non-stop Backup” to an external drive for my data. Additionally, I now run “Chkdsk” once a week on the evening before my scheduled system backup.

Guess I’ll be an optimist … I run CHKDSK /R after Acronis runs, but before I copy the image to my external drive.

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I do a weekly full backup (Macrium Reflect with intelligent sector backup and high compression). And daily differential backups in between. [How many hours of work are you willing to lose? With me 24 hours seemed reasonable.] And save a 3mo. old full backup and three weeks worth of backups. This seems to occupy around 500 GB max for me. It is completely automated…and can even send an email if something goes amiss. [All true for Acronis as well.]

A pile of incremental backups that have to all be applied with the original full backup is a pain to me. And as you found one corrupt file can prevent restoration … though it is hard to understand why the backup app would not create a backup as best it could with a broken incremental file(s).

You really should have an off site backup as well. I would encrypt and password such backup since it may be out of your control. And due to size/costs you may only be able to back up data. I use a external networked drive for a second backup but it is kept near the laptop I primarily use so in case of fire or theft I a screwed.

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