Windows 7 backup and restore failure

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For the benefit of readers, I have learned that Window 7 backup and restore program will fail if you are trying to do and image backup to a driver that uses a 4K sector size (most new large external drive use this type of drive to accommodate the large capacity) when the C drive of the computer (PC) uses a 512 sector drive. I under stand that Microsoft has updated their OSes to support larger disks but the Backup and Restore program still does not! I bought a new 1tb Iomega drive and was unable to use the windows 7 backup and restore program, but had no problem with my older Maxtor 200 GB unit. I am now back to using Macrium Reflects which works find. Note that the Windows 7 backup and restore data backup function works OK, the problem is with the image backup function. Iomega representative were vague about the problem, but did suggest that this was an issue which has been around for over a year.
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Warren, Welcome to the Lounge.

I have found that I like the feature set of the 3rd party Imaging apps better than Win 7 Backup and Restore. It seems very limited at this point. perhaps in the future it will be more robust. I chose Acronis True Image Home v2011 for me and v2010 for wife. Both work fine for me. Macrium Reflect has also gotten great reviews in these forums.

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Warren, Welcome to the Lounge.

I have found that I like the feature set of the 3rd party Imaging apps better than Win 7 Backup and Restore. It seems very limited at this point. perhaps in the future it will be more robust. I chose Acronis True Image Home v2011 for me and v2010 for wife. Both work fine for me. Macrium Reflect has also gotten great reviews in these forums.

Ted, I’m about to purchase Imaging Software and I would like you to explain the difference between version 2010 and 2011. I’m assuming that the latter version is more sophisticated and difficult to use.

Thanks in advance,

Gloria

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Hi Warren s, Acronis gets good reviews in this forum, with the exception of users who don’t use it correctly. Acronis can be downloaded as a free unlimited trial. Or you can try this free Acronis based program Seagate’s DiscWizard.
It been said, Don’t pay for what you can get for free & legally.

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Roderunner:
Sorry, but for once I have to disagree with you. I used both Acronis 2010 and 2011 correctly. The problem, for me, was that it couldn’t handle a newer, 2nd drive, to my existing older Dell 4600. 3 levels of Acronis tech. support worked on my issue; and. in spite of God knows how many snapshots/dumps they requested and looked at – they never could get it to succesfully recover my system. They even gave me a free copy of one of their add-ons to try; and that didn’t help my situation either.

Interestingly, even Macrium Free worked for my set-up, right out of the box. Based on those good results, I gladly paid for the Pro version of Macrium, because it offers some additional capabilities that the Free on does not.

You have been a big help to me often; so please don’t tar me with the brush of a user who didn’t use Acronis correctly.

Dick

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Roderunner:
Sorry, but for once I have to disagree with you. I used both Acronis 2010 and 2011 correctly. The problem, for me, was that it couldn’t handle a newer, 2nd drive, to my existing older Dell 4600. 3 levels of Acronis tech. support worked on my issue; and. in spite of God knows how many snapshots/dumps they requested and looked at – they never could get it to succesfully recover my system. They even gave me a free copy of one of their add-ons to try; and that didn’t help my situation either.

Interestingly, even Macrium Free worked for my set-up, right out of the box. Based on those good results, I gladly paid for the Pro version of Macrium, because it offers some additional capabilities that the Free on does not.

You have been a big help to me often; so please don’t tar me with the brush of a user who didn’t use Acronis correctly.

Dick

Your absolutely correct Dick, I forgot to include certain builds that were wonky as stated by Just Plain Fred.

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Roderunner:
Sorry, but for once I have to disagree with you. I used both Acronis 2010 and 2011 correctly. The problem, for me, was that it couldn’t handle a newer, 2nd drive, to my existing older Dell 4600. 3 levels of Acronis tech. support worked on my issue; and. in spite of God knows how many snapshots/dumps they requested and looked at – they never could get it to succesfully recover my system. They even gave me a free copy of one of their add-ons to try; and that didn’t help my situation either.

Interestingly, even Macrium Free worked for my set-up, right out of the box. Based on those good results, I gladly paid for the Pro version of Macrium, because it offers some additional capabilities that the Free on does not.

You have been a big help to me often; so please don’t tar me with the brush of a user who didn’t use Acronis correctly.

Dick

Sorry Dick, should have included users who were having PC problems as an exception. Iknow your a Macrium Reflect user.

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I consider this a (major) flaw in Microsoft’s Windows Image backup. For Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008R2, Windows Image Backup cannot backup onto a “large” disk formatted using “Advanced Format” where the bytes per sector is 4096B (or higher)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/windowsbackup/thread/889b01be-d333-4fc7-b005-e12b7b236ad7

Advanced Format is typically used on large disks – larger than 2.2TB (and many smaller solid state drives). If the disk supports 512e (512B per sector emulated) then Image Backup will work but with a performance penalty…..

A few details: I have been using two (A,B) external 3TB disks (Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex) to backup some Win2K8R2 servers using Windows Image Backup and store them remotely – I had been doing this successfully with the disks mounted and shared on a separate machine and that shared disk seen by the servers Image Backup as a “remote shared folder” No problems – GigE network connections and multiple simultaneous backups got the job done quickly and with little pain. Sweet.

Imagine my surprise at the failure of Windows Image Backup when done directly (plugged into the USB port on the Win2K8 server) onto the external drive. The backup looks like it is going to work, creates the WindowsImageBackup directory and various sub-directories, but as soon as it goes to create the first backup image (.vhd) file it fails. Peculiar…..

The error message is a bit obscure (and misleading)
“One of the backup files could not be created. Detailed Error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error”

In the system event log:
Backup started at ‘-date-‘ failed with following error code ‘2155348010’ (One of the backup files could not be created.). Please rerun backup once issue is resolved.

Multi-hour chkdsk /f/r turns up nothing wrong with the disk. Direct Image Backup onto a smaller <2TB external (USB) disk works perfectly.

A little more research turns up the 4096B per sector "issue" with Windows Image Backup.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsbackup/thread/5d9e2f23-ee70-4d41-8bfc-c9c4068ee4e2
and the one above.

Personally I find this ridiculous. How does Microsoft sell Windows Server 2008 R2 as a solid enterprise ready product if one cannot do an image backup of a large system onto a large drive using their built in tools? 😡

Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing - Werner Von Braun

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