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Dave;
Yes they have the same name with the exception of a 1 or a 2 added just before the .ext and yes the first one is the larger of the two and runs about 4.7 GB's as you suggested. Where do I need to go to correct this? I don't recall seeing any place to tell the back-up to size itself for CD's or DVD's
Regards,
Jon
Jon, I can't remember exactly what the interface for True Image 2009 looked like. I'm running 2010, but it should be similar. I don't believe there was that much of a difference.
Tools&Utilities (at the top) > Options > Local Storage Settings > Archive Splitting. Set to automatic and it should not split an archive made to an external hard drive.
Also, when you are setting up the backup you should see Backup Options, which will give you a sub menu with Archive Splitting. Again, Automatic is the setting you want. Another important option located there will be Archive Validation, which you should check. It verifies the backup is good. It adds time to the whole process, but a non working backup isn't going to do anyone any good!
Dave;
As usual you were "Spot On" as Jim would say. Unfortunately, the only two options that I could find for splitting the back-up archive were [u:3053jk9n][b:3053jk9n]Automatic [/b:3053jk9n][/u:3053jk9n] or [u:3053jk9n][b:3053jk9n]Fixed Size[/b:3053jk9n][/u:3053jk9n]. Automatic allows the program to determine the size of the files that a large back-up is to be split into. Fixed Size and offers four options; 100 MB for a Zip Drive, 650 MB for a CD Drive, 700 MB for a CD Drive and 4.7 GB for a DVD Drive. Since Automatic was checked the program was going for the DVD Drive size for Back-Up 1 and whatever was left over for Back-Up 2. The options were both "radio buttons" so it has to be one of the two main options, so I will leave it at "Automatic". It's not the end of the world. In the event that I ever had to restore one of these back-ups I assume that I would restore Back-Up 1 first and Back-Up 2 second.
Thanks again for the help.
P.S.: Gee! Sometime I surprise myself at how dumb/slow I can be. It just dawned on me that the Fixed Option also said "[u:3053jk9n][b:3053jk9n]Or Enter Your Own Custom Size[/b:3053jk9n][/u:3053jk9n]".
In looking at the sizes of the two back-ups for the last three back-ups that I have done, I note that Back-Up 1 is always 4,194,304 KB and that Back-Up 2 has varied from 2,219,227 KB down to 69,808 KB from Back-Up 2 to Back-Up 4. If I went for "Fixed Size" and set it to 5.0 GB or 5.1 GB or even 5.2 GB that seems to me that it should work. Am I on track or am I out in left field. Let me know.
Regards,
Jon
Jon and Dave - I am using Acronis 2009 and that setting in mine is on Automatic.
Jon - The numbers you are quoting do not make a lot of sense if they relate to full image backups. Is that what you are trying to create, full image backups? Or are these incremental or differential?
You divide the number of kilobytes X 1024 to get to megabytes and the result by 1024 again to get to gigabytes. Using that formula, your backup 1 is just 4gigabytes and the largest of your backup 2 just 2.1gb. That cannot be an entire system, it is nowhere near large enough...even if the highest level of compression was selected.
Cheers mate....JIM
Dave, Jim;
I'm sorry if I caused a problem here. Yes, both my internal hard drive in the notebook and the external hard drive are FAT 32 drives. There wassome good reason when I got the notebook but I forget what it was not to format other than FAT 32. So if I don't change that I am locked into a 4 GB max size? Is that correct? How big a problem is it to reformat to NTFS? Please remember that I am not tech whiz kid like you two.
Jon
Jon, it is the external drive that needs to be NTFS. Acronis saw that the destination drive was formatted as Fat32 and knew that the max file size on a Fat32 partition is 4GB. That is the reason the backup was broken into a 4GB for part 1 and the remainder in part 2.
Most external drives and USB flash drives come formatted as Fat32 for "compatibility". In truth, every OS since XP can read/write to a drive formatted as NTFS, so that reason isn't valid. Of course, until recently USB flash drives larger than 4GB were extremely rare.
Anyway, the external drive is the one you need to worry about. If you want your images stored as one file you need to format the drive as NTFS, which is quite simple, and create another image.
Hey Jon - Absolutely no problem mate.
Do you have anything saved to the external drive other than the images? Any other files such as photos, music, documents, etc? Formatting the drive will wipe all that data and it will be lost.
You could move any of those wanted files onto other external media such as; burn to data CD/DVD or transfer to USB flash drive and then format that drive.
To format the external drive in NTFS:
Navigate to [b:2m2edr6r]StartControl PanelAdministrative Tools[/b:2m2edr6r]. Now open "Computer Management'. Now under [b:2m2edr6r]Storage[/b:2m2edr6r], select 'Disk Management' (from the left panel). OR
Click [b:2m2edr6r]Start[/b:2m2edr6r] then right click on [b:2m2edr6r]My Computer[/b:2m2edr6r] and select [b:2m2edr6r]Manage[/b:2m2edr6r]. Under [b:2m2edr6r]Storage[/b:2m2edr6r], select 'Disk Management' (might be easier).
Right click inside the entry for the external drive and select [b:2m2edr6r]Format[/b:2m2edr6r]. In the new window, under 'File System' select [b:2m2edr6r]NTFS[/b:2m2edr6r] from the drop down menu.
Cheers...JIM
Jim & Dave;
First, thanks so much for your continued understanding and patience with me. As I have said I am not a Techie Whiz Kid like you guys, so I don't always understand all the ramifications.
Second, I think that I may have made things a bit harder for you in this thread as I haven't given all the details and for that I do apoligize.
Now, let me get all the details out so that we are all on the same page. Thr following info is from Belarc Advisor
1. The internal HD in my notebook is a 320GB Hitachi divided into four [4] partitions.
C: 51.21GB with 35.60GB freespace (holds the OS and all my applications)
D: 88.70GB with 88.31GB freespace (holds all my data from Word, Excel, Access, Power Point, Quicken, Etc.)
E: 88.70GB with 67.38GB freespace (holds all my back-ups)
F: 91.38GB with 91.19GB freespace (not being used for anything at this time)
All four [4] of these partitions are formated FAT32
2. I: The external HD is a 500GB Seagate Free Agent USB Drive that came formated NFTS and has 478.33GB of freespace.
3. When I have done a back-up of any type (I.E. Acronis or M/S Back-Up) the destination has always been E: and then later I have copied those back-ups to the appropriate folders on I: Since the back-ups were originally done to a FAT32 HD and then copied to a NFTS HD I guess that's why they are in two [2] parts on both HD's
Now I don't really care if the Acronis back-ups are in two [2] parts if it doesn't hurt anything or cause any problems. I'm basicly thinking about if I ever have to restore one of them at sometime in the future.
What are your thoughts on this? Any suggestions?
Hope that I have made things clearer and more understandable for you both.
Thanks and Best Regards,
Jon
Jon - Oh, well...that is a kettle of fish of a completely different colour. Did I just mix my metaphors??
[b:25b8q950][i:25b8q950]"Since the back-ups were originally done to a FAT32 HD and then copied to a NFTS HD I guess that's why they are in two [2] parts on both HD's"[/i:25b8q950][/b:25b8q950].....Yep, the FAT32 file system will automatically save any large files in chunks no larger than 4.7gb. Transferring them to the external drive will leave them that way, even though that is formatted in NTFS. If, however, you were to save the backup images directly to the external drive, cutting out the middle man (so to speak), they would be saved as just one file.
You can overcome the file splitting by merely saving the backup images [i:25b8q950]directly[/i:25b8q950] to the external drive (which would need to be connected at the time, of course). If you are going to use the scheduling feature to create backups on a regular basis you would need to make sure the external drive was connected at each scheduled time, or leave it, more or less, permanently connected. If you are not going to use that feature, then you would only need to connect it when manually creating a backup.
At this stage it looks as though you are not saving any personal data such as photos, music, videos, etc. to the internal hard drive...is that right? Do you intend saving those items to the data partition ('D') in the future? Are you backing up the data partition? Are you saving a copy of those files on the external drive?
Will be interested to hear Dave's take on this but I would much prefer the backup image files all be in one piece; nowhere near as messy, much easier to identify and work with....probably some other reasons too but that's all I can think of off hand.....it [i:25b8q950]is [/i:25b8q950]early here!
Cheers mate...JIM
Hey Jim,
Why Yes, I do believe that you were clearly (well, maybe not too clearly) mixing your metaphors there. However, I was able to fathom out what you were trying to say (LOL).
No, I do NOT save any photos, music or videos to either my internal H/D or to the external H/D and have no plans to do so in the future.
To be clear, I have been doing the back-up of my D: drive (applications data) via Microsoft Back-Up and have been trying to do an image back-up or clone (is that the correct terminology?) of my C: drive via Acronis, however, you say the Acronis back-ups are way to small to be a full image back-up so I still wonder what I am doing wrong.
Why does all this computer stuff have to be so difficult?? It was so simple and straight-forward back in the days of DOS. Plus I had a ball writing all sorts of
fun Batch Files. Oh Well!
Regards,
Jon
Yes Jon, by crickey...things were much less complicated then. I used to write little programs in basic and run them for the kids....great fun!!
[b:26jig94d][i:26jig94d]"I have been doing the back-up of my D: drive (applications data) via Microsoft Back-Up"[/i:26jig94d][/b:26jig94d]........That's fine mate, just so long as a copy ends up on the external drive. If it were me I would be just copying the data files directly from 'D' partition to the external drive, but hey...whatever works!!
[b:26jig94d][i:26jig94d]"you say the Acronis back-ups are way to small to be a full image back-up so I still wonder what I am doing wrong."[/i:26jig94d][/b:26jig94d].......Sorry mate, I should have explained that better. I made that assertion when assuming that each file was a separate individual backup image. Now that I know they are just the one image split into smaller files the size sounds about right for the amount of used space on your 'C' drive. My full image backups, using 'Normal' (default) compression setting, are around 40% of used space size. Applying that same formula to used space on your 'C' drive, provided you are using the same compression setting, would make your full image backups around 6.4GB...which sounds about right.
So, looks like you have got things under control. Now you've just got to decide whether or not you'd rather keep on using the same method and splitting the files or save direct to external drive in just one file....the latter option would certainly help alleviate some of the confusion for you.
Cheers mate....JIM
Jim;
Thanks mate -- you have been really helpful and now I'm pretty clear on these back-ups. For the immediate future I think I'll go along as I have been. And yes all the back-ups get on the external drive. No worries there. However, I'll think about some of Dave's and your suggestions for the future.
Again thanks so much to both you and Dave. It's been really helpful and educational for me. I'll probably be back with some new questions on a new thread one of these days. Wish that I was more of a PC Techie Wizard so that I could give a little back to the forum for all the help that you have given me.
Take care, stay well, have fun,
Jon
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