Acronis True Image V10 Back up

I have recently backed up My Computer using the above software. I backed up to an external hard drive Iomega USB 320GB.
When I look at the files using Explorer in order to see that every file is there, I am faced with this screen:
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa65/gumbybumby/screenshotiomega.jpg

Have I copied my C: drive 13 times as each contains the same when I click on them or is there a more technical reason for this to happen (like me pressing wrong buttons!) LOL This is my very first back up as the ext HDD is new

I use WinXP on desktop.

Any help appreciated

G

 

I would say that off hand your drive is formatted in either FAT or FAT32, since it is limited to that files size. Your backup is really all of those files, since the cluster size is limited to 4MEG True Image breaks the file into those segments.

To avoid that you would have to either convert or format the drive in NTFS, then you would get one large file. When I do a backup with True Image I get one file that is 44Meg in size.

Hope this helps,
BeenThereDoneThat

Opps, sorry I am wrong, I looked too quickly, I tried to delete my post but cannot find a way.

 

uh those aren't megs, those are gigs, its likely somehow you set an option to break up into a dvd sized file. Id guess thats whats happening grumbles.

 

Good eye Cman!

If I'm to believe what I'm told, Grumbles had followed these steps when setting up a backup, and step 6 does give you this option.

However, 4,194,304 KB is exactly 4GB (4 * 1024 = 4096, 4096 * 1024 = 4194304), which is the limit for FAT32 drives, so it seems a little coincidental that this number would be chosen. DVD size is slightly larger than this.

 

Thank you everyone for the points raised. So it does look like I have created a perfect back up then? I did follow Mada's helpful 'How To' when doing the back up

 

This was my first ever full back up to the external drive.
My hard drive space is C:\ 145gb with 89.5gb free, when looking in Explorer.

If I click on any icon, will it be the same information in each? Or is the data broken up and spread amongst
the 12 icons?
Thanks

 

Which means you have 55.5 GB used up. Seems close to the same size as the total of all your image files.

I believe that what you have is a single image, split up into 4GB files. (So yes, the same information is in each) Since your ext HDD is new, I'd expect it is in the FAT32 filesystem, which would explain the size of the files, as 4GB is the max file size on a FAT32 drive.

If that is the case, you could backup into a single file if you were to convert the drive to the NTFS filesystem.

 

What does it take to convert the drive to NTFS?

 

Please see Microsoft KB314097 titled, How to Use Convert.exe to Convert a Partition to the NTFS File System for instructions.

It's a fairly simple command-line program.

 

I can afford to format the External HD as it is very new and the info on it can be wiped, no problem. So I right click My Computer then format HD (E:\) or change to NTFS and then start the back up again?
I can transfer files from C drive which is Fat32 to the E drive which will be converted to NTFS?
I am running XP/SP2.

You are all so kind in giving this subject your attention; as always I am most grateful

G

 

Grumbles, I use Acronis TI also. If you wish to check your backup, look for the option to mount the backup and give it a drive letter aways down in the alphabet -- say M or N. Acronis will then mount your backup as a virtual drive that you can examine and explore just as if it were a separate disk drive or partition. You can even view or otherwise "read" individual files with the appropriate software (I mean the software you used to create the file, such as MS Word for a Word text file for example.)

I believe there's even a "Write" option you can turn on that will allow you to write to individual files on this mounted virtual drive, but I've never used that. Once you're satisfied that everything looks OK you should then look for the "Unmount" option and use it so that the backup files are all closed up again.

In addition, you can also set up your backup options in Acronis to include "Verify" so that once the backup is finished it will be automatically checked against the original. Or you can run a separate Verify operation on your backup once it completes. But it seems to me that on the Acronis website, at one time at least, they said that the Verify function wasn't necessarily foolproof, but if you were able to mount and explore the backup that was proof positive that the backup was good. I think I read this back when the latest version of Acronis TI was version 9 so I don't know if you really need to mount and explore as well as verify, but I always do as it only takes a minute or two to mount and then open a few folders at random to see that everything appears to be OK.

I guess I should add that I've only used Acronis on NTFS formatted drives, so I can't say for certain that the mount/unmount option works on a FAT32 drive. But if you're going to convert from FAT32 to NTFS that won't be a worry anyway.

 

Ah, I wasn't aware of that, Halo. Thanks for that info. What new features, if any, does version 11 have that 10 doesn't? I'm curious, because I just found version 10 for $20 at Office Max yesterday and assumed there must be a newer version out.

On second thought, I'll go to Acronis' website and find out for myself as I don't want to appear to be hijacking this thread! rolleyes

 

Version 10

 

Sorry for not responding sooner; switching ISP just now and if I am lucky I can get online for 20 minutes a day!
I will follow up these suggestions in a couple of weeks once the switch is complete.