backup freezes

[scott7911]

When doing an immediate backup to my 2nd harddrive my computer freezes up partway thru. Last try made it about 6 GB thru an 8 GB backup. Can only reboot. I'm using winME with system restore turned off.

 

I have been able to complete smaller backups, < 3GB

 

What should I do?

 

 

 

LES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lv2ski]

System restore is completly turned off?

 

 

 

Does it always freeze at the same location during backup? Are you duplicating or backing up?

[scott7911]

I turned restore off by checking "disable system restore" under the troubleshooting tab on "Systems"; is it only partially turned off?

 

 

 

I'm doing a "backup" to disk, it does not always stop in the same place.

 

 

 

Thanks

[ChuckS]

After a freeze occurs, check the size of the backup set file itself. It's likely either 3.99 or 4GB; I suspect you're encountering the FAT32 filesize limit that will not permit any single file to be larger than 4GB.

[scott7911]

The back set that froze has 10 files; AA000000.rdb thru AA000009.rdb all are 614,408 kb except the last which is 0 kb .

[scott7911]

I'm still having this problem. Ive gotten a partial backup to complete (2.9 gb), but I can't get a full 8 gb or partial (3. 2 gb) to work. The system just freezes. With files created same as previous post.

 

Help

[AmyJ]

How is the destination drive connected? IDE, Firewire, USB? If USB or Firewire, make sure the drive is plugged directly into the computer, and not routed through a hub, docking station, or chained together with other devices. If IDE, make sure it is the Master drive on the second channel.

 

 

 

Check the drive with a disk utility to ensure that it is healthy. If the drive can be erased, consider reformatting the drive with the utility provided by the vendor or through the OS.

 

 

 

Room permitting, try the same backup to your C: drive as a test - does this complete successfully?

 

 

 

 

[scott7911]

The source HD is the master on the primary IDE channel, the destination HD is the slave on the primary IDE channel. Are you telling me the drives must be on different channels?

 

 

 

I reformated the destination HD, the backup still froze. It made it half way thru an 8 gb backup.

 

 

 

I tried a backup to the C drive, it froze up also about 25% thru the same 8 gb backup.

 

For what it's worth, the backup's create a series of sequential files each of 614mb. The failed backups always create the last file with a size of 0.

 

 

 

Help, I sure would like to get a full backup

[gbw_on_wheels]

Hi, I am having a similar problem, I have a second ide hard disk, and have not been able to make it through a complete backup yet. I am backing up over 20 gb's from the C drive to the D drive. I have tried shutting down all other running programs to see if it was a resource problem, but has not helped. I am running Windows ME, and Retrospect V. 6 pro. Thankfully, backup to cdrw still works, so I do have a full backup, but the stack of cd's is 36 high so far!

 

 

 

I can do anything else with my D drive, and it works fine, and I get no error messages, since the machine freezes, and I have to reboot. I have checked the space left on the D drive, and after five or six tries at backing up, it appears that backup might have taken place, I can't be sure, the used capacity is slightly less than that of the C drive, but I have compression turned on, so it should have used a little less space than what shows on the C drive.

 

 

 

Any ideas of what I can try? I am trying to do an immediate backup, and my D drive is 80 GB, and the C drive is 30 GB, so there's plenty of room. The D drive is housed in a removable tray, but it is a direct IDE connection, so that should make no difference.

 

 

 

I must complement the new version on one item: I had problems before with 5.6; the only way I could get a backup to run with cdrw was to completely remove Nero INCD from my system, any less than that, 5.6 wouldn't reckognize my supported Lite-On 2410b drive. Since upgrading to V. 6, my cdrw drive works for backups, and with Nero installed and ready to use!

 

 

 

Thanks for any help!

 

 

[awnews]

Is there any chance that you could try putting the two HDs on separate IDE channels? e.g.:

 

 

 

Primary

 

Master: CD(CDRW)

 

Slave: C: drive HD

 

 

 

Secondary:

 

Master: D: drive HD

 

Slave: whatever else

 

 

 

IDE is a single transaction bus (one write or read at a time). When you're moving large amounts of data from drive to drive, the IDE arrangement can make a *huge* difference. I was able to run with your config, but RDB5.6 told me that it was going to take almost a day to do a backup. When I changed things to something closer to what I listed above, it took less than an hour since data transfers could be pipelined.

 

 

 

Your arrangement *should* work (even if slow) but I don't know if your IDE controller is being overloaded by all the read/writes. I've heard of some motherboards with Via chipsets that can't sustain high IDE loads in general. What motherboard is in your PC?

 

 

 

And I still think all you "backup with whole drive with CDRs" guys are nuts. :-). I remember backing up a Mac using almost 100 floppy disks and Dantz's DiskFit program. At least this had the advantage of allowing you to insert random floppies to update files (as opposed to just adding files onto the end). With the amount of data I back up and full HD backups, for anything but specific data backups I won't be using CDRs--even DVDRs are too small and time consuming.

[gbw_on_wheels]

Thanks for suggestion about the ide bus, I wasn't aware that it would make any difference, I will see if that helps.

 

About backing up to cd's, until I can get this hard drive backup system working, it's my only option for a full disaster recovery capability. I will be backing up customer files to cd's, but my full backup will be to hard drive! I also will be buying a third hard drive, so that I can alternate between the 2nd and 3rd, using the removable drawer setup. That way I can swap between them, and probably keep one of the two offsite, and probably go two or three weeks at a time for the switch.

[scott7911]

I tried a back of my c drive to the backup volume on my c drive; even that dosen't work. Same problem, it freezes up after while with no error messages.

 

Any ideas?

[scott7911]

I'm really dissapointed with this program and Dantz. I paid for it only to find it won't work, support is $60 a pop, after almost 3 weeks this forum has yet to help me, and I can't get my money back. I've spent many hours trying to make it work; I give up.

 

 

 

Where is that "world class support" they talk about?

[AmyJ]

I'm sorry you are frustated with the program and support. Please remember that this is a community forum and not an offical means of contacting Dantz technical support.

 

 

 

That your system is freezing writing to it's own hard drive could indicate system corruption. Have you checked the primary drive with a disk utility?

 

 

 

What else is running during the backup? Make sure all unnecessary applications and processes (Cntl-Alt-Delete) are quit. If you have Norton or some other utility monitoring your system, make sure it is disabled.

 

 

 

Have you noticed whether the freeze always occurs at the same point? When copying a specific file or directory?

 

 

 

Try using Retrospect to Duplicate the system, rather then doing a backup. Do you experience the hang? If so, use Explorer to copy the same files - does the system hang?

[gbw_on_wheels]

Hi, I am responding to the suggestions about having the two hard drives on different ide channels. I tried the combinations suggested: master:cdrw, slave:C drive and for the second channel, the 2nd hard drive. It did not help. I kept on backing up the the cd backup set, because it was the only thing that would work. Since then, I started having trouble booting up. When talking to my computer manufacturer's tech support, they determined that my C drive was failing. A new one is now in my computer. Also, when asked, tech support said when having two hard drives, to definitly have them on the same ide cable, one master and one slave. They said there are other issues that arise going the other route. I have since been trying to do a full disaster recovery from my cd backup set, but I am now missing files. See my post titled: Disaster recovery is a Disaster for more complete explanation. I am now running with a clean install, but wish to restore from the cd set, but so far cannot accomplish. It appears possible that my failing c drive may have been part of the problem, maybe it was not possible for retrospect to copy some stuff from the c drive, and was causing the freezes. I have since been able to do C drive to D drive backups, but nowhere near the 22 gig's I was trying to run before since I don't have all the stuff on the C drive that I had before. Once I get this system completely back to where I was, I hope to have retrospect doing backups to three different backup sets, with three removable hard drives in inserts, with one in the mobile rack, and one on the shelf, and one stored offsite. By rotating these three regularly, I hope to never go through this hassle again!

[awnews]

"Also, when asked, tech support said when having two hard drives, to definitely have them on the same ide cable, one master and one slave. They said there are other issues that arise going the other route."

 

 

 

I would like to know what these mysterious "other issues" are.

 

 

 

I don't know who your tech support is (Dantz? the PC vendor?) but if they are recommending putting two HDs on the same IDE even though you're planning to move large amounts of data between the two, you need new tech support. IDE is a single transaction bus (can only do one read or write at a time) and putting them both on the same IDE bus makes it impossible to pipeline the data and will *dramatically* slow down backups (C: to backup drive), although it should work either way. I mentioned in another thread that I saw a difference of close to 24hours for a full backup (same IDE, m & s) vs. about an hour (different IDEs, m on each) on one of my PCs.

 

 

 

Vendors of CDRW also typically recommend that you put your CDRW on a different IDE than a CD (for copying CD to CDRW) or than your HD (if you do a lot of backup from HD to CDR/CDRW). I'm not sure if this is primarily based on the moving of data or the need to control the CDRW accurately & quickly, which is harder to do if the IDE is busy with the other device.

[gbw_on_wheels]

Hi GoAWest, I don't know what those other issues were either, but I disregarded theirs, and took yours; I now have things at: cdrw-master and c-slave, cdrom-master and d-slave. Thanks for advice and info. Will make new backup set and see how it does.

 

Greg

[scott7911]

Let us know how it works. I still haven't gotten a full backup to work, same problem, my system freezes up after a few minutes. It didn't even work when I backed up to the same drive - C: to C:

 

 

 

I'm also waiting for Dantz to fix the compact flash problem; if you have a compact flash card on your system, Retrospect Freezes when it does a backup device search. It was a "known issue" for Retrospect Express, I though ver 6 might have been fixed, but no luck.

[gbw_on_wheels]

Hi, I ran backup last night to a new backup set on a new D drive, and it worked great. I saw,in the performance window, copy rates of up to 354 MB's per minute at times, and the average for the entire backup was 208 mb's per minute to copy, and 272 mb's per to compare. That's a full backup of 20.9 gig's from the C drive to the D drive, both are ATA 100 WD drives. The entire operation took just a shade over 3 hours to complete. There were nine execution errors though as follows: (customer names left out for Photoshop TIFF files)

 

 

 

can't read data, ReadFile failed (customer TIFF) winerr 30, error -1107 (for two customer files)

 

 

 

can't read data, error -2352 (file has changed) (for three files - two customer files and one Broderbund\the print shop\content\(art file)

 

 

 

different modify date/time (set: 10/16/2002 11:51 pm, vol. 10/17/2002 1:11 am (this error for three different files: c:\windows\cookies\index.dat, c:\windows\history\history\IE5\index.dat, c:\windows\tasks\symantic netdetect.job, c:\windows\temporary internet files\ content.IE5\index.dat

 

 

 

appears incomplete error for c:\windows\temp\ZLT1336.temp

 

 

 

The TIFF files are customer photoshop files that are important for my business, I am really concerned that Retrospect says it cannot read those files, I just opened them off my C drive with Photoshop, no problems at all. That tells me that the files are there, and are fine. Why can't Retrospect copy them? This is critical if I am to rely on Retrospect for my backups. The other errors for the Broderbund, and the other ones (symantic netdetect, and temporary internet and cookies index.dat files... I don't know how important they are, but why can't Retrospect back them up? How safe is it to rely on this backup software for a FULL system backup, and to rely on it for my business files, if it doesn't copy EVERYTHING? My computer seems to be working fine now, and the same for both hard drives, so how can I find out what's wrong with this backup problem?

 

 

 

Thanks ahead of time for any ideas or help!

 

Greg

[awnews]

One day at time...

 

 

 

A few questions:

 

 

 

1) When you backup, are you backing up manually? Are you using a backup script? Are you allowing RP6 to launch a scheduled backup and, if so, are you using the "Local System" account for the Retrospect Launcher service or your main (hopefully admin-level) account? Have you tried logging out (W2K, XP) and allowing RP6 to run as a service without anybody logged in?

 

 

 

Note: not permanent solutions, just to see what's going on.

 

 

 

 

 

2) What else is running when the backup fails? Are you quitting all tasks and programs (e.g. Photoshop) before RP6 runs?

 

 

 

Several of your errors sound like something else is running (could be a background service even if you've quit all apparent programs). You might try to quit all the little icon programs running at the right of the taskbar and use Startup Control Panel (http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml to check what's starting up on boot and disable stuff you don't need.

 

 

 

 

 

My typical errors are for "Perflib_Perfdata_N.dat" files if I'm logged in when RP6 runs. If I log out I don't even get that.

 

 

 

File "C:\WINNT\system32\Perflib_Perfdata_540.dat": can't read, error -1020 (sharing violation)

 

 

 

 

 

I sometimes see:

 

 

 

File "C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temp\Acr2DA7.tmp": can't read security information, error -1020 (sharing violation)

 

 

 

File "C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temp\Acr2DA8.tmp": can't read security information, error -1020 (sharing violation)

 

 

 

if I'm running other programs (e.g. Acrobat) when RP6 launches itself and runs a backup script.

 

 

[gbw_on_wheels]

Hi GoAWest, I have been starting backups manually, the reason is that I do a part-time business (digital image editing, photo restoration and retouching) at home after my day job, and my computer work time varies. Therefore, I never set a script to backup at a scheduled time, since I might be working then. I also am hesitant to leave a computer running all the time. While working a few years ago with a previous computer, something popped, and suddenly a blue shower of sparks went flying out through the rear mounted cooling fan and was bouncing off the wall. No fuses blew, and I suspect the only thing that might have prevented my house from burning was me diving headfirst to yank the plug out of the wall! I hate to think about what it might have done had I not been home. This was back in my pentium 200 days. I know a lot of people that never shut theirs off, but I sort of like my house, and have been a little gun-shy ever since that bit of excitement!

 

 

 

The only thing I might have had running at the time of the backup was Norton Anti-virus, which I have set at maximum security (check every file I open). I am on a dial up modem, so maybe it wouldn't hurt to shut it down before starting a backup. I was always concerned about the possibility of a virus maybe sneaking into a backup if Norton wasn't running. I do have it scan my system regularly. Any thoughts on that subject?

 

 

 

Also, I am using Windows ME, and I never log on or off as a user, I am the only one that uses this computer anyways. I will check to see what else might be running in the background.

 

 

 

After running a new full backup on another D drive in few days with every thing possible shut down, I will report back how it goes.

 

 

 

Thanks for the help and suggestions!

 

Greg

 

 

[awnews]

If you're running manually, RP6 is running at the same permission level as you, which is probably admin. That is, unless you're one of the rare people who actually listen to the security experts and run at a lower user level account most of the time and only log in as admin to install programs or perform other system tasks. I run admin all the time. I have the RP6 launcher set to run at admin level for scripted scheduled backups.

 

 

 

I'm also running NAV (2002 and 2003 on different PCs) with RP5.6 and RP6.0, under W2K and XP. I have turned *off* AutoProtect, not due to a specific problem but just to avoid slowdowns and possible conflicts with other programs. I still NAV scan my incoming and outgoing email and run it once a month (scheduled) to check for anything that sneaks by. I'm on a cable modem and am firewalled (hardware NAT router and also ZoneAlarm Pro, the later mainly for outbound checking).

 

 

 

I'll check in a couple of days to see what happened on your latest D: backup.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

GoAWest

[gbw_on_wheels]

Hi GoAWest, I have run backups everyday since my last post, and so far, no errors, everytime it completes succesfully. I have not been shutting down any other running programs either (Norton Antivirus, Zonealarm, Zircom usb network adapter). I was curious if it would run alright under those conditions. Maybe it is running better when it's not such a large amount of data at one time (22 gig's for a full c drive backup). These have been incrementals. My next test will be when I pickup a good sale, I will get my third large hard drive, and then will be running a third full backup from scratch. Then I will find out if the errors repeat like this last one, and I will also test for a full disaster recovery since I will have a new hard drive to work with, before I start backups on it. That will be the REAL test. I am hoping that it will provide a complete windows from the disaster recovery cd, instead of missing critical files like it did last attempt. I will post the results (could be a little bit, watching for a good price on the drive).

 

Thanks again for the help,

 

Greg

[awnews]

Glad to hear things are working better.

 

 

 

As far as HDs and prices, the "sweet spot" I've been seeing is around 80GB, with prices under $90 for an 80G IDE (ATA100 typical). I've also seen 120G for < $120 and am starting to regularly see 180G and larger at my local computer store for a little over $200. In fact some of the sizes are starting to outstrip the rated max size on some of my utility programs (e.g. PartitionMagic) although most seem to work OK.

 

 

 

For DR, I'm still not wild about Dantz's process and don't trust it (driver copy, boot with drivers--we hope, preinstall OS, restore). If you get a nice big HD, you might consider installing W2K (easier to deal with than XP due the activation issue) on it so you have better emergency boot platform for doing restores from RP's images. I also DriveImage/NortonGhost a backup image onto this drive from time to time.