Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

Everyone said install Acronis True Image, so I did. Now PT9 won't launch.

I have a dual boot of two copies of Win7 x64, one for my main everyday use, and one for my DAW. So, after reading the exhausting Acronis manual, I decided I should install it on my main OS and backup images of both my main OS partition and my DAW OS partition from there. Immediately afterward, my DAW OS booted fine, but when I tried to launch Pro Tools, it said ProTools.exe was corrupted. I rebooted and then chkdsk ran and found a bunch of errors. After that, I no longer get the error message, but PT still won't launch.

So I uninstalled PT, wiped all related files and folders, cleaned my registry, and reinstalled PT. Still, PT will not launch. Looks like I will have to wipe my DAW OS partition and start from scratch.

I have the Acronis backup image, but I'm doubtlful it will save me. After this experience, I'm scared to death to even try to recover it lest it should corrupt something on my main OS too.

It was my assumption that Acronis would only create a backup image of the drive. I never expected it to change the data on it, but obviously it did.

So, what is the right way to back up a dual boot system?

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

I've had 3 versions of TI, have imaged and restored dozens of drives, and it has never altered the data on the drives I've worked with.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

Many, many of us have and use Acronis to back up and image our disks. This is the first I have heard of something like this.

While I know no details of your system, my guess is that you have a hard drive that is failing. Corrupting of files can be a sign of a failing drive. Drive activity during a back up or imaging is very high and can be a bit stressful to a failing drive.

I would suggest buying a couple of new WD Caviar Black drives, try to back up your sessions and important data and then replace the drive that is yielding corrupted files.

Hope this helps,
Greg

Ditto - this is not an Acronis issue (it has saved me countless times) - this is clearly a hardware issue...

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

At least if you get a new drive you can (hopefully) restore your image from the backup.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

Thanks everyone. The drive is a Caviar Black, just a few months old. I'll post my Sandra if it becomes necessary.

I'm real skittish with backup software since a bad experience with Norton Ghost a few years back. I attributed its failure then to its inability to handle a dual boot system. I beleive it crashed my computer as I was switching between OSes, then could not resolve the proper drive letters when I tried to restore. It kept restoring to the wrong partitions, and wouldn't let me choose. Anyway, that's old news.

But, I'm fearful and suspicious of a similar situtation here. Not that that explains why my PT install got corrupted. It doesn't.

Has anyone here specifically had experience with Acronis on a dual boot system?

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

windows7 has a built-in imaging system for backups, no reason to use a 3rd party app for this anymore.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

I prefer Acronis.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

With HDDs and eSATA docks so cheap nowadays, use one partition for the system drive and use Acronis to keep a clone of it. The simplest way IMO. I have an eSata dock for this as well as for loading Win Vista and XP boot drives.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

It's become pretty certain that my HDD is the problem. I reinstalled Windows and PT, but PT wouldn't open. Gave me an Assertion error line 207. Uninstalled and reinstalled and got exact same thing. Tested the drive with the WD diagnostic tool, which passed. But then after reformating and reinstalling Windows again, now Windows won't even start up. Shame, it's a fairly new WD Caviar Black. The advance replacement is on its way.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

I was finally able to resolve this issue. Although there may have been some problem with the hard drive, it turns out Acronis TIH is not multiboot compatible and is the most likely suspect. For a full account, see here:

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=305483

Sorry for the multiple threads.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

So what multiple thread....

I have Acronis. Here's what the tech guy at the PC shop told me to do. Go through the install of Acronis. Then make a boot disk (CD) with Acronis on it. Uninstall Acronis from the PC -- Acronis like most of these gets very invasive and likes to do continuous backup.

When you want to image your HD, boot from the Acronis disk and run it from there. You won't have to install it, but you will be able to image your HD on an external HD.

I have two WD Caviar Black HDs and a 1.5 TB external USB Glyph (samples), and image to a WD external HD.

Which reminds me I need to do this again.

I've too hav not ever had a problem with Acronis, but I only do clones.. I've never done an image myself...

Sent from EPIC 4G using Tapatalk On'eim...

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

Apologies to your geek but, this isn't invasive software. It is full featured but, True Image won't backup anything unless you tell it to. And you definitely won't get "continuous" backups unless you schedule them.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

+1

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

Just to set the record straight, in case not everyone has read my other thread on this, the problem is still not resolved, and it's not clear whether Acronis is part of the problem or not. I thought it was because I finally got Pro Tools to launch after completely removing Acronis True Image Home from my system. But shortly after the error returned and continues to prevent PT from launching.

I'm currently back to suspecting the hard drive. I'll know for certain once my replacement arrives. Avid support says this is a rare problem, but it has been seen before, and so far it appears to be related to problems with the hard drive. It's just odd that no other problems manifest other than this issue with Pro Tools. Everything else on my system works fine.

To be clear, Acronis did confirm that True Image Home is not compatible with dual-boot. It does something across partitions...some kind of indexing maybe? I don't know. I did find that if I installed it on both OS partitions, the application would run and appeared to work fine, but the desktop icons for TIH and Online Backup were replaced by Windows default icons and couldn't be resolved. So, even though only one instance of TIH was running from the active OS partition, it was somehow affected by the duplicate installation on the other inactive OS partition.

Anyway, if it turns out to be a hard disk problem, then Greg M was right and the stress of imaging the drive was enough to make the problem manifest.

Julia B, that is not a bad idea of running Acronis from a Bootable CD. If I don't have good luck using Windows Backup, I may try that. JMS40 is right though - you don't have to use the scheduled backup or continuous backup features. But you will if you use the their defaults. I spent a full day reading that bloated manual of theirs before I felt confident enough to start using the software.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

FWIW, it's pretty evident that the ultimate problem was my hard drive. Replaced it and everything is fine. I'm not planning to install Acronis because it doesn't officially support dual-boot, but I don't beleive it is to blame for the core problem.

I've done a backup using Windows Backup with no problem. One thing to note...on a dual-boot, Windows Backup will not allow you to image your system partitions separately. It insists on imaging both my C: and D: drives at once. Maybe that's the way it has to be to ensure you don't mess up the Master Boot Record or whatever else goes on between the two OS installs?

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

When cloning a dual boot using Acronis I image the whole drive using the sector by sector method. This seems to eliminate any issues with the boot record not getting copied or what ever. You can still make seperate images of each partition and restore them as you like.

I'm am fairly confident that the Windows Backup Utility will only take a snap shot of the entire drive. Which would explain why you can't back up single partitions. I've made Windows Backup Images but never used one. As I recall you can't do incremental backups with the Windows utility either.

Re: Acronis Killed My Pro Tools
 

Yeah, Windows Backup is kinda weak. I might still revist Acronis later, now that I'm fairly confident it didn't kill my Pro Tools. I'd just have to be careful how I use it.