Forums

The problem might be down to installing 2010 over the top of TI11.  I suggest uninstalling, running the Acronis registry cleaner, then install 2010.

If you've purchased the upgrade version of 2010 then you'll need your TI11 serial number as well as the 2010 one.

Hello Gerhard,

Thank you for using  Acronis Products

Acronis True Image Home 2010 can run only previous version schedule tasks - Acronis True Image Home 2009. Regarding the issue try the following:

Make sure that Acronis True Image Backup Archive Explorer is Enabled in Device Manager (Right-click on MY Computer -> Properties -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Unfold Acronis Devices -> Right-click on Acronis Devices -> Select Acronis True Image Backup Archive Explorer -> Choose Enabled).

To all who are going to go the trouble of unistalling an existing installation of ATI and then installing/reinstalling, do yourself a favor and go jsut a little bit farther and "msconfig" things to reduce the chance for probs:

run msconfg.exe

Select Services tab, chcke box for Hide Windows Services, Select All, Select Disable all

Select Startup tab, select Disable All

Select OK, select reestart.

do you uninstall and install

run msconfig and on the General tab, check Normal Startup, select OK, select restart

This method keeps the memory empty of programs except stuff needed for windows and avoids certain confilcts that can otherwise occur during installs and uninstalls and cleanups.

It was an upgrade install, which "deleted" the TI11 version (at least it was gone in control panel).

After starting 2010 i saw the daily backup tasks i had created in TI11, which even got executed at the scheduled time, but abended as it was looking for Acronis Secure Zone which i had never setup and used. I subsequently deleted the TI11 task and created a new one.

Regarding the Backup Archive Explorer it is enabled.

I un-installed 2010, rebooted, re-installed, rebooted.

Archive Explorer is still enabled.

I still get the same error that i cannot mount the backup.

I got the same problem, trying to mount a ATI 2010 backup

created on the same PC .

Backup storage : external USB drive

It's 2 days that i posted and also submitted a support ticket but no answer. I am dissapointed that Acronis does not have a faster turn around time. For me this is a critical issue and if i can't find a solution, i rather go back to my working TI11.

Just out of curiossity, has anybody used TI11 with Windows 7? Win 7 was my main reason for the upgrade to 2010.

Hello all,

Gerhard Goebel, officially, Acronis True Image 11 Home does not support Windows 7. However, we have heard about several cases when customers were able to backup\restore this system with 11 version.

Thank you.

I had the same Mount Image issue with 2010 (XP-PRO SP-3). After a lot of time I would get the message "Unable to Assign Drive Letter" or something like that. At first, I assumed the images were not mounting. After several tries with the same error message, I checked My Computer. Images had actually mounted. Even with the message, the images were mounting. Had some other issues with 2010. Uninstalled & went back to 2009 b9796.

My first install of 2010 involved removing 2009 with ADD/REMOVE control panel, rebooting, running Acronis Cleanup Utility, CCleaner, rebooting, and installing ATI2010 b5055.

Similar issues.
Trialing TI 2010 on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.
Backup within Win7 works - no problems.
Able to access partitions/files within a TI8 created TIB using Windows Explorer - no problems.
Mount function seems to accept a maximum of 4 partitions. In the test I carried out it seemed to mount all 5 required partitions while the mount function was running (even allowed access to mounted partition via windows explorer), but when the mount function ended there was a message stating that not all drives had been mounted, and the mounted (and previously accessed) Vista partition had disappeared from windows explorer. Tried again, and another partition disappeared in the same circumstances.
I then tried to restore from a created recovery USB, but the external drive with the required tib file was not visible to Acronis. I have 4 external HDDs, and the other 3 were visible.

Hello all,

Regarding mounting issue, could you please check the following:

Follow to Start -> Run -> diskmgmt.msc after that, please find a partition which has not been mounted and right click on it -> Change Drive Letters and Paths -> Change, then assign a letter.

Please let us know whether it helps to mount the partition!

We are looking forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience.

Thank you.

I have the same problem with Windows 7 and TI Home 2009. When I try to mount an image, it does mount and I am able to briefly browse the drive in Windows Explorer but the window then closes and the logical drive mapping is gone. While browsing, TI still shows the popup "Processing Assigning Drive Letter to partitions", then when the window closes, TI shows the error message "unable to assign drive letter to partition". It makes me think there is some issue between TI and Windows 7 in that the mapping does occur but then is closed (by Windows?) for some reason.

I have been having the drive mount problems (similar to that described by others in this forum) with True Image 2009 and now with TI-2010. Going back to TI-ver 11 works. I went through several iterations with tech support last year with TI-2009 and finally gave up. Since I used True Image for many years previously with no problems, I thought I would give it another try when TI-2010 came out. Unfortunately, it is still broke.

I have the same problem with TI-2009 running in XP Pro SP3.
I can browse/restore files in the TI images in explorer but my attempts to mount veriied images result in a message of "cannot assign a drive letter to a partition from the backup archive".

What does the message "cannot assign a drive letter to a partition from the backup archive" really indicate is wrong ??????

It indicates that W7 has a different method for enumerating drives in registry than Xp or Vista.

2010 is able to mount a drive. With 2009 you are able to explore an image, just as you've found out, not mount one.

Colin,

Thank you for the reply, but as noted, I am running XP SP3, not windows 7. In my case I can't identify the reason TI 2009 should have quit mounting images in XP.

I would still like to know what the message "cannot assign a drive letter to a partition from the backup archive" really indicates is wrong ??????

It appears to indicate there is some reason these images will verify, browse, and restore, but will not mount??????

Thanks,

Whoops sorry missed that. Check in Windows Task Manager that timounter.dll is running. This service controls the mounting of images. Check in services.msc that RPC Server is running on automatic - though as you can make images this is probably the case.

If Timounter doesn't appear in the task manager list, then open up MSConfig and see if it has become 'unticked' for some reason.

Colin,

TimounterMonitor.exe is running in processes.
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) is set as automatic in Services

I can successfully mount older images - but I am unable to get any image to mount that was made after I did the last upgrade (changed the physical drives in the mirrored RAID to 1.5 GB from 500 MB) and changed the motherboard from an Intel ICH9R to an Intel ICH10R. (the RAID is contolled by the Intel Matrix storage of the ICH10R)

I can't get the recent images to mount on another computer either (also using TI 2009) so the problem appears to be the newer images (not the machines attempting the mount).

I would have suspected TI 2009 has a limit on the image size it can mount, BUT I have read somewhere on this board TI used to have a 2 GB limit but even that limit was removed in TI 2009.
Some of the older images that mount ok actually are larger file sizes at about 200 MB, than the recent images that will not mount.

Thanks

Here is some more interesting info regarding this problem:

I have a HTPC running Win 7 Home Premium. I have Acronis True Image 2010 (build 5055). I've stuck with build 5055 for now because newer builds have problem with recovery CD (USB keyboard/mouse not recognized).

Initially, I could mount backups made with T!2010 and TI11. Now, I get the same message everyone above has described -- I try to mount, autoplay in W7 asks me what I want to do, I choose view in explorer, I can view files briefly but then window closes and I get error "Cannot assign a drive letter to a partition from the backup archive" Main difference between when I could and could not mount backup is I restored this PC with a disk image backup made with TI2010; whether that is root cause or coincidence I don't know.

I opened disk manager to see what happens during this event. The mounted drive E: does show up in disk manager initially but then disappears when error appears. I've attached JPG file with screenshot showing mounted backup.

I also successfully changed the drive letter from E: to F: in disk manager. The mounted drive still closes even when it has been changed to F:

Relative to experiment suggested above - I successfully changed the drive letter on my DVD burner.

One thing I've noticed: mount wizard has drive E: for 100mb system partition and F: for my drive C:. I uncheck system partition and only ask to mount my drive C: data. However, when drive shows up in disk manager the drive letter is E:, not F:. Either W7 or TI2010 has decided to change the drive letter. I've tried mounting both and get the same result - can view both partitions briefly.

Maybe the disk manager screenshot will help debug this problem? There are 2 "active" disks but I've had this before when plugging in a disk from another PC and had no problems.

More info - potential solution for TI2010 on Win 7 x64 (and other OS'es?)

I was running TI2010 build 5055 but decided to go to build 6053 since there is now a custom ISO to take care of USB keyboard/mouse issue and I also wanted to see if 6053 would take care of this mounting issue.

I uninstalled 5055, installed 6053 and now mounting works properly. I even mounted a backup from TI2010 and TI11 in two different drive letters and everything went smoothly.

I'm running on a fresh install of Win7 64-bit, with build TI Home 2010 build 6053.

Unfortunately, I am having the same symptoms that a1smith described 2 posts above this one.

Look forward to hearing a solution from Acronis.

I updated TI 2010 - 6029 to 6053 Now, when I try to mount an image (any image), TIH 2010 - 6053 posts the error message cannot assign drive letter.

TIL BU error with TI2010: Had a 160GB encrypted full BU from TIH under Vista64. Upgraded machine to Win7-64 and when I tried to mount the BU, TIH gave me the "cannot assign a drive letter..." message after a LONGGG time.

So I uninstalled THL and loaded the TI2010 (did not do the Acronis uninstall and clean registry). When I tried to mount the BU again, I got the same "Cannot assign a drive letter..." message, but having read this thread, I looked and saw that the drive WAS mounted. The first level directories were ok, but when I tried to explore deeper in the filesystem, I got access errors.

I was depending on this BU to restore some files into Win7. Fortunately, I also use Carbonite, which save the day. But I would like to keep this BU (assuming it can be made readable.)

Help!

Thanks,

Rick

I have the same problem. I backed up a Vista-64 notebook onto a 260GB USB drive using ATI 2009, bought a new Notebook with Win7-64, bought and installed ATI 2010. Now when I try to mount the backup image on the USB drive, I get the same messsage... "Cannot assign a drive letter...".

There are many reports of people having this problem and I'm amazed that there are no patched/fixes available to resolve the problem. Acronis does not seem to care much about their customers!

Btw, also when I try to to a restore of files/folders from the USB drive backup, it doesn't work. So I'm stuck with no access to the data I entrusted to Acronis' software.

Have you tried going into Win Disk Management and trying to assing a drive letter or reassigning another drive if it is using that drive letter?

Assign a drive letter to what? Windows Disk Management just shows current partitions and drive letters, right? If there is some drive letter conflict I don't know what it is. ATI, I assume, just tries to use the first un-used drive designator (letter) to assign to the backup images. It seems to work fine if I tell it to map drives to a backup I created with ATI 2010. If I try to map to a backup I created previously with ATI 2009, it chokes with the above error messages.

Btw, I am using the latest ATI 2010 build (6053)

This is really a nasty bug. If I hit the "cancel" button multiple times to get out of the repeating "Cannot assign a drive letter" error box, my Notebook running Windows 7 crashes with a blue-screen of death.

I haven't seen a blue screen problem for a very long time running prior versions of Windows, so this does not speak so well about Windows 7 either - though obviously I have no idea which piece of software is at fault.

I found this error msg in the event log, probably is a clue to the problem...

"The Acronis True Image FS Filter service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified."

I'll bet this has something to do with all the problems I had with upgrading from 2009 to 2010... install, uninstall, re-install, uninstall, run the various cleanup procedures found on this forum, re-install 2010.

Personally, I don't think the ATI cleanup utility is truely cleaning up everything. I saw many mentions of Acronis in the registry even after running the cleanup utility.

Are there any true COMPLETE ATI 2010 un-install/re-install procedures?

As a follow up, at some point, this started working again for me and has been ever since. This error occurred on a fresh factory image, where ATI was the first thing I installed after imaging the machine. After several reboots following installation of other software, ATI began working again.

I am disappointed that Acronis has not been supportive and engaged in this thread.

Bradley,
There has been a few reports---When a mounting fails with the "can't assign drive letters" error, sometimes if you go into disk management afterward, you will find the partition is there and you may(?) be able to assign a drive letter.

Thanks for the pointer, but it doesn't fix the bug even if it works. I have other serious problems since I can't do a restore from the backup. And often when trying to map/mount the a drive letter to the backup my machine blue-screen crashes on me.

I think this is related to a messed up upgrade/re-installation and the directions on this forum for doing a clean un-install did not work.

A system will try to assign the drive letter previously assigned to thedrive. IF the drive leter is already in use, that can soemtimes block assignment tothenewly connected drive, a situation that is easily fixed by reassigning drive letters. That's all I was alluding to.

If you want to remove all registry traces after an uninstall, the surest way is to use a registry tool that can search and find strings such as "trueimage" and "fomatik" and then delete all those entries. Using the built-in registry tool in Win is tedious because you have to do each entry one by one. But aftermarket tools can find them all in one sweep and let you delete them in one keystroke.

Over the years I have used at least four versions of Acronis including 9, 11, and 2009 with XP Pro and Vista Ultimate backing up to SATA drives. I used to recommend it to clients.

The ability of Acronis to do high speed full images plus the ability to restore either the full drive or selected files has met my needs.

Unforturnately we know from these posts Acronis 2009 and 2010 both have serious flaws that prevent mounting the images even in XP Pro SP3 as well as Vista and 7.

We also know Acronis appears to be unconcern their product does not work correctly. I think this is proven because the biggest online and biggest brick and mortar stores are selling Acronis 2010 for 19.95.

I have started testing other backup software. Dependability of backup software is #1. Acronis no longer meets the dependability requirement.

G Rule