Backup fails with a much larger backup size than the selected folders size

Jeffrey, welcome to these public User Forums.

Given the limited information provided, I would suspect that you have some form of file system issue at work here.

If you download the MVP Log Viewer tool (link below) this may show more information about what is actually happening when the backup task is executed.

I would recommend to run CHKDSK /F for your source drive and see if this makes a difference.

If you see any indication of bad sectors, you should run CHKDSK /R to determine the extent of any issues.

Steve,

Thanks for your reply! CHKDSK revealed all is well, no bad sectors.

I am trying another backup now with MVP Log Viewer active with the current entry being:

"11/25/2018 10:49:27 AM: Writing full version to file: MyBackup_full_b1_s1_v1.tib"

I am trying to back up 226.2 GB of selected folders from one external USB HD onto another external USB HD that has 707 GB of free space. At the time of this posting, True Image is stuck at 266.79 GB with "less than 1 minute" showing, far past what was selected.

Windows Explorer shows the backup at 4.096 MB and its timestamp of 10:49, it's 12:02 right now, and True Image is still not done doing whatever it is that it's doing, MVP shows:

Start: 11/25/2018 10:49:09 AM
Stop: 11/25/2018 10:49:27 AM
Total Time: 00:00:18

It's now showing that it's Backing up 490.11 GB with "1m remaining"! That's even more than I selected!

I'm going out now and will report what ultimately happens, but I don't think that True Image should have gone beyond what I selected and it may turn out that the failure was due to too little space.

Jeffery, is there any chance that you have any symbolic links included in your source folders that you are backing up here, such that you are actually drawing more files from another location to be included in your backup?

Jeffery Biss wrote:

Steve,

Thanks for your reply! CHKDSK revealed all is well, no bad sectors.

Something is very wrong with the way True Image is trying to create my backup of an external USB HD. I am trying to back up 226.2 GB of selected folders from one external USB HD onto another external USB HD that has 707 GB of free space. At the time of this posting, True Image is stuck at 490.11 GB with "less than 1 minute" showing, far past what was selected.

MVP shows the following:

11/25/2018 10:49:09 AM: Backup reserve copy attributes: format tib; need_reserve_backup_copy false;
11/25/2018 10:49:09 AM: Operation MyBackup started manually.
11/25/2018 10:49:12 AM: Backup reserve copy attributes: format tib; need_reserve_backup_copy false;
11/25/2018 10:49:12 AM: Operation: Backup
11/25/2018 10:49:12 AM: Priority changed to Low.
11/25/2018 10:49:24 AM: Create Backup Archive From: G:\
To file: MyBackup_full_b1_s1_v1.tib Compression: Normal
11/25/2018 10:49:27 AM: Writing full version to file: MyBackup_full_b1_s1_v1.tib
11/25/2018 1:29:39 PM: Writing full version to file: MyBackup_full_b1_s1_v2.tib
11/25/2018 1:29:39 PM: Error 0x40004: The disk is full.
11/25/2018 1:29:39 PM: Error 0x40019: Error occurred while backing up.
11/25/2018 1:29:43 PM: Error 0x13c0005: Operation has completed with errors.

Start: 11/25/2018 10:49:09 AM
Stop: 11/25/2018 1:29:43 PM
Total Time: 02:40:34

So, I select only those folders that I want to backup and they total 226.2 GB and True Image fails because there isn't enough room even though 226.2 GB is < 707 GB that is the free space on the destination external USB HD.

What do I need to do to get a successful backup?

Jeffery, please use a tool such as TreeSize Free to check the actual size of your source folders, as given the disk full error for the backup log, it does still suggest that there is something in the source which is much larger than you think it is.

Jeffery, looking at your log details again, I suspect that you may be making a disk backup instead of making a files & folders backup.

You log shows:

11/25/2018 10:49:24 AM: Create Backup Archive From: G:\
To file: MyBackup_full_b1_s1_v1.tib Compression: Normal
11/25/2018 10:49:27 AM: Writing full version to file: MyBackup_full_b1_s1_v1.tib
11/25/2018 1:29:39 PM: Writing full version to file: MyBackup_full_b1_s1_v2.tib

I created a small files & folders backup for some of my folders and my log shows:

25/11/2018 20:30:43 :728  Create Backup Archive From: E:\Dropbox\Acronis\
To file: Folders_full_b1_s1_v1.tib Compression: Normal
25/11/2018 20:30:47 :455   Writing full version to file: Folders_full_b1_s1_v1.tib

You log does not show any folder selections, only the whole G:\ drive.

Steve,

I found a work around, I performed four smaller backups rather than one big one. The largest was 81 GB. All were successful.

The external USB HD was a backup of my CD music library, I ripped them all for use with our stereo system rather than having to use the individual CDs. 

I know for a fact that I selected only the folders and not the drive itself, I clicked the first folder then shift-selected the last one. This avoided backing up the backups of my video drive that are also stored on the music drive. This selection process failed for the entire collection but not for each smaller subset. So, maybe True Image thought that I had selected more?

Thanks for your time!

Jeffery, thanks for the update and glad to read that you have found a solution that works for you.

Steve Smith wrote:

Jeffery, is there any chance that you have any symbolic links included in your source folders that you are backing up here, such that you are actually drawing more files from another location to be included in your backup?

 Steve, I have the same problem and of course I have sym links on my desktop pointing to the external drives (one of them is the backup destination) and many others may be hidden.

Really the backup contains all them???? it wil also be a recursion problem

tx for answer

a b, please open a new forum topic in the forum for the version of ATI that you are using, and give more details of what exactly you are doing and what problem is being encountered?