Loss of DVD backup session - overwritten by AISBackup

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IanA
Posts: 66
Joined: Fri May 13, 2005 11:35 am

Loss of DVD backup session - overwritten by AISBackup

Post by IanA »

Just before full restore of C drive...
On 23/5 I ran an incremental b/up to a network drive followed by one to DVD Set C.
AISBackup behaved admirably during restore of PC from network drive but I didn't think about the AISBackup contents file for DVD Set C. After the restore AISBackup on the PC knew nothing about the slightly later 23/5 session to Set C.

On 18/6 I left it to run the next backup to Set C and it created backup files in the staging area. I returned to find "AISBACKUP.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close...information might be lost" at what appeared to be the end of writing to the DVD ('Remaining time: 0:00:01'). I was forced to close and reopen AISBackup. There appeared to be no changes to the Set C DVD – It still only contained files from sessions on 18/3 and 23/5.

Realising there had been a clash of contents files I decided to import the ‘correct’ contents file from Set C and was asked if I wanted to archive the existing file and I said yes because I thought it couldn't do any harm - WRONG!

For some unknown reason AISBackup then decided to copy the 18/6 backup files from the staging area onto the DVD i.e. continuation from where it aborted! This has left me with 18/3 session files and 18/6 session files on the DVD and I can no longer access the 23/5 files which must still be there since it's a DVD-R. So I’ve lost the option to return to 23/5 via Set C and I don’t believe I can trust the 18/6 session.

Also noticed during all this that the previous session on DVD (performed at around 23:30 on 18/3) had files on the DVD dated 19/3 05:30 - and I did NOT run the backup at 5:30 am!! After the 18/6 files were added to the DVD I noticed that the times of the 18/3 files had changed to around 06:30 – Why? And the 18/6 backup files that were copied onto the DVD at around 19:00 all have times of around 22:30 !!

I’m VERY confused!! [said Moss]
Why are the times of files being modified on the DVD?
What should I have done differently to avoid this?
Can we please have a fix to cleanly exit if AISBackup encounters unexpected files on a DVD and thereby enable the backup session to be restarted after rectifying the mismatch?


In writing this I now realise that by importing the contents file from DVD Set C I have overwritten the contents file that contained other backups to other DVDs etc since the restore. Nightmare!

Thanks

Ian
Barry
Site Admin
Posts: 1529
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 3:16 pm

Post by Barry »

The import contents file may leave the current backup with orphan backup (zip) files on the backup media, this is because an earlier contents file will not know about the backup files from the sessions run after the date of the contents file. The import contents file option does not affect any other backup job.

AISBackup crashed for some reason during your backup probably caused by Windows not been able to recover from a DVD access error. The only option in this (hopefully rare) case is to reboot the PC. AISBackup did try to recover from the crash by restarting the 'burn' process.

The best way to recover from this situation is:

Manage Backup / Remove Backup Job From List (do not delete the actual backup is asked - choose Keep - the 'keep' option is very important for disk based backups)

Tools / Open Job From Backup Media
Load the last DVD used and choose the reinstate option.

The backup should then be tested using the Manage Backup / Validate (Test) Backup option

If there are any problems AISBackup will attempt to repair them, for example if a zip file cannot be read AISBackup will re-backup any files that still exist on the PC.

Barry
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