Thinkpads Forum

I have Rescue and Recovery v3.0 installed on my machine. It worked fine for some time, but lately it doesn't work like it should.

If I try to backup my disc (incremental backup) the window which shows the remaining time and percentage shows, but the process never starts. It remains on 0%. Though the processor is under load at the time and green disc light is blinking.

Anyone experienced anything like that?

Any chance you filled up the allocated or available space for backups?

No. However, there would probably be a warning if space was filled. I remember last time when I did a backup; first time as I tried there was this problem but it gone when rebooted the system and tried again. But now, it doesn't work even if I reboot the machine.

Well, all I can suggest at this point is to uninstall Rescue and Recovery v3.0, reboot, then reinstall Rescue and Recovery v3.0. Finally try to backup your drive again.

Before you do that - on 2.0 out of the box you are only allowed 4 incrementals. Not sure if that is still true for 3.0.

There is a Dword you can change to increase it to 32 - don't remember what it is right now but it was posted here in response to a question from me a while back, and it works on 2.0.

As I recall when I exceeded the 4 backup limit, it took a LONG time to fail, and then failed with an ambiguous message that the backup could not be created.

How many incrementals do you currently have?

Ed Gibbs

This is from RnR v3.0 help.

Additional incremental backups are automatically created by subsequent backup operations. By default, five incremental backups will be stored on the local drive. Subsequent incremental backups will overwrite the oldest incremental backup.

It looks that the program deletes old incrementals so don't see any problem with multiple incrementals. Though I can try deleting one of them.

Will report.

Ok. First I tried to delete one of the incremental backups and chose in advanced options to do so. The window appeared saying I should wait for the selected backup to be deleted. Computer started crunching, processor up to 100%, but it lasted too long. I left it do its work for two hours. Nothing happened. The backup was never deleted.

So secondly I tried what GomJabbar suggested. Unistalled RnR v3.0 and reinstalled it. Thus losing all previously made backups and starting with base backup. I chose to make new base backup and got the same old problem again.

I can wait forever and will never get even 1% of backup done.

Any more suggestions?

Hmm....

Try checking the disk for errors. First run Windows disk check. Open My Computer, right-click on the C: drive icon, choose Properties > Tools > Error-checking > Check Now..., check both boxes and click on Start. You will have to reboot for the disk check to run.

Other disc checks you can do:
1. PC-Doctor under Start > All Programs > PC-Doctor for Windows.
2. Hitachi Drive Fitness Test
3. Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool

Did what you suggested. Tried with Windows disc check and with PC-Doctor but didn't find anything unusual.

Strange is that just after Windows disc check utility completed as I got back into Windows Windows Messenger got stuck and when I tried to reboot the system just after message 'shutting down' I got blue screen saying this;

STOP: c0000c21 Unknown Hard Error
Unknown Hard Error

Have you ever seen anything like that? I don't know if these thing are connected but surely there is something strange going on with my machine.

Run a full system check with PC-Doctor. Also check in Event Viewer for errors (Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer) especially around the times that you experience problems.

Did full system check with PC-Doctor and passed all tests.

While checking the Event Log found two interesting logs. First was RnR application hang, but I know why this happened. It was due to cancelling the deletion of incremental backup a day ago, but this can not be the cause, because the problem at the time was already there.

But the second one. It is one in 'System' section of Event Viewer logged on 7 Oct 2005.

Source: Disc
Event ID: 11
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

What is this?

Just for giggles - shut it down completely, remove AC power and the battery, pull the HDD completely out, and reinstall it.

I have in the past seen hangs that were solved by reseating the drive.

While you're there, might as well reseat the RAM too.

Are you storing your backups on the drive, or on another device? Whereever they are, I think I would look with a file manager (not R&R) and see if they are actually still there or not. If they are, I'd copy the set off to someplace else (CD, DVD, network, USB, etc.) and then delete them all using the file manager.

You don't have any strange mappings that could cause a recursive backup do you? I once had a problem in Linux where I had a link to my backup device on the desktop, and when the backup software saw it it tried to backup the backup device to itself, causing a never ending loop. I don't think R&R is susceptible to that since it will only back up one volume, but have yo recently done anything out of the ordinary with drive mappings?

Ed Gibbs

I really thought that this is a software problem and didn't bother with reseating all the hardware. So, I restored my system to factory state and reinstalled only microsoft and IBM preinstalled software. Then I tried Rescue and Restore and made Base backup. AND IT WORKED! I don't know what was wrong the last time. But this time I only installed the software with Software Installer that I really need. Hope it will work good for some time.

You have no idea how long it has taken me to find this very mention of this problem!!!

I am run ning RnR 2.02.0178. Normally it works flawlessly and has saved my hide a few times.

Then I hit a problem like this. This is the second time. I start the backup as normal. Both drive chunks with their lights unblinking (as per usual, I assume this is the software comparing the lastest backup to the current files). After a while, when the copying is meant to have started and the progress bar is meant to increment, nothing happens!

Every looks as if a backup is going on. The only change is HD lights go to intermittent blinking. I have left it overnight and it still says 0% aftr 7 hrs. And there is no way to cancel the backup. Clicking Cancel leads to a window saying "Cancelling..." and nothing changes. Things will now slow down generally, and Outlook 2003 will go treacle and freeze for long periods.

I can restore files ok. And see the previous backups. The first time this happenned, I had to restore to a previous backup state to fix the problem. This is a right pain because a lot has changed since my last backup a week ago.

The cause of this problem seem to be this. I hotswapped out my optical drive. Then inserted my 2nd HDD in the ultrabay and started RnR. Windows reported New Hardware Found and RnR said it cannot find the 2nd HD. But after a few seconds the HD mounted as per normal and all seemed well. And this RnR problem now starts to manifest.

(The optical drive DVD-CD-R has always been temperamental with hotswapping, sometimes refusing to be ejected, and sometimes causing subsequent devices to not be properly by the system until a reboot. Possibly cased by the XP CD burner software? I have just lived with this. I should have done a cold swap I guess.)

It is almost as if a flag as been set somewhere that causes RnR to not do the backup properly.

I cannot see any references to corrupt files in engine.log. The last entry is: Fri Mar 10 02:51:08 2006 Verbatim: MergeIncrementals(DriveLetter='C:', Destination='D:\RRUbackups', Local='0'

There are not event log entries that shows anything relating to RnR.

I have given up trying to upgrade to RnR v3.

I have gone back to backup up simply by dragging files to another drive.

Is there a way to force RnR 2 to create a new base?

is there a hidden pref file somewhere that i can reset to make RnR do a backup properly?

Any ideas anyone?

The incremental limit was set by a line in tvt.txt for R&R 2.0, not sure about 3.0.

I have had similar issues with both R&R 2.0 and 3.0. In my case it seems to be related to the fact that my backup device is a Buffalo Linkstation - A Network Attached Storage appliance that runs embedded Linux. My problems always show up when I hit the limit for incrementals. I surmised that R&R was using some Windows only file commands to concatenate or delete the oldest backups, but was never able to figure out what they were.

In my case deleting all backups and making a new base usually fixed it - though I generally have to do that the hard way by going into the backup directory with Explorer and doing it myself. The R&R delete backup function does not seem to work.

Interestingly after I put a second HDD in the ultrabay, R&R started backing up to it first (without asking me, I might add) and then copying the backups to the networtk drive. This takes a lot longer but seems to work properly.

All in all the file management in R&R sucks. I also have TrueImage, and when I make a backup with that I can just navigate through a browse dialog to where I want to store the backup, and name it anything I want. If I select an existing backup as the destination, it asks if I want to make an incremental or differential. There is no file limit, I can have as many base bakups as I want, and create incrementals or differentials from any base at any time. By comparison, R&R seems designed to deliberately take control away from the user over where and how backups are stored. I suppose that makes sense in a corporate or educational environment, where thousands of machines are being supported by a small IT staff and users are viewed as problem creators, but for individual users it's stupid.

Ed Gibbs

And I totally agree.

There is a new version of R+R on the IBM/Lenovo website. 3.01 may remove some of the items you are mentioning. I had to remove 3.00 before 3.01 would install. 3.01 seems to allow multiple backups since I have done three in the last week.

I successfully used RnR to delete the latest backup. It did it in a minute. And then seemingly successfully performed a backup.

Not ideal, but is a partial workaround without needing to create a new base.

I can live with this. Such is life.

Thanks for all your input.

Don't you just love backup software that fails inexplicably, might or might not actually be working now, and might or might not work when you actually need it?

My advice - don't use R&R by itself. Use it with another backup strategy such as the built in Microsoft Backup software or an imaging program.

Would hate to see you posting in a few months that your system crashed, and you can't get R&R to restore the backup.

Ed Gibbs

Spoke too soon I did.

After doing that one successful run, RnR now refuses to do any more.
(Bearing in mind I had been using this without much complaint since Aug 2005.)

I deleted all previous backups, renamed the old RnR folder (which had the base in it) and ran the whole thing again. It correctly said no backups exists and started doing a massive one, presumably a base. But when it finished, the item was not labeled "base". So is it a base or not?!!!

Ed has a good point. think I will dump RnR now and stick with good old manual copy and paste. I have simply lost faith in it and it is nor worth my time resolving the issue. Simple is good. And the data files are what is important anyway.

Thanks again for all you input and thoughts on this.