Please Help: Continuing Problems with Rescue and Recovery

[Roadster]

Please help me! Every couple of weeks, my Rescue and Recovery process (v 3.10.0022.00) mysteriously fails, and I can't figure out why.

I've got it set up to run incremental backups every night at 2:00 AM, but every couple of weeks, the R&R program keeps failing mysteriously.

My set-up is as follows:

I'm running R&R backups to the internal D: drive in my UltraBay slot on a daily basis, and also to my external USB drive E: at home on weekends (also set for daily incremental backups). Since I don't travel with the external E: drive, that part of the backup process usually fails (expectedly) on weeknights while I'm in a hotel, because the drive is simply not there. However, the UltraBay drive usually backs up successfully. When I return home on weekends, the backup to the external E: drive finally succeeds, and then the other incremental backups made on the internal D: drive at my hotel room during the week simply transfer to the external drive automatically.

But every couple of weeks, the entire R&R process mysteriously fails... no backup on either the internal D: drive or the external E: drive... just overall failure... no warning message, no explanation, no suggested troubleshooting tips... just complete and utter failure of the entire backup routine.

In the past, whenever I've run into this problem, the way I end up resolving the issue is to delete ALL my prior backups (including the Base), prepare a new Base backup via R&R, and then HOPE that the process works going forward.

I feel I need to do this in order to keep a fresh backup available with me when I'm traveling on business (M-F of every week), since my entire livelihood as a consultant is dependent on my ability to reliably access my computer files and programs.

This is admittedly a dangerous strategy, because in order to get a fresh Base backup, I have to delete ALL of my prior backups. If the fresh Base backup ever fails, I'm going to be up the proverbial sh!t creek!

Unfortunately, in a few weeks time, I'm back in the same boat again.

Here's the excerpt from the last couple of days in my RR.log file...

Code: Select all

Sat Dec 08 00:32:02 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Client Security Solution\tpmdetect.exe /state
Sat Dec 08 01:59:59 2007 RescueRecovery: Loc=40 NoPrimary=8
Sat Dec 08 02:00:01 2007 RescueRecovery: BackupThread Started.  There are 1 partitions to back up
Sat Dec 08 02:00:01 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Rescue and Recovery\Migration\bin\r2r.exe /c "C:\SWSHARE\capture.sma"
Sat Dec 08 02:02:13 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Rescue and Recovery\br_funcs.exe merge destination="D:\RRbackups" drive=C: pw=1 uuid=0 level=2
Sat Dec 08 02:13:04 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Rescue and Recovery\br_funcs.exe delExclude drive=C: destination="D:\RRbackups" level=4
Sat Dec 08 02:14:16 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Rescue and Recovery\br_funcs.exe backup level=5 destination="D:\RRbackups" drive=C: location=32 nice=0 pw=1 uuid=0 compress encrypt
Sat Dec 08 02:30:18 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Rescue and Recovery\br_funcs.exe delSIS drive=C: destination="D:\RRbackups" level=4
Sat Dec 08 02:31:48 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Rescue and Recovery\rrsync.exe S U
Sat Dec 08 10:27:16 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Client Security Solution\tpmdetect.exe /state
Sun Dec 09 01:59:59 2007 RescueRecovery: Loc=40 NoPrimary=0
Sun Dec 09 02:00:01 2007 RescueRecovery: BackupThread Started.  There are 1 partitions to back up
Sun Dec 09 02:00:01 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Rescue and Recovery\Migration\bin\r2r.exe /c "C:\SWSHARE\capture.sma"
Sun Dec 09 02:02:16 2007 RescueRecovery: Running: C:\Program Files\Lenovo\Rescue and Recovery\br_funcs.exe merge destination="D:\RRbackups" drive=C: pw=1 uuid=0 level=2
Sun Dec 09 02:08:08 2007 RescueRecovery: br_funcs MERGE returned error 0x54C
Sun Dec 09 02:08:08 2007 RescueRecovery: Backup failed. Free Space High=0x00000009 Low=0xEE6D6000

Pardon my "French", but WTF is MERGE error 0x54C?!#$%

I don't think it's an available space limitation, because I've got over 40 Gb of free space on the 100 Gb internal D: drive, and I've got 133 Gb of free space on the 250 Gb external E: drive, even after the Base backup and 5 incremental backups have run. (If I deleted those backups, I would have even more free space available.)

One of the main reason I bought a ThinkPad was because of all the positive things that I read about the ThinkVantage software suite, and I liked the fact that it had a built-in Rescue and Recovery program. Needless to say, I am extremely frustrated, and it is causing me to second-guess my decision to purchase this make of laptop!!!

If I knew the reason for the failure, I could at least TROUBLESHOOT the problem, and more importantly, find a RESOLUTION.

Heck, I don't even know if there is any troubleshooting literature available for the Rescue and Recovery program.

I'm about to throw this POS software into the Recycle Bin and move to another backup program that will run reliably, and that I can count on when the chips are down.

Please help me, because I'm at a complete loss about what to do going forward:

[Roadster]

Update: Well, I solved my problem again by trial and error, at least temporarily.

What I did this time was only delete the most recent incremental back-up (12/8/07), and keeping my Base backup and all prior incremental backups in place. Then I restored my system settings and programs only from the most recent remaining incremental backup (12/7/07). Then when I ran R&R again, the process completed on both drives. So I've bought myself a little more time, but I still don't trust this program, and I am looking into other software alternatives.

Any advice on this front would be greatly appreciated. TIA.

[Roadster]

Another quick update: The latest scheduled incremental backup attempt on Rescue and Recovery 3.1 failed again last night (12/11/07, 2:00 AM). I never would have known when I got up this morning, since there were no error messages indicating a failure, had I not checked the Backup History in R&R and found that there was no backup listed for last night's scheduled run. When I opened up the RR.log file, I saw the inevitable MERGE error 0x54C.

I am tired of trying to work with this POS software. I really liked the feature that allowed you to just refresh system settings and applications, but the drawbacks to using this software far outweigh this specific benefit.... ZERO reliability, no error messages upon failure, no troubleshooting help available... just a pathetic piece of software overall.

I am actively investigating other backup alternatives, because I NEED to have a reliable backup program in place.

Any suggestions for other backup alternatives would be greatly appreciated.

[BeeJayEmm]

I'm sorry to hear about your R&R issues. I have had problems using it with an R60. I can't help solve its problems but if you use the search function above, you will find MANY posts suggesting backup alternatives. I am using Acronis True Image and its close relative, Apricorn EZ Gig II and they have worked well for me. Backups complete faster than R&R and I have successfully restored from disaster.

[Roadster]

I am using Acronis True Image and its close relative, Apricorn EZ Gig II and they have worked well for me. Backups complete faster than R&R and I have successfully restored from disaster.

Thanks for the advice, BJM.

What version of Acronis True Image are you using? Does it successfully restore both partitions of your hard drive? Specifically, did your disaster recovery include a complete re-write of the hard disk?

During my search process, I thought I recalled reading some prior posts on this forum mentioning some problems with prior versions of Acronis software on Lenovo Thinkpads, due to the SecureDrive partition. (Maybe I am confusing Acronis with Ghost?)

I don't have any personal experience with either of those software packages, but I have lost two different hard drives in the last 3 years on another laptop (a Toshiba Satellite), so I'm a little concerned about this particular issue.

Anyway, I downloaded the free trial version of Acronis True Image v11 this morning, and I plan to give it a test run.

Any specific configuration tips that you can provide relative to generic ThinkPad set-ups would be greatly appreciated.

[dfumento]

Well, also I'd try downloading the newest version of R&R, 4.1 along with the patch. Before installing, uninstall the old version.

[Roadster]

Well, also I'd try downloading the newest version of R&R, 4.1 along with the patch. Before installing, uninstall the old version.

I thought about that, but the comments I'm seeing on the forum here suggest that Rescue and Recovery 4.1 is as bad, if not worse, than R&R 3.1.

For example...

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=53708

Do you have personal experience with R&R 4.1, and if so, have you ever experienced any of the problems that I have described above?

[BeeJayEmm]

Roadster: I have not yet needed to do a disaster recovery on any of my ThinkPads, fortunately. I did have to on a Compaq Presario notebook and EZ Gig II (which is Acronis ver. 8.) worked perfectly. It also worked when I upgraded to a new hard drive. For backup purposes, I use a boot disk (CD) that you create in the program, or you can use the program disk for this. This boots into a Linux environment. You click to create a backup image and set all the parameters. I will have to get another hard drive to test if it recreates the hidden/protected area, or you can search around here and see if anyone else has posted this info. I have also used TrueImage ver. 9 on my desktop but haven't needed disaster recovery for that, either. I have successfully retrieved lost/corrupted files on my desktop and ThinkPads using TrueImage. I trust it.

[Roadster]

Quick update:

I think I may have accidentally stumbled onto the root cause of the problem that was creating the MERGE failure in R&R.

Since starting this thread, I began having some problems with Outlook crashing. While I was troubleshooting that problem, I remembered reading somewhere about size limitations on Outlook data files. So I checked the size of my PST file and noticed that it had grown to well over 2 GB in size, due mainly to a couple of daily emails with 5 MB Excel spreadsheet attachments that I have been receiving for several months from a colleague at work.

Since the historical data in this particular Excel file is important to me, but remains essentially unchanged with each daily update, with the exception of a new line of data added, I decided to delete each of the older emails and only save the latest copy in Outlook. That brought my Outlook PST file down to less than 1 GB in size, which completely resolved the Outlook reliability problem.

And now... Voila!... Rescue and Recovery backups are now working again!!! My daily backup has run successfully every day now for over a week and a half.

I think the large size of this Outlook file was somehow contributing to the MERGE error in R&R, perhaps because R&R was set to only save this file with "Single Storage" in order to optimize backup storage space.

Anyway, just thought you guys might be interested in a quick update.