Additional information....

After Acronis supposedly restores, I go into Windows Explorer and notice that the J drive -the external drive- is not listed. If I power off/on the external drive then it "comes back" and is listed in W/E. Could Acronis be having trouble doing the restore because it is losing the J drive? How do I get around that? Why is that happening. The J drive has "been there" since before I installed Acronis.

If you are to restore files from an archive containing incremental backups, Acronis True
Image Home will provide for selecting one of successive incremental backups by its creation
date/time. Thus, you can roll back the files/folders state to a certain date.
To restore data from an incremental backup, you must have all previous backup files and the
initial full backup. If any of successive backups is missing, restoration is not possible.
To restore data from a differential backup, you must have the initial full backup as well.

desktop background suddenly changed from a picture to all gray.

Why didn't you try a restore point in windows first?

Seems like you're going through a lot to restore a desktop background. Or am I missing something.

Sounds like the J drive is being renamed after reboot????? But I don't know..

flenny, I am trying to restore back to the first full back up now. I tried to the last incremental backup, the one before that and the one before that 2nd one. None have worked.

zep516, thanks for the comment but I am not sure what you are referring to (restore point in windows?). I am a newbie in this restore subject though.

In Acronis, I found a log that has an error for the restore failures. It seems unable to open the files because it does not have a user id or password. To quote: "user name or password for the remote resource (it ten gives the file location in the external drive) is incorrect. Please check the user name or password." Of course, the external drive is not password protected in any way. Acronis did not even ask me for such information when I was working the issue.

I also contacted Acronis support and they told me to create a bootable CD with Acronis in it to correct that problem. Acronis started in what I call DOS Mode but then complained of problems reading some acronis files... groan... no restore againnnnnnnn. I cannot believe this product is so frustrating. It restore to a full restore point once but no more.

zep516 what was that suggestion you were talking about?

Use System Restore to Undo Changes if Problems Occur

Restore a Windows XP system

system restore is extremely simple to do and is something you can try first when things are changed on your pc, it is fully reversible.

luis_pr (
Quite using the incremental in your backups for Acronis.
System Restore is simple to use.
Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools -
System Restore - Pick a Black Date before your trouble started.
When backing up with Acronis always use a full backup and you
will have less trouble.
Make one to your external hard drive and one to
Acronis Secure Zone. Only use enough hard drive space for
one full backup in your Secure Zone, so the next time it will wipe the old out and install the new one.
Anyway that's how I use Acronis.
cg

ravencajun, thanks for the links. I was not aware that Windows came with that. I will check it out tonight and see what can I do but, one question as I am not sure this solution will help me...

The "problem" that I had originally resulted in these issues: (a) my desktop display switched to a gray screen background instead of a picture I had taken, (b) a few icons on the desktop were giving me problems trying to activate the programs, (c) Outlook is now looking for some weird file called outlook.pst, cannot find it and it will not start. I have reset my background picture but will your suggestion help with the outlook problem?

cg, interesting points. But that is what I am trying to do now a days: restore to a full back up point. I too assumed it would be less complicated to do a full restore than an incremental one but I was wrong! I like your idea of using the software for a backup of the external drive itself too. But that will be after I can get around this nagging problem. The date I am backing out to is all the way in September, when I bought Acronis and the very first time a full backup was done.

Luis

Hi Luis,

The System Restore should move your computer back before you began having issues, but I thought that I would address the missing pst file message.
The missing Outlook.pst file is a common Outlook error meaning that maybe the default pst (Personal Folder) that contained your mail and settings was either moved or Outlook somehow lost the path to it. To resolve it, you will need to search for all outlook.pst files on your hard drive. You will likely find many. Try looking for the largest and most recent file there and make note of the location. Open Outlook and when you get the error, click on the Browse button to navigate to the file that you noted the location of. If you are asked if you want to replace the default pst folder, you can do that. Now close and reopen Outlook. This should resolve that error.

pkponder, I did a search and found none. Is this supposed to e the file where my outlook folders like Input, Draft and Sent are located? If so, I thought when I created the file that I placed it in the My Documents Folder but there only two *.pst files in there. Their names did not match however: "Outlook Address Book 2008 01 23 Backup Archive Folders.pst" and "Outlook Address Book 2008 01 23 Backup Personal Folders.pst". No outlook.pst in there and no *.pst files elsewhere.

What version of Outlook is it Luis? It will be in your C drive, not in a backup folder unless you deleted everything after you backed up. I'm including a link so that you can see where it should be located.

Here is a link that might be useful: Where is my Outlook pst file?

Those are back up files that I created some time ago. They were stored in the C Drive. I think I also stored the outlook.pst there but I may have tweaked the location to place it inside the My Documents Folder. Not 100% sure but just a feeling because I wanted all data that needed to be backed to be located in that folder.

I am unable to get Outlook to start so I do not know the version number. MS Word & Excel are 2002 SP3 so I assume Outlook is too.

Is there a browse button that error? If so, just click that and navigate to your My Documents folder where you moved the pst file to. You just need to show Outlook where you put the file.

Pam

Yes, there is a browse button that goes with that error but it should not help. I already did an unsuccessful windows search for *.pst files on the whole C Drive. Those two back up files (created by me some time ago) were the only hits that the search found. Windows Searching for "outlook.pst" on the C Drive yielded the same result.

If you know where your backed up Personal Folder is, you can rename it to Outlook.pst and then use the Browse button to point to it.

if you go to this thread
Another question about using an external hard drive

I posted links to some of the best Acronis tutorials I have found they may help you with your Acronis use.

pkponder, no, I do not know where my outlook.pst or my archive.pst files are. I thought they were in My Documents Folder but a scan of the whole drive only located two pst files that I created when backing up my address book. No pst files elsewhere. I do not understand what happened originally that did this, reset my desktop background to gray and messed up the Dell desktop icon. That is why I was trying to use Acronis to restore.

ravencajun, thanks for the link. I will ck it out tonight. However, I am so upset thinking I was covered in my back up duties that I may replace Acronis once I figure out how to recover.