TSGL: An Acronis Tale - can verified backups go bad?

[Tilman Brandl]

Hi,

checking backups before/after storing them away is important, no doubt. I 
too have learned this the hard way in the past. From my experience running 
the verification checks isn't that difficult or time consuming using 
Acronis - here the checks are (regularly ) running in the background while 
I'm doing my normal work.

Btw - I'm wondering, whether a corrupt (windows) system can destroy backups 
on HDDs? In the past I've thought that files that were saved correctly would 
keep their integrity once and forever - but I'm not so sure anymore:

Lately I've had terrible problems with my XP machine for months due to a 
corrupt RAM bar, I've reported it here. During that time the system was so 
unstable that lots of errors crept into the file system, half of the system- 
and HD-checks I've seen in my life did happen during these months. When I 
checked my backups later (stored on my 'dedicated' backup volume F:), about 
half of them were corrupt, and many other files too - lots of *.zip files 
for instance - could a corrupt Windows do this? Can't say for sure though 
that all backups had actually been verified successfully ...

Anyway, a DVD with backups, checked for integrity, won't ever get changed 
once it has been stored away (well, if you don't burn, break or scratch it). 
So my favorite method is: Backup to DVD, verify, and stow away in a secure 
place.

Tilman

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "H Davis" <hdavis1 at gmail.com>
To: "TSGL List" <List at tsgserver.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 11:37 PM
Subject: TSGL: An Acronis Tale


> An article that might be of interest to all the folks using Acronis:
>
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,144256/article.html?tk=nl_sbxcol
>
> -- 
> H Davis   hdavis1 at gmail.com