Hello,

That's the error message I get in my log. The program proceeds to make a full image, despite it's an incremental which has been either manually triggered, or automatically started, and there is a set to append to.

My problem is very similar to this : https://forum.macrium.com/29770/Full-images-created-even-though-Incremental-is-specified

However : it only happens at random. Usually, everything goes right.

I verified both the last image of that set (a differential) and the starting full. A first, a manual attempt at imaging produced this. I aborted it. A second attempt gave the same result. Then I restarted the computer the next day, hoping this would correct the problem. When the time of the scheduled image came up, I still got "Full - Incremental specified but no image set to append". This time, I let it go through. A new full image was saved. There was enough space on the disk. No previous sets were deleted.

Thank you for any ideas.

Windows updates sometimes make changes that cause this behaviour. In such cases it's both expected & unavoidable.

+x

 

Beardy - 3 April 2021 2:01 AM

Windows updates sometimes make changes that cause this behaviour. In such cases it's both expected & unavoidable.

I'm on Windows 7, and I've stopped updating for ages.

Following up on this issue, which has morphed into something else.

I alterernate between two physical disks for my backups. Today, I used the other disk. As should have been expected, Macrium gave the "Full - Incremental specified but no image set to append" warning, since the sets available on that disk reflected a partition situation which had been changed in-between. Then it went to make a full image.

However, after a rather long while, the backup stopped, with the following error message : "Backup aborted, write operation failed, the system cannot find the file specified".

I have already encountered this message many times in the past. It had stopped happening after I changed quite a lot of hardware : inside hard disks with bad sectors, and SATA cables, USB cable and external disk enclosure just in case.

Another unusual thing happened just before this last error message : I was unable to abort a Macrium image which had actually stopped running (no more disk activity), to the point that I had to restart the computer. The computer would not stop. Windows kept "shutting it down" to no end. I had to force shutdown with the physical button. The computer restarted itself, however, which it sometimes does in such situations.

Since that error mentions that a “write” operation failed, it means that the destination for whatever reason became unavailable, even if only briefly. Changing the USB cable or even the port you're using might make a difference, or if you find that this error occurs only with this disk and not the other one in your rotation if you use the same port and cable with both, then it may be an issue with that disk or at least some portion of its surface. If you use different drive letters or even volume labels with your two destination disks and still have logs going back for a while that contain this error, you can check to see whether the error consistently occurs only with one disk, since Reflect logs the drive letter and volume label of the destination. I use different volume labels on the disks in my own rotation mainly for this reason.

Not sure what happened with the job that couldn’t be aborted.

+x

 

jphughan - 4 April 2021 10:06 PM

Since that error mentions that a “write” operation failed, it means that the destination for whatever reason became unavailable, even if only briefly. Changing the USB cable or even the port you're using might make a difference, or if you find that this error occurs only with this disk and not the other one in your rotation if you use the same port and cable with both, then it may be an issue with that disk or at least some portion of its surface. If you use different drive letters or even volume labels with your two destination disks and still have logs going back for a while that contain this error, you can check to see whether the error consistently occurs only with one disk, since Reflect logs the drive letter and volume label of the destination. I use different volume labels on the disks in my own rotation mainly for this reason.Not sure what happened with the job that couldn’t be aborted.

Thank you. I use the same disk letter, but different labels. The USB cable has always been the same for a while (it's a certified one), and the port too. The external disk enclosure is the one which seemed to solve some past problems... I don't believe destination disks are at fault. I monitor them with Hard Disk Sentinel, which thinks they are perfect.

I guess I will just trigger a new full image and see what happens...

Just to report success in the end. After several attempts, shutting down the computer and separating it physically from electrical power cleared whatever freezed state Macrium was in. Then a fresh full image was possible.

+x

 

Clairvaux - 3 April 2021 4:13 PM

+x

 

jphughan - 3 April 2021 4:57 AM

If you let the new unexpected Full complete, then compare the partition maps of your new Full and any backup from the previous set that you were hoping Reflect would continue appending to.  You can view the partition maps of the images by going to the Restore tab and clicking on the image of interest, which will cause its partition map to appear at the top of the window.  In particular, check the partitions included in each images and the sizes of each partition -- not the space in use, but the actual size.  If there are any discrepancies there, then that's why Reflect created a new Full.  In order for Reflect to append a new image backup to an existing set, the new backup must contain EXACTLY the same partitions as the ones in the existing set, which means no partitions can be added or omitted, and all partitions must have the same size and "offset", i.e. position on disk.

I found the solution. Yes, my system partition became slightly bigger at that point, and that's because I decreased the overprovisioning setting of my Samsung SSD. I wasn't aware this would change the size of the partition.

Thank you very much (I'll be answering your PM as well).

BINGO!     This "Incremental specified but no image set to append to" was driving me crazy.    And Yes, I had resized my C: drive just before this started.  Thank you!