Weird behavior of Comodo Backup.

Beta Corner - CB
1

Weird behavior of Comodo Backup.

This is my pc (XP Pro SP3) disk layout (as shown in attached “disks.gif”):

Diak 0 1863,01 GB : 29,29 GB Not Formatted | 1833,72 GB NTFS O:
Diak 1 1863,01 GB : 48,83 GB Not Formatted | 1814,19 GB NTFS N:
Diak 2  931,51 GB : 29,29 GB Not Formatted |  902,22 GB NTFS M:
Diak 3 1863,01 GB : 48,83 GB NTFS C: | 861,33 GB NTFS E: | 952,86 GB Not Formatted

I try a “Full” backup of my system partition C: as “Disk,Partiton and MBR”.
Comodo Backup show the correct disk layout in the source items tree (but it only display the drive letter for O: and M: partition as shown in attached “comodo.gif”), it let me select the first partition of disk3 and proceed to complete what it reports as a succesful backup.
But when I inspect the resulting .cbu file I discover it actually had backup one of the 29,29 GB Not Formatted partition !?! :o
I try v4.0.7 and v4.1BETA2 with the same result.

Inspecting “CBU.exe.log” I found these lines:

[29.03.2012 22:17:38:484|004794|GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx] GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx: GetVolumeInformation failed with error code 171
[29.03.2012 22:17:38:500|004777|GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx] GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx: RetrieveVolumeHandleFromPartitionInformation failed with error code 5
[29.03.2012 22:17:38:500|004777|GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx] GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx: RetrieveVolumeHandleFromPartitionInformation failed with error code 5
[29.03.2012 22:17:38:531|004794|GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx] GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx: GetVolumeInformation failed with error code 171
[29.03.2012 22:17:38:562|004777|GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx] GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx: RetrieveVolumeHandleFromPartitionInformation failed with error code 5
[29.03.2012 22:17:38:562|004777|GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx] GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx: RetrieveVolumeHandleFromPartitionInformation failed with error code 5
[29.03.2012 22:17:38:562|004777|GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx] GetListOfDiskPartitionsEx: RetrieveVolumeHandleFromPartitionInformation failed with error code 5

If I try “Export to script” for the backup it reports an error and in “CBU.exe.log” I found these lines:
[29.03.2012 22:52:18:718|000594|RetrievePartitionNumberByPartitionInfo] RetrievePartitionInfoByPartitionNumber: no matching partition found
[29.03.2012 22:52:18:718|013589|_BACKUP_CREATE::SaveBackupToScript] Invalid backup source type

Worth repeating that if I execute the same backup it don’t report any kind of error, it just “successfully” backup another partition ! :o

[attachment deleted by admin]

2

Most likely disks 0, 3 and probably 1 have the same hardware ID which is used to uniquely identify disks.
This is what is causing the weird behaviour.
So when you tried to backup (C:) from Disk3, it actually backed up the first partition from a disk with similar hardware ID (Disk 0)
We’ll address this issue in the next version.

Thanks

3

Thanks for your response.
I don’t know what “hardware ID” means, they are the same model but I don’t think this should be infrequently on pc ???
Anyway here it is a report from CrystalDiskInfo (CrystalDiskInfo count disk from 1 instead of 0), it seems that using Serial Number to identify the disk should resolve the problem

(1) ST32000542AS

       Model : ST32000542AS
    Firmware : CC34

Serial Number : 5XW0VTN3
Disk Size : 2000.3 GB (8.4/137.4/2000.3)
Buffer Size : Unknown
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 3907029168
Rotation Rate : 5900 RPM
Interface : Serial ATA
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 4
Transfer Mode : SATA/300
Power On Hours : 5001 hours
Power On Count : 957 count
Temparature : 24 C (75 F)
Health Status : Good
Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, AAM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : C0C0h [ON]
AAM Level : FEFEh [ON]

(2) ST32000542AS

       Model : ST32000542AS
    Firmware : CC34

Serial Number : 6XW1ECXF
Disk Size : 2000.3 GB (8.4/137.4/2000.3)
Buffer Size : Unknown
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 3907029168
Rotation Rate : 5900 RPM
Interface : Serial ATA
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 4
Transfer Mode : SATA/300
Power On Hours : 3877 hours
Power On Count : 734 count
Temparature : 21 C (69 F)
Health Status : Good
Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, AAM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : C0C0h [ON]
AAM Level : FEFEh [ON]

(3) Hitachi HDT721010SLA360

       Model : Hitachi HDT721010SLA360
    Firmware : ST6OA31B

Serial Number : STF605MH11X00B
Disk Size : 1000.2 GB (8.4/137.4/1000.2)
Buffer Size : 15001 KB
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 1953525168
Rotation Rate : 7200 RPM
Interface : Serial ATA
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 4
Transfer Mode : SATA/300
Power On Hours : 10581 hours
Power On Count : 1365 count
Temparature : 26 C (78 F)
Health Status : Good
Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, AAM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : 0000h [OFF]
AAM Level : 80FEh [ON]

(4) ST32000542AS

       Model : ST32000542AS
    Firmware : CC34

Serial Number : 5XW0TL47
Disk Size : 2000.3 GB (8.4/137.4/2000.3)
Buffer Size : Unknown
Queue Depth : 32
# of Sectors : 3907029168
Rotation Rate : 5900 RPM
Interface : Serial ATA
Major Version : ATA8-ACS
Minor Version : ATA8-ACS version 4
Transfer Mode : SATA/300
Power On Hours : 1285 hours
Power On Count : 272 count
Temparature : 25 C (77 F)
Health Status : Caution
Features : S.M.A.R.T., APM, AAM, 48bit LBA, NCQ
APM Level : C0C0h [ON]
AAM Level : FEFEh [ON]

4

We think we found a potential cause for this issue.
Please try to backup using this GUI.exe (place it in the installation folder) and please collect the debug logs for analysis.

Thanks

5

Many thanks.
I used GUI.exe.
Same symptoms: the source items tree doesn’t display the partition drive letter, “Export to script” reports an error, executing the backup “successfully” backup first empty partition of another drive.
Attached “DebugInfo”.

[attachment deleted by admin]

6

Hi,

Please try this new GUI.exe and collect the debug information.
It looks like the cause is a little harder to find, so we might need one or two more tries until we fix this.

Thanks

7

Same as above: the source items tree doesn’t display the partition drive letter, “Export to script” reports an error, executing the backup “successfully” backup first empty partition of another drive.
I attached the new “DebugInfo” and some small report generated with WMI Explorer I hope you may find useful.
Thanks

[attachment deleted by admin]

8

According to PhysicalMedia.htm in the WMI.zip, explorer can’t determine physical disk serial number.

CB also can’t determine physical disk serial number, but it uses more information (not just the serial number) to uniquely identifies disks. The rest of the information is common for all 3 disks, this is why it thinks it needs to backup first partition of another disk than the selected one.

Sorry, but this issue doesn’t seem fixable.

Thanks

9

Well, I gave a look to MSStorageDriver_ATAPISmartData too and it show only 2 entry for the 4 drives, so relying to WMI does not seem the way (at least on XP).
However, other software like CrystalDiskInfo who bypass WMI and does lower level access to drives have no problem on getting the serial number.
I gave a look to CystaldiskInfo source (has a BSD license) and it seems to require some tricks and vendor specific check.
So this issue is “fixable” for sure, but obviously it is up to you estimate if the effort is worthwhile, since I paid nothing and you already have done more than some other company commercial support. :-*