TBI is not a valid image file (13)

[sewagepipe]

As a fairly technical person, I only come to this forum when I face the hardest of problems using your products, so bare with me, I know my questions can be very technical. But I’m not necessarily looking for direct answers, but to a greater extent; guidance.

I have a 200 GB TBI file that I generated from one of my personal hard drives a couple years ago. I don’t normally have any problems with your software so I didn’t bother to verify the integrity of the image file the day I produced it. Today when trying to access this file using TBIView I got the error: “TBI is not a valid image file (13)”. After a quick search through the forums I noticed that the problem could be that I wasn’t using the latest version of TBIView, so I went and got the latest version but still got the same error. I don’t know if the file was made corrupted or got corrupted by transferring it to different storage media a few times, I really don’t know. I would appreciate some help answering these few questions:

1. Since this file is over 200 GB large, can nothing really be recovered from this file?

2. Is there any public documentation of the TBI file format?

3. What exactly does the “13” in the error message “TBI is not a valid image file (13)” mean?

4. What initial checks are done on the file before it even displays the partition ID to choose from? I ask because on a 200GB file, that check seems really quick (a couple of seconds), so it’s definitely not checking the integrity of the entire file, most probably just a few bytes in the beginning of the file.

5. Does the TBI file store any information such as the original serial number of the HDD? I ask this because I just might have the hard drive still lying around and might be able to extract some information from it.

6. The information in the TBI file was made from my personal data and I really don’t mind sharing it for the purpose of data retrieval. Would it be at all possible to get any sort of help from the Terabyte Unlimited technical team if I uploaded the file into a cloud storage of my choice and have someone look at it?

Thanks in advance for any help given. I’m a few minutes away from starting on my journey of trying to reverse the TBI file format as most of my days seem to be spent hacking/reversing something. At this point it’s not even about getting the data back, I just love grasping the opportunity of learning something new. It’d be great if I can get my data back but even greater if I could make a tool that could decipher the TBI file format any make it available to many.

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

You only mention TBIView. Have you tried mounting the image with TBIMount or TBIHD? What does IFW report if you try to validate it?

[OldNavyGuy]

What version of IFW created the TBI file?

Have you tried using the Validate function on the TBI from the IFW GUI?

Have you checked the drive the TBI was stored on for corruption?

Multiple file copies can cause corruption.

ExactFile is a good tool to have...

https://www.exactfile.com/

[TeraByte Support]

13 is the actual error, a generic "invalid" code, which if I recall, means the file is corrupt (doesn't look like a TBI file).

[OldNavyGuy]

13 is the actual error, a generic "invalid" code, which if I recall, means the file is corrupt (doesn't look like a TBI file).

Preaching to the choir but, it's always prudent to check the integrity and usability of backups.

I remember people pleading for help during the initial WannaCry ransomware outbreak because they never tested their backups, and couldn't restore them because they were corrupted.

These included offline backups that were not encrypted by the ransomware.

[TeraByte Support]

I don't recall that, maybe in other forums / products? But none the less, it's always good validate. I've found many a memory or mobo issue that was otherwise undetected.

[OldNavyGuy]

I don't recall that, maybe in other forums

It was in other support forums.

[sewagepipe]

You only mention TBIView. Have you tried mounting the image with TBIMount or TBIHD? What does IFW report if you try to validate it?

Sorry for the untimely reply. Both TBIMount and TBIHD report the exact same error as TBIView. IFW also reports the same error using the validate function.

What version of IFW created the TBI file?

I don’t even think the file was created from IFW to be honest. I’m not too familiar with the naming conventions but the name of the file is MyComp-d0-2021-04-09-0957.TBI . As I know it, w=IFW, l=IFL, and d=IFD? So I’m guessing it was really made in Image for Dos. Needless to say, whether it was created in IFW/L/D, a TBI file is still a TBI file at the end of the day; the file can be restored using any of the other products. As for the exact version number, I don't know BUT the timestamp on the file is 04 of 2021, so let's just say it was some version of IFD that was released before that date.

Have you checked the drive the TBI was stored on for corruption?

Multiple file copies can cause corruption.

ExactFile is a good tool to have...

https://www.exactfile.com/

Believe or not, I'm normally very stringent of my file copy integrity checks. I normally use Beyond Compare (I absolutely love this software) to verify my file hashes and compare folder structures, so how I let this file slip me is beyond me. I was probably tired and in a rush as I just got done building a new RAID6 array using mdadm on Linux and was in the process of moving appoximately 14TB of data onto it from a plethora of other storage media (NAS, personal computers, random HDDs laying around). I can vaguely remember seeing incorrect checksums for this exact file in BC (Beyond Compare) but am also quite certain (but still unsure) I would have rectified all corrupted files during data compilation process. After the compilation, most files were removed from the storage media they came from and put to some other use so I don’t remember which one of my HDDs the original file came from. And lastly, thank you for the ExactFile recommendation, I never used it but it's another great tool to have in my software arsenal.