How to recover an Acronis Disk backup to a new disk

What type of backup did you make? Was it a full disk backup, selecting the checkbox for the entire disk (rather than just individual partitions)?

Have you created a bootable Recovery Media CD or USB flash drive? If not, do that now. To recover an entire disk, you should boot from the Recovery Media rather than from within Windows.

I don't see a checkbox for "entire disk", but when I expand the display for "Muliple Partitions Selected" then "Switch to Disk Mode" becomes an option. I did not drill down to this option before. This looks like the right choice.

I have been attempting to restore to the new disk with the new disk in the computer and booting with the recovery CD.

Also is there a way to quickly wipe a drive - like the Clean command in the Windows recover media ?

Am I on the right track now ? Thanks

You don't need to wipe a new drive prior to doing a disk restore/recovery to it.

Check the left column of the forums which has links to many guides. Here's one of Grover's guides which may fit what you want to do: http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/mvp/user285/guides/tih2012…

If you new disk is smaller or larger than the old disk, then item 1 at this link can help.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/29618

If new disk same size, the link Tuttle gave you will also work.

When booted from the Recovery CD, the Tools/Utilities/"Add new disk" option enables you to delete any existing partitions on the new disk so the new disk has the desired all "unallocated space".

I am currently using TI 2012 with Plus Pack under MS Vista Home Premium 32-bit. All of my system and application programs are on Drive C: and my data on other drives. I want to move to a MS System 7 64-bit "clean-install" operating system on a new, clean hard drive. My current hardware is 64-bit compliant; simply the 32-bit operating system was installed initially. I need to know if the TI/PP 2012 backup of my 32-bit current system and associated applicaton programs can be restored to the new 64-bit system? Of course, I am reasonably confident that my application programs will function normally in a 64-bit environment. Obviously, I would like to avoid the time-consuming task of re-installing each application individually.

No. Well, yes, sort of, but no, don't do it. You're moving from a 32-bit Vista to 64-bit Win7, so that is a very different environment. It would be best for you to install applications "manually". Under 64-bit, many applications install differently than under 32-bit Windows.

You can use your existing backup to restore your data files. If you install Acronis True Image on the new Win7 system, you can mount the backup image in Windows Explorer and drag-and-drop or copy across your data files from the backup to the new drive.

Greetings to Everyone,

Thank you for sharing your ideas and providing valuable insight into the area of Recovery operation. Special thanks to Tuttle and Grover.

Stephen Bruce, I hope you have successfully added your new disk and recovered the necessary disk backup to it. For future reference, we have a comprehensive yet simple walk-through on how to Add a New Disk, performing necessary deletion operations of existing data prior to recovery to it. Please refer to our Web-Help page for guidance.

Furthermore, in case you have not managed to recover to your entire disk backup to your newly added disk, you may want to review the section on Recovering a disk backup to a different disk using rescue media, in the very same Web-Help guide, for step-by-step instructions.

Please inform me Stephen if the steps provided by our MVPs Grover and Tuttle still have not helped your situation, and we can further investigate the matter.

Henry Ince, as Tuttle kindly highlighted, it is unfortunately not possible to simply move installed applications to a second operating system with a disk recovery operation. Applications, unlike data files, are written in the registry of a system and will, most of the time, require an installation to integrate with that operating system. For a detailed explanation as to what you can do with a Recovery operation in very much all of Acronis products and the reasons that inhibit application-level recovery, please see this invaluable Knowledge Base article.

Please feel free to contact us for additional questions either through our Forum or Acronis Customer Central.

Kind regards

Tuttle & Volkan, Thanks for your response and guidance. I understand the restrictions/limitations. Just thought it was worth an inquiry.

I have a similar question. This is a first post.

I bought the Full verions of Acronis 2012 Home and installed it on my Window 764 bit Lenovo T410s laptop. My goal was (is) to replace the original Lenovo OEM 128 GB SSD with a Lenovo 256GM SSD computer. I created a bootable media file and stored in on my external NAS. I also tried to create a bootable USB drive with the same utility using a 500GB HP USB drive. I used Drive Cleanser and apparently made a mistake in wiping the drive, renering it permanently unusable (after several hours of trying to undo that damage).

I tried to remove Acronis off my Laptop, and after soe failed attmepts to simply remove the program using the normal Windows utilitiy, I found several angry threads about there being a bug. An Acronic Exec posted a work around, which seemed to do the job.

Starting over, I used the original Lenovo / Windows Recovery media I created in Jan 2011 when I bought the laptop. I booted the Loaptop with the new 256 GB SSD and Windows up just fine.

So now I have the following:
1. A purchased license to the full version Acronis 2012 Home (BUT NOT THE PLUS PACK)
2. New 256GB SSD installed in the Laptop with "day-1" Windows 7 booting and running and able to see the NAS where I have an image of the laptop as of yesterday stored i then "bootable media file" I created using Acronis clone function.
3. Old 128GB SSD with all of my critical information safely stored in an static free package.

My questions are:
1. Can I download a fresh copy of Acronis 2012 Home and activate it on my new 256GB SSD, and if so how?
2. Can I restore using the cloned bootable media file stored on my NAS, and if so how?
3. Or do I have to start over using a different approach?
4. D I need Plus Pack?

I am ver confused on this and any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

1- Yes, with a new disk only, it is highly probable that the activation will just go through without problems,
2- You will have to try. If the bootable media cannot access your NAS, you will have to copy the image to a local USB disk
3- You definitely have to use the bootable media
4- No.

Follow Grover's guide to restore a disk with a different size: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/29618

RESTORE HANGS ON NEW DISK DRIVE.

I routinely create an image of my C drive (which has a Recovery partition and an operating system partition) and then weekly restore it using disk mode to a drive identical to my internal C drive mounted via a StarTech dock drive. I then test the disk by booting from the StarTech dock drive instead of my internal drive. This has been working fine. However, this week I decided to add 2 new internal disks to my backup disk rotation system and have problems. I suspect I have forgotten exactly how I got the internal drives I am using for this process set up - though I made notes and have followed what I have written, LOL.

The procedure I THINK I have used is to mount the new disk in the StarTech dock drive, go to Compute/Manage/Disk Management and find the new disk, and use the Disk Management procedure to allocate it and partition it as one big drive and do a quick format. Then assign it a drive letter. I restore in disk mode just by picking out the disk. That's what my notes say, but on both of my new disks a TI restore hangs. It just never finishes and gets bizarre and different log messages.

As I'm doing the same restore successfully with the same backup image and an identical disk which I've previously set up, I can only assume I have forgotten how to set the new disk up properly. I know I only used the Disk Management feature of Win 7 (64 bit) to set the disk up earlier. Should I have set up multiple partitions to match the internal disk partitions? I seem to remember trying that but decided later that was unnecessary as the restore redoes everything, etc.

I apologize for asking this elementary question. I know it must be here in the guides but have gotten confused on this issue. I feel stupid that I've done this before without a problem and now can't get it to work! Any help would be appreciated, very much!

A followup question: in perusing the notes I saw that it is advisable to check to use the disk signature. However, I seem to remember that not working for me at all. Are there any gotchas? It hasn't been a problem since I haven't had to replace my internal disk (just restore a corrupted operating system), but I can see how it would be good to have the same signature if I can get it to work.

Update: after reading some of the documentation, I decided to clone my new disk as surely that would eliminate any incorrect preparation of the disk for a later restore. The clone worked perfectly, and I expected the restore to work also. However, it still hangs. Other restores work on my other older disks. All disks are the same brand, size, and model.

Update: I let the attempt to restore run all night, and when I came back to the computer the restore progress bar had disappeared. However, there was no message from Acronis and the disk displayed as unallocated - not the clone I created before I started the restore. Help, I'm running out of ideas!!

Hi Pam,
I remember a topic similar to this was discussed recently.

The gist of it was this. Full disk image back ups are safer and more versatile that cloning. There is a certain level of risk to the source disk's data that goes along with a cloning operation. Disk image back ups give you more flexibility when restoring, and pose no risk to the data on the source disk. On an aside, there is no need to "prepare" a target drive to receive an image. ATI does this for you automatically, and allows you to manipulate partitions, size, marking as active, primary etc.

And now to the issue you are experiencing specifically. The hang.

If you do clone, you should never restart the system with the source and target disks attached. You should not rely on the BIOS to be responsible for correctly selecting or identifying the disk you want to boot from, even if you have changed the boot order, etc. We strongly recommend that the cloned drive always be moved into the same location (connected to the same SATA port or ribbon cable connection) where the source disk (clone) was performed from.

What resolved the other user's hang... Disconnecting all drives from his MB. Performing a BIOS reset, then connecting (the disks) and reconfiguring his BIOS, disks, boot order, etc.

Obviously I don't know if this is the behavior you are experiencing, but these recommendations still apply and hopefully might help you. Let us know if you continue to experience problems.

With your advice, I am setting aside cloning. I only got into it in desperation because I couldn't get my new drives to take a restore using the StarTech dock disk. I think you are right in that when I tried to redirect a boot to the cloned drive I had problems - a blue screen crash once, and a hang after logging onto windows the second time.

Let me restate my problem now as it stands to eliminate some of the noise in my posts:

1. I can restore an image backup to my existing, already tried and true, internal hard drives via the StarTech dock USB disk which allows you to plug in an internal drive via USB. I have been doing this for several months, always checking that the computer will boot from the StarTech after I restore the image backup. I use this strategy to be able to pop a recent c disk image into the computer in the event the c drive crashes.

2. I purchased 2 new internal drives this week to add to my disk rotation - the same brand and model numbers that I have been using for the past year. When I initiate a restore on EITHER one of these drives, it hangs. I assumed I was doing something wrong in the initial disk preparation since the drives I've been using still work. I've successfully restored the specific image backups to my older internal drives without fail time and time again and as recently as an hour ago.

3. I started afresh to get some very exact log data: I allocated using Windows Disk Management two partitions similar to the recovery and operating system partition sizes on my new hard disk. Then started a recovery at 2:27 pm with high priority. The Recovery display said the recovery would take 1 hour and 35 minutes, which is about what it should take according to past times on my older disks. At 2:54 PM the display changed to say the recovery will take 1 day and 4 minutes, and the tray icon says it is 1% complete. It is still running at 3:10 with no change in percent complete or estimated recovery time. Normally about now I would cancel the restore, but I'm leaving it running because I simply have no other ideas.

It appears to me to be either the disks are flawed or my set up of new disks is flawed. Since I can still at will recreate image restores to my two other internal hard disks using the StarTech Dock Drive, it would seem that the problem is not Acronis or the Dock Drive. But it also seems increicible that two brand new WD Blue disks would not perform. These disks will format and can be seen in Windows, and chkdsks says the disks are ok. I did a long format on one, no help. I am close to packing up the disks and sending them back, but it is very hard for me to believe that both disks would have a problem with Acronis when two other WD Blue disks do not. I am major puzzled and out of ideas.

Update:

I canceled the above restore after 2+ hours. The log looks like it completed the restore before the manual cancel. However, the progress never showed up more than 1%, and if I look at the desk it has gone from 2 allocated partitions to no allocated partitions. Here's the log below. If anyone has ANY ideas, I would so appreciate it. I'm preparing to send these two disks back but am not at all sure about its being a disk problem - and I don't know what to order now to replace these disks. Please bear in mind that my older (6 months to a year) disks, same brand, same model, work just fine:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

Recover Backup Archive</bold><endl/><tabpoint value=30><indent value=4>From file: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">"L:\My backups\DISK_C_IMAGE\DISC_C_IMAGE_L_full_b4_s1_v1.tib"</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/>Recovery of: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">Disks</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/></indent><endl/>" />

AfQBHQBTNRzTRHMIm0Rpc2sgJ1xsb2NhbFxoZF9zaWduKDYwRUE1MzNBKScgaGFzIGludmFsaWQgQklPUyBudW1iZXIgKDApLiBUaGUgZm9sbG93aW5nIHZhbHVlIHdpbGwgYmUgdXNlZDogJzEyOCcuACRtb2R1bGUAV0M6XFByb2dyYW0gRmlsZXMgKHg4NilcQ29tbW9uIEZpbGVzXEFjcm9uaXNcVHJ1ZUltYWdlSG9tZVxUcnVlSW1hZ2VIb21lU2VydmljZS5leGUAAA==

AfQBHQBTNRzTRHMIm0Rpc2sgJycgaGFzIGludmFsaWQgQklPUyBudW1iZXIgKDApLiBUaGUgZm9sbG93aW5nIHZhbHVlIHdpbGwgYmUgdXNlZDogJzEyOCcuACRtb2R1bGUAV0M6XFByb2dyYW0gRmlsZXMgKHg4NilcQ29tbW9uIEZpbGVzXEFjcm9uaXNcVHJ1ZUltYWdlSG9tZVxUcnVlSW1hZ2VIb21lU2VydmljZS5leGUAAA==

Update:

I canceled the above restore after 2+ hours. The log looks like it completed the restore before the manual cancel. However, the progress never showed up more than 1%, and if I look at the desk it has gone from 2 allocated partitions to no allocated partitions. Here's the log below. If anyone has ANY ideas, I would so appreciate it. I'm preparing to send these two disks back but am not at all sure about its being a disk problem - and I don't know what to order now to replace these disks. Please bear in mind that my older (6 months to a year) disks, same brand, same model, work just fine:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

Recover Backup Archive</bold><endl/><tabpoint value=30><indent value=4>From file: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">"L:\My backups\DISK_C_IMAGE\DISC_C_IMAGE_L_full_b4_s1_v1.tib"</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/>Recovery of: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">Disks</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/></indent><endl/>" />

AfQBHQBTNRzTRHMIm0Rpc2sgJ1xsb2NhbFxoZF9zaWduKDYwRUE1MzNBKScgaGFzIGludmFsaWQgQklPUyBudW1iZXIgKDApLiBUaGUgZm9sbG93aW5nIHZhbHVlIHdpbGwgYmUgdXNlZDogJzEyOCcuACRtb2R1bGUAV0M6XFByb2dyYW0gRmlsZXMgKHg4NilcQ29tbW9uIEZpbGVzXEFjcm9uaXNcVHJ1ZUltYWdlSG9tZVxUcnVlSW1hZ2VIb21lU2VydmljZS5leGUAAA==

AfQBHQBTNRzTRHMIm0Rpc2sgJycgaGFzIGludmFsaWQgQklPUyBudW1iZXIgKDApLiBUaGUgZm9sbG93aW5nIHZhbHVlIHdpbGwgYmUgdXNlZDogJzEyOCcuACRtb2R1bGUAV0M6XFByb2dyYW0gRmlsZXMgKHg4NilcQ29tbW9uIEZpbGVzXEFjcm9uaXNcVHJ1ZUltYWdlSG9tZVxUcnVlSW1hZ2VIb21lU2VydmljZS5leGUAAA==

Update:

I canceled the above restore after 2+ hours. The log looks like it completed the restore before the manual cancel. However, the progress never showed up more than 1%, and if I look at the desk it has gone from 2 allocated partitions to no allocated partitions. Here's the log below. If anyone has ANY ideas, I would so appreciate it. I'm preparing to send these two disks back but am not at all sure about its being a disk problem - and I don't know what to order now to replace these disks. Please bear in mind that my older (6 months to a year) disks, same brand, same model, work just fine:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

Recover Backup Archive</bold><endl/><tabpoint value=30><indent value=4>From file: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">"L:\My backups\DISK_C_IMAGE\DISC_C_IMAGE_L_full_b4_s1_v1.tib"</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/>Recovery of: <indent value=10><textcolor value="navyblue">Disks</textcolor></indent><indent value=4><endl/></indent><endl/>" />

AfQBHQBTNRzTRHMIm0Rpc2sgJ1xsb2NhbFxoZF9zaWduKDYwRUE1MzNBKScgaGFzIGludmFsaWQgQklPUyBudW1iZXIgKDApLiBUaGUgZm9sbG93aW5nIHZhbHVlIHdpbGwgYmUgdXNlZDogJzEyOCcuACRtb2R1bGUAV0M6XFByb2dyYW0gRmlsZXMgKHg4NilcQ29tbW9uIEZpbGVzXEFjcm9uaXNcVHJ1ZUltYWdlSG9tZVxUcnVlSW1hZ2VIb21lU2VydmljZS5leGUAAA==

AfQBHQBTNRzTRHMIm0Rpc2sgJycgaGFzIGludmFsaWQgQklPUyBudW1iZXIgKDApLiBUaGUgZm9sbG93aW5nIHZhbHVlIHdpbGwgYmUgdXNlZDogJzEyOCcuACRtb2R1bGUAV0M6XFByb2dyYW0gRmlsZXMgKHg4NilcQ29tbW9uIEZpbGVzXEFjcm9uaXNcVHJ1ZUltYWdlSG9tZVxUcnVlSW1hZ2VIb21lU2VydmljZS5leGUAAA==

Pamela,
Click on my signature link #3 below and look item the #2 listing which describes my suggestion on how to do restore a disk image backup.

Do these procedures when booted from the TI Recovery CD.
As your "new" disks are no long new, do use the TrueImge "Add disk" option and delete the existing partitions on the NEW TARGET DISK so all the space on the new drive is unallocated space.

Then when selecting what is to be restored, check mark the DISK so all partitions will become checked.
On the target selection screen, after selecting the new disk as the target, also check the "Recover Disk Signature" option.
You should NOT be asked anything about partition location, type, etc.

The summary page should show you what actions will be performed.
After completion, shut down and disconnect the source so first boot following the restore is with only the new disk attached.
All of the above is outlined in my guide which I referenced above.

The link below is the procedures I use to make sure my backup is a full complete disk image backup which includes all partitions.
Or, a full and complete disk image backup can be done when booted from the Recovery CD by check marking the disk as to what is to be included in the backup. On the CD, checkmarking the Disk will correctly cause all partitions to be included within the backup.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/38691

Addemdum:
If the original source disk is still connected during the attempt to create a replacement, I would suggest you disconnect the data cable to the original source disk while the restore to a replacement disk is in process.

Do NOT boot your computer with both the old original and new original both attached. Choose one or the other for attachment but not both. Some computers get confused when attempting to boot with two identical disks attached so my suggestion is to avoid that conflict.

Grover, thanks for the information. I have a question on choosing 'recover disk signature'. As I'm not replacing my internal hard disk but rather creating another internal hard disk on my Dock Drive, I have been afraid to use this feature due to the Acronis dire warning about making the original internal hard disk unusable. I haven't done it in the past, and the dock drive boots up ok in testing.

Should I use the recover disk signature?

I can speak from recent experience, that if two disks in a Windows 8 system have the same disk signature, Windows will disable one of the disks (keeping it in "offline" status) until this problem is corrected by changing one of the disk signatures. Each disk should have a unique (to that system) signature. Having multiple system disks connected to a computer with duplicate disk signatures can result in registry and BCD (used by Windows Boot Manager) corruption in Windows, with resulting boot failure problems that are next to impossible to correct without a backup copy of the original registry entries and BCD files. When Windows 8 Boot Manager sees the duplicate disk signatures in the same system, it can think there are registry and BCD problems, and refuse to boot the system correctly, and start Automatic System Repair, with an endless loop of trying to correct it, without resolution.

You have been smart to not restore the disk signatures when keeping two or more of the cloned drives connected to your system, but could have potential boot and startup issues because of the new disk signatures on the cloned drives when trying to use these "cloned" drives as your system disks. (The Boot Manager BCD entries may not see the correct disk signature and cause boot or other startup issues.)

Here is a highly technical, but informative article about disk signature collisions : http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2011/11/08/3463572.a…

From the article, a statement that I agree with 100%, as I have had customers do this and have seen the expected result:

"However, on the off chance you attach a cloned disk to a Windows system that has a disk with the same signature, you will suffer the consequences of disk signature collision, which renders unbootable any of the disk’s installations of Windows Vista and newer."

Wow, then I won't go there. I think the Acronis literature seems to say to use the disk signature, but probably the literature is assuming that you are replacing a defective disk.?

OK, then, here is a question: is my backup strategy flawed? Of course I do all of the normal daily backups for my operating system and (separate) data disk. But I wanted if possible to have a recent operating system sitting on the shelf that I could just pop into my computer in the event of a crash. I thought I would be able to do that my doing weekly or so restores to the internal drive hooked up to my Dock Disk. They seem to work - that is, after I do a restore I can boot from the Dock Disk and my operating system seems to be working normally. But since the disk signature is different, it is an accident waiting to happen? Should I abandon this strategy??? It seems like such a cool idea.

(I will be trying some of the recommendations Grover gave me late tomorrow to resolve the new disk problem - my last gasp effort before I box them up and send them back. Too late tonight to start!)

In theory you should be able to do as you have been doing in the past (restoring to the StarTech Dock attached drives). Being that according your previous posts, you are initializing the new disks in Windows Disk Management, you are creating a unique disk signature for each new disk (this is a good thing). Since you have not had any boot issues in the past, you may be okay doing it on your system, but I would not try this on mine. The way system BIOS (at the hardware/firmware level) allocates/presents disks to the OS during boot time can vary from one system to another and you may be getting lucking that all goes well with your procedures. I have found that to have an exact duplicate of a working system drive, I always restore both the partitions and the MBR/track 0 as well as the disk signature, but always remove the "cloned" drive from my system for safe keeping before booting my system again (to prevent disk signature collisions). I also usually only do the restores from the bootable media, so Windows stays out of the way.
Your problems with the newest drives may be related to the StarTech Dock and the drives themselves. The new drives may have different internal firmware, and not be compatible with the StarTech Dock and/or Acronis's Windows filter drivers. Have your tried the restore to these drives from the bootable Rescue Media? If that works, it would point to Acronis's Windows filter driver (SnapAPI), if not, it would likely point to an incompatibility between the new drives and the StarTech Dock. All hard disk manufacturer's produce drives in different locations/countries and they can be significantly different internally (number of platters, number of heads, firmware, etc.) but have the same model numbers. I've seen 2TB drives with a single platter design, as well as, a two platter design, with no change in the model number from the manufacturer. It's a crap shoot as to what you will receive at different times when ordering identical drives.

Does the bootable Rescue Media only restore to the internal drive? I was going to try that earlier, but it seemed to only recognize my internal C drive. Not wanting to mess up my 'real' system, then that would require my opening up the computer and replacing drives. I just realized that to try Grover's suggestions above I am going to have to pop the drive from my computer as he also says to perform the restore from the Recovery CD.

I can do that if I must, but of course I am trying to avoid that as much as possible with the Dock Drive. Or did I miss something, perhaps the Rescue Media does allow you to restore to some other drive?

Thank you for the insight into drives. I thought it might be related to drive firmware or structure. The StarTech Dock can see all of them ok, so I don't think it is that. Most likely differences in the drive specs. Really, exact models should be made the same way!!

If I can't get this working with the new drives, I wonder what the chances of it working with a different brand. I've been using WD, may try a Seagate. I suppose it is a crap shoot??

I use Rescue Media regularly to backup, and restore from, and to, externally attached storage.

The Acronis Rescue Media (bootable CD/DVD/USB drive) is Linux based and supports a large number of hard disk and USB controllers. It is possible that the Rescue Media does not "see" your externally connected StarTech dock drives because of incomplete driver support. How do you connect the dock to your system (USB2, USB3, eSATA)? Can it be connected by more than one interface (USB vs. eSATA)? Have you tried both types if available (while booted to the Rescue Media)?

True image 2013 Rescue Media supports more types of hardware than earlier versions, and the Plus Pack option allows for creating bootable Windows based (WinPE) Rescue Media, to which you can add additional drivers for support of any hardware you may have.

I have the StarTech Drive Dock hooked up via eSata. There is a USB 3.0 connection also on the StarTech, but my computer does not support USB 3.0.

I assume if the Rescue Media sees the disk, it will simply appear in the available choices to restore to, right? It must not see the Sata since the only choice given to me was the internal hard drive. Is there any kind of published list of recognized devices? Would the Plus Pack for sure recognize it?

?

Being that you have the dock connected to an eSATA port, I would assume that the driver support in your Rescue Media lacks the correct information to be able to support the eSATA controller on your system board.

You can still hook up the dock via USB 2.0, but performance will be significantly less than eSATA. For testing you could attach the dock via USB 2.0 to see if the Rescue Media "sees" your docked drives.

Installing the Plus Pack alone will not allow the Linux based Acronis Rescue Media (even the Plus Pack version) to support your hardware, but it will give you the ability to create Windows based (WinPE) Rescue Media that you can add additional driver support to, if needed. Since the WinPE Rescue Media is built on Windows 7 or Windows 8, the included drivers are greater than the Linux based Rescue Media supplied from Acronis, and you can add any additional drivers needed to the WinPE based Rescue Media to support your hardware.

Which version of True Image are you using?

Another option is to use an adapter to connect one of the internal SATA connectors to a bracket that has an eSATA connection. Since your current Rescue Media can see your internal SATA drive, you could connect one of the internal ports (on the SAME SATA controller) to the bracket, and then connect your StarTech dock to the bracket's eSATA connection. I have a system without eSATA and I am doing this with a eSATA dock and it works fine. Worth trying for less than $7.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812816068
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812816069
http://www.startech.com/Cables/Drive/eSATA/1-ft-eSATA-Data-Internal-to-…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812200111
and there are many more.....

Well, this makes me curious as I saw only my C drive from the rescue media. But I have two internal SATA drives. It should have seen both, right? Perhaps I need to take another look...

Many system board manufacturers use multiple controllers for SATA ports. You may have two ports from one controller, two or more from a second controller, and eSATA from possibly a third controller.

Do you have any information on the system board or computer model you own?

Before sending the new drives back, you may want to double check that you are running the most current Windows driver for the eSATA ports on your system board.

You can also try out the 2013 trial Rescue Disk to see if there is better support for your system by signing up for the 2013 trial, registering your 2013 trial serial number online, downloading the 2013 trial Rescue Media ISO from your account, and create the CD/DVD from it for testing. You would not need (or want) to install the 2013 trial on your system just to test the 2013 trial Rescue Media.

I have a Dell Vostro 460. Am about to go out for the day, will give your excellent suggestions some thought when I get back.

It did occur to me last night that if I can't get a good restore via the StarTech for the new drives, the new drives probably wouldn't work internally either - something incompatible with Acronis? Is that your take also? That would be important as I would had to have a spare drive on the shelf only to find it didn't work in a dish crash crisis.

Your Dell Vostro 460 uses the Intel H67 Express chip set, and is supported by the Intel(R) 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family drivers. From looking over the tech specs for your system, I don't believe that your system has any other manufacturers controllers on the system board for the SATA / eSATA ports . The Acronis Rescue Media that you have does not seem to support this chip set (H67 Express) very well.

I still am unclear as to which version of True Image you are running. Can you please provide that information?

Oops, I forgot to tell you that I am running the latest ATI 13.0, sorry.

I will boot up from the rescue media now (I just got home from an all day outing) and see if the Dell even recognizes the 2nd Sata drive.

And do you have an opinion on the new drives working with an Acronis Restore even if the new drive was installed in the computer? My (fairly uneducated) opinion is the new drive would not work as I think the problem is Acronis and drive incompatibility, not StarTech Dock Drive incompatibility.

Will report back on the bootup from the rescue media...

OK, I'm back. I'm wondering if I am using the wrong software. Here's what happens:

1. I am using the Rescue Media that I created from Acronis TI 2013 in the Tools and Utilities tab.

2. When I boot it up, I choose Acronis.

3. If I start through the recover process, I see all my drives except my StarTech Dock Disk. I see the same drives windows sees in the Computer folder. I have the Sata operating disk, another Sata disk, and 3 external drives (USB WD Elements drives) which are shown - I always have to go into Win 7 and assign a drive letter to the dock disk drive before the Computer folder sees it. In the Acronis Drive Cleanser and in the Backup features, I also see all drives except the Dock Disk.

I can pick an image backup from any of these drives seen by Acronis.

4. When I get to the destination screen I ONLY see my C drive:
NTFS (OS) C:
MBR and Track 0
NTFS (Recovery)
I have no other selections to use as a destination disk.

I'm guessing I can't see the Dock Disk because there's not a drive letter permanently assigned. However, since I can see my other internal drive, why won't Aconis let me restore to the other Sata internal hard drive? If it won't let me restore to my other drive, then obviously it wouldn't let me restore to the Dock Disk even if I could see it.

So how are you able to restore to other drives than the C internal drive booting up from the Rescue Media? Or am I doing something wrong????

Just to interject one thought for your next restore attempt.

One thing you can try is to change how the docking unit is attached to your computer. Switch the eSata to a USB2 cable (you indicated it had a usb3 option) and attach to computer via a usb2 connector if available, otherwise use the usb2 cable on a usb3 connector--even a usb3 cable might work if that is all you have. While it won't be seen as usb3, it may be seen as a normal usb2 connection.

I am understanding that the new disk is the target disk and why not try the Acroinis "add disk" option to clear the old settings off the new drive. If Acronis sees it in the "add disk" window, you should not normally need to assign a drive letter in advance as you want the new disk to have all unallocated space.

I tried switching the StarTech eSata to a USB2 cable on a USB2 connector (my computer has no USB3 slots). The StarTech pauses a minute and then powers down, oops. Switched to a 'powered' USB cable, though I didn't think it would make a difference since the StarTech has its own power. It didn't. Iit also shuts down in the same way when I boot from the Rescue Disk. I'm thinking the StarTech doesn't work on USB2, period. That was the impression I got from looking at the StarTech literature, and certainly the power down indicates 'do not go there', LOL.

So I am still at the point where the Rescue Disk only gives me a single option restore destination, the C drive. James indicates he uses (what I think is) the Rescue Disk to restore to other drives. But my Rescue software only points to the C drive even though I have another eSata drive in the computer. Thus the only way to use the Rescue Disk to restore a drive it to put the drive in the C position in the computer.

It looks like the end of the line. I would like to know if it is likely my new disk would not restore even if it is the C drive in the computer and am guessing it is so. But I'm reluctant to open the box to be sent back to Amazon and break open the computer and pull my working operating disk out to see. If your guess is no, I don't think I'll go there.

I'm going to try a Seagate disk next week just out of curiosity. Meanwhile, my other 2 disks that were purchased a year or less ago work just fine...

Any other comments? Your guess on whether the new disk would restore inside the machine? Anything reasonable I've missed? You guys are awesome, this is SUCH a complex subject!!

Pamela,

What is a "powered" USB cable?

I have verified with StarTech that the eSATA/USB 3.0 docks, as well as any of their USB 3.0 docks, should be able to be connected to, and operate properly, on USB 2.0 (although as mentioned in earlier posts - the transfer rate would be limited to USB 2.0 speeds). The powering down when connected to USB 2.0 seems to signify some issue with your particular dock according to StarTech support personnel.

I would suggest that you may be having issues with the StarTech, seeing that you are mentioning other issues with this dock as well (having to assign drive letters, Acronis not seeing the new disks, etc.) even when connected via eSATA, and should contact StarTech for support, or possibly exchange of the unit.

James

James, thanks for going to the trouble to check on this, I am grateful!!

My Dell has a USB port labeled 'powered'. I presume it has some sort of power source that keeps it working for devices that might need a little more power. I have a lot of USB devices and find they are very fussy about where they can be plugged in. Some devices want to operate only on the back USB plugs, some on the front, a few won't operate on the hub, etc. I use powered hubs, etc. but still find that trial and error is the only way I can set up my USBs, LOL. I haven't found any specific device that works on the 'powered' USB that doesn't work on another one, though.

I contacted StarTech, and after a couple of LiveChats they confirmed that my unit is not working correctly on USB 2.0. I tested with 2 different cables, 2 different ports, 2 different disks, and 2 different computers. In all cases the unit powers down a few seconds after it is powered up. If I eject the disk, it powers back up but powers down again in a few seconds. They will replace, eventually, but will probably take several weeks.

I don't know that this has anything at all to do with my original problem as everything 'seems' to be working on eSata. Still, there's a known defect so it is advisable to get it replaced and retest.

I don't know what to do about the new disks - I may have to go ahead and send them back if it takes very long to get the StarTech replacment as I don't want to risk not being able to get a refund. But I'll retest one way or another after I get the new StarTech.

I still have one question for now: is it possible to restore to anything but the C drive using the ATI 13.0 rescue media? My rescue software doesn't give me any choice except the C drive even though I have another sata drive in the PC. The other sata drive is a different (larger) size, could the Rescue Media be smart enough to not include it in the dropdown list? I seem to remember you are doing this sort of restore. Are you using the same software I am using? What media are you restoring to - internal or external? What kind of device? The bottom line to my question is if my software won't recognize anything but the C drive to restore to, whether or not I get the StarTech working won't matter as far as being able to create image drives from the rescue disk (except for the C drive image, of course).

Using the 2013 (Linux Based) Rescue Media, I can restore any image (backup file) to any disk on my system. I have 3 internally connected SATA drives, 1 externally connected eSATA drive (using a Black X Duet dock connected to an internal SATA port using one of the SATA to eSATA brackets I mentioned earlier), 3 USB 2.0 connected external drives, 1 Firewire connected external drive, and all are visible while booted to my Rescue Media, and can be backed up, and restored to, at any time.

As far as the Rescue Media not seeing you 2nd internal SATA drive, is it possible that you have set it up as a Windows Dynamic disk? Only the 2013 Plus Pack Rescue Media can work with Windows Dynamic disks. You can open Windows Disk Management to check the type. If while booted to the Rescue Media, you select "Backup My Disks", do both of your installed SATA drives show up? It would make sense that you would only be able to restore a disk image backup to a different drive than the one the image is stored on. For instance, if you create a full disk image backup of your first internal hard disk to your second internal disk, when you wish to restore the backup image, you would not be able to restore to the same disk (either from within Windows or from the Rescue Media) since it is the source of the backup image. If you were to try and restore individual files/folders from your disk image backup, you should be able to restore them to any connected disk (with the exception of Dynamic as mentioned). If the disk backup image is stored on an external drive, you should be able to restore to either internal drive while booted to the Rescue Media as long as the Rescue Media can properly "see" all your drives.

The "powered" USB port can be one of two things. (All USB ports supply power)

In some systems, a "powered" USB port can supply more than the normal amount of current for the USB powered device. This type of port is usually referred to as a High Power USB port (and is often seen on Point of Sale systems, to power card readers, cash drawers, pole displays, etc.).

Another option is that the USB port will remain powered up (supplying power to the connected device) when the system is in sleep, hibernation, or powered off (but still plugged in to your AC power), to allow charging a phone, for example.

James

Aha! I finally figured out there are two versions of the Rescue Disk. I created mine from ATI 2013 in the Tools and Utilities section - it does not see the StarTech, and it only allows me to restore to the C drive, period. Then I created a version going to the Acronis folder in the Windows Start, going to the Acronis/True Image/Tools and Utililities/Bootable Rescue Builder Media. The two versions look alike in the build software - nothing different at all except there's a note on one of the screens for the Linux version which says "This version includes drivers for USB/PC Card/SCSI hard disks." But it allows me to see the StarTech AND to recover to any disk, yipee!!!

I have successfully recovered on a new disk. Acronis did not see the StarTech new disk until I did an 'Add Disk' from the Rescue Media. (It did see my older working disks.)'

But I'm not sure if Acronis automatically included the disk signature or not and am afraid to mount it under windows in my StarTech drive for fear that it has the same signature as the C drive. I didn't see an option to include or not include the disk signature. I did a whole desk restore, which specifically listed the recovery area, the MBR, and the OS area.

If you can tell me it's safe to mount the new disk in the StarTech drive, I'm going to try now to do a restore from within windows just to see if it still hangs or if this initialization process has 'cured' the problem. Either way, I am going to want to ask a couple of questions about strategy now that I have more options with the Linux version of the Rescue Media.

Thank you again, this has been quite a learning process, and I am eternally grateful for the expertise and time given here.

This seems odd. When you boot to your two "different" rescue disks, are they both 2013?

UPDATE: I took a chance, probably shouldn't have, LOL, but I checked the signatures on my C drive and new disk restored using the Linux rescue media, and they are different. So the rescue media doesn't restore the disk signature automatically. I was able to boot up the new disk from the Startech drive. Now I'm going to try to create the restore from within Acronis in windows and see if it hangs like it used to on the new disk.

UPDATE: The new disk will not take a restore from within the windows 7 Acronis software. I thought it probably would. To summarize, if I do the restore from the Linux Rescue Media, it restores. If I do the restore from the ATI 2013 software, it hangs. My older WD Blue 500GB disks work fine from within Windows, but the new ones do not. Very curious. It would seem to me that this might be an Acronis problem since it works in the REscue Media but not in Windows. If so, is there someone it should be reported??

I am checking my version numbers, etc. on all my Acronis software and will report back...

All recovery/restore issues are supported at no charge by Acronis Support.

Since this is a restore issue, you can contact support here: www.acronis.com/support/contact-us.html

In step 1, on the left hand side drop down, select "Technical Issues/Questions" and in the right hand side pulldown, select "I am using a full version".

You will then need to login to your Acronis account, do so, then select your product from the drop down list presented.

Skip Step 2.

Look in the center of the screen for "To solve recovery Issue" and click the link to the right.
See attached screen capture.

Then you can choose your method of contact. (Chat is the fastest.)

Thanks, James. I've started a contact session. Since two new disks hang in the win version but not in the boot up version, I do think there must be an Acronis problem. I hope they will look into it.

Now for my confession: I booted up from the two versions of the Rescue disk I have to get version numbers, etc. One I created out of Win ATI 2013 and the other out of the Acronis win folder. I would have sworn almost 100% they were different. But apparently I was confused and was thinking the restore files were the source files, and only one source (the restore backup I selected) showed up. It is tricky because to move on to the next restore screen you have to right click on the appropriate restore, etc. At any rate, much to my chagrin, I now see I was not interpreting what I saw correctly, and both versions are the same. And indeed they show all my drives and will let me restore to any of them. I'm sorry to have kept asking the same question over and over - I don't know why it took me so long to find the right screens, etc.

To summarize what has been discovered through the resources here:
1. My StarTech Dock Disk has a defect that will not let it use a USB 2.0 cable. It will be replaced. It turns out this does not affect anything here.
2. I can perform a restore from Win 7 x 64 on two WD 500GB Blue disks I purchased last August. But the two new disks, same model and number, always hang when I try to restore to them in win 7. They will restore from the Rescue Media. I'm reporting this problem to Acronis.
3. A restore from the Rescue Media does not copy the disk signature from the backed up image - just good information to know. (There may be a way for that to happen, don't know...)

My plans now are to try a Seagate disk from Win 7, will report back. Also I have plans to take one of my restored disks with a different signature and swap it out as my C drive and run a few days and see if I run into any problems. I'm thinking I won't as I've booted and run for a few hours from the StarTech on several occasions. I'll do that within the next few days when the Seagate disk arrives.

Thanks again for all your courtesy and expertise. You all are terrific!

Your problems may be related to the Intel 6 Series Chipset issues.

See here: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/6/sb/CS-032521.htm?wapkw=intel+h67

and here: http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archi…

and here: http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archi…

If you continue to have power issues with the usb devices, there are power setting options inside the device manager and inside the Control Panel/Power options which can be adjusted. See attachment.

I believe your confusion about the target screen was on the screen labelled
"Select the items to recover" screen and what is listed is all the partitions which were backed up into the *.tib file.

If this was the screen, what the screen is asking is for the user to designate which pieces of the Backup is to be restored. Your options are to check the disk block or the block for each individual partition or track0/mbr.
What you choose to be restored depends upon what you are restoring. If restoring the entire disk, then the block in front of the "disk" option is checked, and this will cause all partitions to become auto-checked.

The option to "recover disk signature" is on the same screen where you select the destination or target disk. One important thing to remember, you do not want to boot with two disks having the same disk signature. Disconnect the data cable on one before booting. A google search can provide more details about "Recover Disk signature".

Later, after you remove the old system disk and replace it with a new one which did not get the "Recover Disk Signature", you may find it is desirable to add the signature especially if some of your programs will not activate due to the absence of the signature. Just be aware of that possibility if and when you install the replacement disk.
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?s=cf26720d50a7816dff1cd24d0…

Sometime when you have some reading time, check out item #2 and 3 inside my signature below.

Nice to see you get your issue resolved. The help from MVP James F was first class. You were very fortunate to receive such detail about an issue which was not totally Acronis related.

Thanks for the information about the chipset. I contacted Dell, and they tell me my system is ok. Good to know.