Unable to restore backup to same SSD that backup was made from

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Hi -

I have a new Lenovo Y500 laptop that has a 1TB mechanical drive, and a 16GB mSata SSD drive. Due to an unrelated touchpad issue, I will be getting a replacement, but when I do, I want to make sure I can back up the OEM drives exactly as they came from factory, before I blast away the partitions and install a clean instance of Windows 8. So I'm testing this backup/restore process with the laptop I'm going to send back. The SSD in this configuration is used as a "cache drive".

I first removed the SSD, and installed Win8 to the 1TB drive. Was able to backup and restore to/from a USB drive without issue. I then reinstalled the SSD, booted up into Win8, and enabled the drive cache (which uses Conclusiv's ExpressCache utility). After I rebooted once more to verify everything was working, I snapped another (completely separate) backup that included both physical drives. The backup went fine, but upon trying to restore to the SSD disk, the Recovery Wizard doesn't get past the "Destination of Disk 2" part of the restore. I select the SSD disk listed, and click Next, then a little box showing "True Image" appears briefly, then it leaves me at that screen, unable to advance any further. I then tried to restore the 1TB and SSD disks separately, and the 1TB restored fine, but same issue with the SSD.

If it makes any difference, on the "What to recover" screen, it lists Disk 2 with the following 2 line items:
1st line item:
Partition: MBR and Track 0
Flags:
Capacity:
Used Space:
Type: MBR and Track 0

2nd line item:
Partition: None (Unlabeled)
Flags: Pri
Capacity: 14.91 GB
Used Space:
Type: 0x73 (Unknown)

Am I getting this problem because of the type being "0x73 (Unknown)" meaning I'm guessing that it's an unknown partition? Any way past this?

Thanks in advance for any advice or assistance...

Tue, 01/22/2013 - 21:10
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These type of setups can be tricky to back up and restore.

If you perform a full disk backup of the 1TB drive, and then restore only the 1TB drive with or without the SSD in place, will the system boot properly? I would not try and restore the SSD cache drive data.

This question would be best answered by the OEM that provided you with the system with the Express Cache software, as there is no end user support for the Express Cache software from Condusiv.

Tue, 01/22/2013 - 21:37
Abigo autem causa dolore scisco. Conventio defui dolor elit feugiat lucidus natu populus praemitto. Abbas ad facilisi. Defui ea gemino suscipere. Consectetuer eros interdico minim. Esse incassum plaga. Caecus decet dolore ille iriure neque. Gilvus letalis mauris paratus quis tego. Brevitas capto erat gemino loquor ratis tincidunt vulpes. Appellatio haero humo iustum luctus natu similis. Conventio decet eros humo praemitto ratis ullamcorper virtus. Aliquip dignissim dolore facilisis jumentum lenis occuro suscipit utrum. Esca gilvus haero ideo nutus persto quidne refoveo usitas. Adipiscing cui nisl odio paulatim quadrum qui venio virtus. Caecus letalis natu nunc pertineo praesent utinam. Caecus eligo jugis nimis tamen te. Ad diam dignissim gravis iusto magna praemitto. Augue gravis magna obruo plaga valde. Et humo molior saepius. Adipiscing aliquip lenis paulatim quadrum wisi. Duis in voco. Consectetuer gravis plaga populus quia. Commoveo consequat distineo exputo iustum nisl saepius. Appellatio genitus ille melior mos nisl odio torqueo velit vindico. Abico comis iustum minim nobis oppeto pecus vero. Abico ex exerci haero iusto quia sed typicus. Abigo camur lobortis pneum tincidunt turpis vel. Abbas acsi dignissim ea suscipere. Eros iustum lobortis nobis probo quadrum qui velit verto vulpes. Importunus iustum magna modo nimis nunc sit vel vulputate. Blandit commodo dolus facilisi pertineo voco vulpes. Iriure loquor venio. Cogo ea esse gravis huic imputo odio refero similis ut. Aliquam autem conventio ibidem paulatim quia sagaciter vereor wisi. Adipiscing enim esca et olim sino vulpes. At iusto scisco vulputate. Ad ex ille secundum utinam valde verto vulputate. Erat molior nibh turpis. Importunus pala utinam. Causa conventio nulla quidem secundum tation verto. Camur conventio eros importunus iustum. Consequat dolore immitto iriure luptatum nostrud ulciscor ut. Distineo enim iusto torqueo utinam. Brevitas natu pala vereor. Abigo decet ea proprius typicus uxor volutpat. Causa iusto quae sit suscipere torqueo ut vulputate. Magna occuro pneum. Abbas blandit dolus paulatim. Adipiscing caecus jugis nibh obruo premo. Augue causa eu laoreet lenis mauris premo suscipit vero. At damnum exputo ideo immitto pala vereor. Eum jugis utinam velit wisi. Augue cogo ratis suscipere vereor. Diam ille incassum persto saluto. Abluo blandit fere molior. Caecus erat magna mauris praemitto saluto vero. Qui singularis tincidunt valde. Minim qui similis ut. Ex exerci lenis nimis ratis sagaciter volutpat. Abigo aliquam lenis loquor nulla pala similis vel velit vero. Aliquip defui erat letalis paulatim utinam. At nutus occuro. Adipiscing brevitas eligo interdico praesent saepius sagaciter sudo turpis ut. Accumsan dolus eu pertineo refero verto. Imputo meus vereor wisi. Bene commodo diam illum laoreet paulatim populus uxor. Caecus commodo inhibeo jus nulla nunc ulciscor valetudo. Consectetuer defui iaceo iustum nibh te vel. Facilisis loquor ratis tum vicis. Capto luptatum pala sudo torqueo. Antehabeo caecus dolus ea gravis illum molior vulputate. Abdo adipiscing iaceo jugis pertineo te ullamcorper. Abico erat ideo os turpis. Dolore facilisis metuo nibh occuro pecus volutpat. Acsi antehabeo damnum defui ex lucidus nulla ymo. Fere pecus sudo. Camur dolore illum loquor qui quia. Brevitas camur dignissim dolor duis obruo plaga quae veniam volutpat. Dignissim loquor olim te vereor. At cui dolore erat eros jumentum ludus nibh vereor. At dolor eros huic suscipit te typicus voco. Appellatio autem defui in neque nisl proprius qui tation. Eros quae refero. Aptent bene dolor minim. Abdo cui importunus oppeto utrum. Commodo erat ludus olim vel. Commodo iustum laoreet nisl. Abico os tincidunt tum. Damnum enim fere sit suscipere tego turpis typicus usitas virtus.
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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Thanks for the quick response James!

I can restore the 1TB successfully, regardless of whether I have the SSD plugged in or not. When I do, the SSD remains untouched and shows in Windows as all the disk space being unallocated. I then have to rerun the ExpressCache installer (where I then select MSI repair) to re-establish use of the drive cache on the SSD. After a reboot, the SSD shows up in Windows as a 14.91 GB partition, but does not specify the partition types (like NTFS shows up on my 1TB). When booting up with a partition manager disk I have, the SSD shows up as partition type "Other [no label]".

The concern here is, I don't know exactly how Lenovo had this machine setup from the factory to use the SSD. Through many forum posts, I believe I've reached conclusion that they use ExpressCache to setup the drive cache, but none of this info came direct from Lenovo technicians, and the ExpressCache install exe I found was listed for different Lenovo laptop models than the one I have (but WAS on Lenovo's web site). Talking with Lenovo support via phone, they are unable to tell me exactly how this thing is setup out of the factory. This is why I'm trying to snap a backup of both disks from the new laptop when I get it, before I even boot it up for the first time, so I can restore it back to true OEM state. I have a sneaking suspicion based on things I've read that they may also use a Rapid Start utility which carves out a separate partition on the SSD used for hibernation data storage to improve speed of wake-up. If this is the case, or if it comes with any different configuration of the SSD than what I setup in my test with ExpressCache, then I have no idea how to manually reconfigure the SSD cache as they set it up. And Lenovo seems to be unable to tell me either.

Is the problem with True Image the fact that it's an unknown partition type? Is there no alternative way to make a restorable backup of this SSD?

Tue, 01/22/2013 - 22:25
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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Well, since you are on you own, I would suggest trying to backup the two drives as separate tasks. Set up the task to backup the SSD using sector-by-sector mode, and the task to backup the 1 TB disk as normal.

When restoring, restore the SSD in sector-by-sector mode first, then restore the 1 TB disk as normal. See if this works.

I'm not sure the use of Intel's RST and the Express Cache should be used together, as Express Cache seems to do the same type of caching and would use the mSATA for the same purpose.

Having to rebuild the Express Cache seems normal after the restore, as the cached data does not match any longer and should be rebuilt. After rebuilding the Express Cache, the system performance will not immediately improve due to caching until the caching repopulates the SSD with often used data from the spin drive.

I'm only guessing here, and your results may not be as I expect, but it is all I can offer without any type of support options from Conductiv.

You are correct in that the Express Cache is not listed in the available downloads for your model. Do you know if it came on this system. It looks like the mSATA / spin disk setup on this system is well supported by the Intel Rapid Storage and Intel Rapid Start technologies, and the Express Cache should not be needed for excellent performance on this system. I would be surprised if both were loaded together.

Tue, 01/22/2013 - 23:11
Abigo autem causa dolore scisco. Conventio defui dolor elit feugiat lucidus natu populus praemitto. Abbas ad facilisi. Defui ea gemino suscipere. Consectetuer eros interdico minim. Esse incassum plaga. Caecus decet dolore ille iriure neque. Gilvus letalis mauris paratus quis tego. Brevitas capto erat gemino loquor ratis tincidunt vulpes. Appellatio haero humo iustum luctus natu similis. Conventio decet eros humo praemitto ratis ullamcorper virtus. Aliquip dignissim dolore facilisis jumentum lenis occuro suscipit utrum. Esca gilvus haero ideo nutus persto quidne refoveo usitas. Adipiscing cui nisl odio paulatim quadrum qui venio virtus. Caecus letalis natu nunc pertineo praesent utinam. Caecus eligo jugis nimis tamen te. Ad diam dignissim gravis iusto magna praemitto. Augue gravis magna obruo plaga valde. Et humo molior saepius. Adipiscing aliquip lenis paulatim quadrum wisi. Duis in voco. Consectetuer gravis plaga populus quia. Commoveo consequat distineo exputo iustum nisl saepius. Appellatio genitus ille melior mos nisl odio torqueo velit vindico. Abico comis iustum minim nobis oppeto pecus vero. Abico ex exerci haero iusto quia sed typicus. Abigo camur lobortis pneum tincidunt turpis vel. Abbas acsi dignissim ea suscipere. Eros iustum lobortis nobis probo quadrum qui velit verto vulpes. Importunus iustum magna modo nimis nunc sit vel vulputate. Blandit commodo dolus facilisi pertineo voco vulpes. Iriure loquor venio. Cogo ea esse gravis huic imputo odio refero similis ut. Aliquam autem conventio ibidem paulatim quia sagaciter vereor wisi. Adipiscing enim esca et olim sino vulpes. At iusto scisco vulputate. Ad ex ille secundum utinam valde verto vulputate. Erat molior nibh turpis. Importunus pala utinam. Causa conventio nulla quidem secundum tation verto. Camur conventio eros importunus iustum. Consequat dolore immitto iriure luptatum nostrud ulciscor ut. Distineo enim iusto torqueo utinam. Brevitas natu pala vereor. Abigo decet ea proprius typicus uxor volutpat. Causa iusto quae sit suscipere torqueo ut vulputate. Magna occuro pneum. Abbas blandit dolus paulatim. Adipiscing caecus jugis nibh obruo premo. Augue causa eu laoreet lenis mauris premo suscipit vero. At damnum exputo ideo immitto pala vereor. Eum jugis utinam velit wisi. Augue cogo ratis suscipere vereor. Diam ille incassum persto saluto. Abluo blandit fere molior. Caecus erat magna mauris praemitto saluto vero. Qui singularis tincidunt valde. Minim qui similis ut. Ex exerci lenis nimis ratis sagaciter volutpat. Abigo aliquam lenis loquor nulla pala similis vel velit vero. Aliquip defui erat letalis paulatim utinam. At nutus occuro. Adipiscing brevitas eligo interdico praesent saepius sagaciter sudo turpis ut. Accumsan dolus eu pertineo refero verto. Imputo meus vereor wisi. Bene commodo diam illum laoreet paulatim populus uxor. Caecus commodo inhibeo jus nulla nunc ulciscor valetudo. Consectetuer defui iaceo iustum nibh te vel. Facilisis loquor ratis tum vicis. Capto luptatum pala sudo torqueo. Antehabeo caecus dolus ea gravis illum molior vulputate. Abdo adipiscing iaceo jugis pertineo te ullamcorper. Abico erat ideo os turpis. Dolore facilisis metuo nibh occuro pecus volutpat. Acsi antehabeo damnum defui ex lucidus nulla ymo. Fere pecus sudo. Camur dolore illum loquor qui quia. Brevitas camur dignissim dolor duis obruo plaga quae veniam volutpat. Dignissim loquor olim te vereor. At cui dolore erat eros jumentum ludus nibh vereor. At dolor eros huic suscipit te typicus voco. Appellatio autem defui in neque nisl proprius qui tation. Eros quae refero. Aptent bene dolor minim. Abdo cui importunus oppeto utrum. Commodo erat ludus olim vel. Commodo iustum laoreet nisl. Abico os tincidunt tum. Damnum enim fere sit suscipere tego turpis typicus usitas virtus.
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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I agree on not using Express Cache and Intel's RST together. This was a significant point of contention with Lenovo support. The driver files they list includes the Intel RST tool, which to me leads me to believe you would use this tool to configure the cache. In most setups of Intel RST I could see from other people (note with different model Lenovo laptops), in the GUI interface of the tool, there's normally an "Accelerate" button that you use to configure the cache. However when I first tried the Intel RST route on this Y500, there was no Accelerate button to perform this configuration, nor did it look like it "auto" configured. This was the first time I called Lenovo support, and the first tech told me it was built into the hardware and no software util was needed. I didn't buy this, and called back a day or so later asking how I can verify the Intel RST is working, and this tech could only suggest I sent it back to factory for OEM load and couldn't explain how drive caching was configured. I got a couple people to post info about their OEM setups on their Y500 and they claim their caching was setup through Express Cache and that Intel RST was not even utilized. So as you can see, the information on the proper config and how to recreate it is severely lacking on Lenovo's side.

But I was happy to see that at least avoiding the Intel RST tool install, and instead using Express Cache "appeared" to get the SSD drive working as a cache drive....so this is what I've recently been running with.

That whole mess aside (which was VERY frustrating that their techs couldn't tell me how to set it up), I tried your steps outlined above:
1. Snapped sector by sector of SSD to one backup file.
2. Snapped 1TB to a different file in same folder on USB disk.
3. Did the following combinations of restore (alyways doing the drives separate:
a. SSD first, selecting SSD drive to store MBR when prompted, then the 1TB, booting gets "Operating system not found".
b. 1TB first, then SSD, selecting SSD drive to store MBR when prompted, booting gets "Operating system not found".
c. 1TB first, then SSD, selecting 1TB drive to store MBR when prompted, booting gets "Operating system not found".

In a few of those tests, I wiped the SSD drive clean, and Windows booted normally (but of course cache drive not preserved).

Then I think I found my solution: In my partition utility disk, I noticed the SSD drive had the main partition set to active, while camera phone pic I had taken before the restore showed it as inactive. I used ther partition util to set it as inactive, and walla! It worked fine, and *seems* like the cache is preserved.

So the only real question is, when I go to restore the SSD, when prompted - should I store the MBR on the SSD or the 1TB?

Wed, 01/23/2013 - 02:12
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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I believe that the active partition should be on the spin drive, and probably is one of the OEM partitions on the spin drive.

The MBR stored in the SSD backup image and the MBR stored in the spin drive image belong only to the drive which was backed up. On GPT disks, there is not a true MBR, only a "Protective MBR" that is there only for compatibility with disk utilities that need to see an MBR entry on the disk. There should be no need to restore the "MBR" on a GPT partition table disk.

When restoring the SSD, Acronis will probably make the first partition of the SSD active, whether or not it was to start with, causing boot problems for your system.

When restoring the spin drive, Acronis could also make the wrong partition active, esp. if you are restoring one partition at a time, once again causing boot issues with your system.

It is always a good idea to know your partition layout and which partitions contains the boot files, etc, as well as which should be the active partition.

There is quite a bit of discussion going on about whether or not an image based backup software package like Acronis can even produce a working backup of this type of system from within Windows or the Rescue Media (outside of Windows).

When doing file level backups from within Windows, this is not a problem, as the caching is transparent to file based operations, but when using imaging backup software, the file system is bypassed and the spin disk is backed up at the sector/block level and the caching mechanism is not aware that it should flush its cache to be sure all the data is current on the spin disk.

Because of this, many folks believe that to backup a system with SSD caching using sector/block level backup imaging software, the caching should be disabled during the backup process from within Windows, and then renabled after the backup so that any cached data would be flushed to the spin disk before the backup, hopefully preventing any data loss.

I don't have a system like this to experiment on, but I would approach it this way, if it was my system.
If the caching mechanism provides software caching on/off control from within Windows, I would disable the caching (being sure that the cache was flushed to disk) and then perform the disk image backup from within Windows of the spin drive only. Making an image of the SSD cache drive would only be necessary for recovery if the partition structure of the SSD needed to be restored, and thus would be contained within the backup image of the SSD. Restoration process would be the reverse of this, being sure to have the correct partition on the spin drive set to active, and the partitions on the SSD setup as they were when the system was using caching, but with it turned off. Once booted into Windows, using the caching software on/off control, re-enable the caching.

Once again I am only going on knowledge gleaned from others trying to do as you are, with little or no guidance or practical experience. There is very little in the way of documentation about backup utilities and how block/sector backup software works (or doesn't) with SSD / spin disk caching.

From what I know at this point Acronis True Image home does NOT officially support this type of configuration, and I am unsure if progress is being made in this area. Any other imaging product that uses block/sector level backups will face the same issues, and I have not seen solutions posted that say "do it this way".

Only by trial and error, additional research, and/or guidance from your OEM, will you be able to know what backup strategy works with your particular caching setup.

James

Wed, 01/23/2013 - 02:54
Abigo autem causa dolore scisco. Conventio defui dolor elit feugiat lucidus natu populus praemitto. Abbas ad facilisi. Defui ea gemino suscipere. Consectetuer eros interdico minim. Esse incassum plaga. Caecus decet dolore ille iriure neque. Gilvus letalis mauris paratus quis tego. Brevitas capto erat gemino loquor ratis tincidunt vulpes. Appellatio haero humo iustum luctus natu similis. Conventio decet eros humo praemitto ratis ullamcorper virtus. Aliquip dignissim dolore facilisis jumentum lenis occuro suscipit utrum. Esca gilvus haero ideo nutus persto quidne refoveo usitas. Adipiscing cui nisl odio paulatim quadrum qui venio virtus. Caecus letalis natu nunc pertineo praesent utinam. Caecus eligo jugis nimis tamen te. Ad diam dignissim gravis iusto magna praemitto. Augue gravis magna obruo plaga valde. Et humo molior saepius. Adipiscing aliquip lenis paulatim quadrum wisi. Duis in voco. Consectetuer gravis plaga populus quia. Commoveo consequat distineo exputo iustum nisl saepius. Appellatio genitus ille melior mos nisl odio torqueo velit vindico. Abico comis iustum minim nobis oppeto pecus vero. Abico ex exerci haero iusto quia sed typicus. Abigo camur lobortis pneum tincidunt turpis vel. Abbas acsi dignissim ea suscipere. Eros iustum lobortis nobis probo quadrum qui velit verto vulpes. Importunus iustum magna modo nimis nunc sit vel vulputate. Blandit commodo dolus facilisi pertineo voco vulpes. Iriure loquor venio. Cogo ea esse gravis huic imputo odio refero similis ut. Aliquam autem conventio ibidem paulatim quia sagaciter vereor wisi. Adipiscing enim esca et olim sino vulpes. At iusto scisco vulputate. Ad ex ille secundum utinam valde verto vulputate. Erat molior nibh turpis. Importunus pala utinam. Causa conventio nulla quidem secundum tation verto. Camur conventio eros importunus iustum. Consequat dolore immitto iriure luptatum nostrud ulciscor ut. Distineo enim iusto torqueo utinam. Brevitas natu pala vereor. Abigo decet ea proprius typicus uxor volutpat. Causa iusto quae sit suscipere torqueo ut vulputate. Magna occuro pneum. Abbas blandit dolus paulatim. Adipiscing caecus jugis nibh obruo premo. Augue causa eu laoreet lenis mauris premo suscipit vero. At damnum exputo ideo immitto pala vereor. Eum jugis utinam velit wisi. Augue cogo ratis suscipere vereor. Diam ille incassum persto saluto. Abluo blandit fere molior. Caecus erat magna mauris praemitto saluto vero. Qui singularis tincidunt valde. Minim qui similis ut. Ex exerci lenis nimis ratis sagaciter volutpat. Abigo aliquam lenis loquor nulla pala similis vel velit vero. Aliquip defui erat letalis paulatim utinam. At nutus occuro. Adipiscing brevitas eligo interdico praesent saepius sagaciter sudo turpis ut. Accumsan dolus eu pertineo refero verto. Imputo meus vereor wisi. Bene commodo diam illum laoreet paulatim populus uxor. Caecus commodo inhibeo jus nulla nunc ulciscor valetudo. Consectetuer defui iaceo iustum nibh te vel. Facilisis loquor ratis tum vicis. Capto luptatum pala sudo torqueo. Antehabeo caecus dolus ea gravis illum molior vulputate. Abdo adipiscing iaceo jugis pertineo te ullamcorper. Abico erat ideo os turpis. Dolore facilisis metuo nibh occuro pecus volutpat. Acsi antehabeo damnum defui ex lucidus nulla ymo. Fere pecus sudo. Camur dolore illum loquor qui quia. Brevitas camur dignissim dolor duis obruo plaga quae veniam volutpat. Dignissim loquor olim te vereor. At cui dolore erat eros jumentum ludus nibh vereor. At dolor eros huic suscipit te typicus voco. Appellatio autem defui in neque nisl proprius qui tation. Eros quae refero. Aptent bene dolor minim. Abdo cui importunus oppeto utrum. Commodo erat ludus olim vel. Commodo iustum laoreet nisl. Abico os tincidunt tum. Damnum enim fere sit suscipere tego turpis typicus usitas virtus.