USB hard drive not recognized, and my backup is on it
I booted from the latest version of Acronis 2013 and it doesn't recognize the USB hard drive that contains my backup. I tried connecting it before I boot, and after Acronis loads - neither works. I tried unplugging and replugging it. Nothing can make it recognize the drive.
I've seen many complaints of this problem, but no answers.
I'm beyond frustrated. Could someone please help me?
Thank you.
Just in case you may be running Win8 read the following.
Just in case you decide to use Windows 8, there is a feature that is not very well documented in ongoing understanding of using windows and needing to go into your BIOS from time to time.
Windows 8 disables the F2,F12,CTRL + ALT + Del key access to your BIOS when it shuts down. In order for the system to boot faster, it forgets or limits the machine from going to the power on test and disables access to your BIOS. What I have read is that some of the mavens think that this was an error on Microsoft's part, or just the way that Win 8 handles its speed up.
You can bring back these features by using restart instead of shutdown. If you want to access your BIOS and do not see your access keys, let the system boot through to the Windows access panels (Metro) and then using the "Charm" (Gear Wheel Icon) = Settings, on the right lower side, bring up the settings screen, hit power, and use the
"Restart" instead of the "Shutdown"
If you want read more on the subject see: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/08/delivering-fast-boot-time….
Permutations,
You don't mention any details about your PC, I have a Lenovo Edge laptop, recently I discovered one of my external drive caddies is only recongised in the recovery environment if it is plugged into the USB port on the right side of the machine, which I think is the 'always on' port. As Tuttle mentions you might find something similar with your setup.
Note, this external caddy is a powered one, and my other external caddies are all recognised when plugged into th eother USB ports.
I'm running Windows 7 on this machine. I tried every USB port and no joy. I ended up creating a WinPE boot disk, and then TI 2013 was able to recognize the USB drive with my backup. I did a full restore of the disk, but now I have a new problem. I can't boot from it. When I try, I get a BSOD. It goes by too fast to see the exact error code, but I get a message about having changed hardware and I need to use the original Windows installation disk. It sounds very much like what's described in this thread:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/35138
Again, I'm stuck and don't know what to do.
The original backup was done from a 160GB SSD that had a hardware failure. I replaced it with a 500GB HDD. Since the sizes are different, I restored the data partition but not the system partition.
Any ideas?
I'm a little confused, you say you did a full restore in your second sentence, but further down you say you only restored the data partition.
Do you mean you restored the partition labled as 'C:\' ? If so, what may have happened is that Windows BCD can no longer find the boot files for Windows as they will have moved on restore. The BCD can refer to booting information in two ways, either by a path or by the name, one is fixed the other is OK when things move.
I restored the C: partition. But for some reason, the 100MB system partition was called "C" and the rest of the disk (where I restored to) was called "D".
In any case, how do I fix this??
Remove the C:\ label from the System partition, it shouldn't have a drive letter, relabel the partition that is now 'D' to 'C:\' , check which partition is marked as active. It should probably be the System partition, but if that doesn't work, mark the C:\ partition as active.
This can be done from the command line from the Windows Recovery CD, or alternatively a GUI based disk utility such as Acronis Disk Director (not free) or GParted (free) or similar can be used.
Alternatively you can restore again, making sure that you tell TI what drive letters to use at the appropriate point in the wizard. Have a look at Grover's Guides concerning restore or the User Guide for 2013.
Yup - I did all that (was able to figure out that much on my own), but I was still getting the BSOD. I got it to pause so I could read the code, and it was 0x7B. When I googled the code, wonder of wonders, the solution popped up. Here it is:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/22299
I'm very grateful to this guy for sharing the solution. I don't know if I ever would have found it otherwise. I had switched my SATA BIOS setting while setting up an external USB drive as a boot disk (right after the original SSD failure). I switched it back, and all was well. I, too, have a Thinkpad (T420).
Aha, yes this is a well known problem, if you'd mentioned you'd had a play with the BIOS and that you have a Thinkpad, bells might have rung earlier. :)
At least you are running again.
> if you'd mentioned you'd had a play with the BIOS and that you have a Thinkpad, bells might have rung earlier. :)
I didn't know these things were relevant!
Thanks very much for your help.
I didn't know these things were relevant!
I can understand that, but your first post provided absolutely no details except that you use Acronis 2013. When requesting technical help, it's important to begin the post with a list of relevant details such as OS, disk layout, type of disk being backed up, destination of backup, connection of backup disk, etc. Specifics of such a list would vary depending on the nature of the question and the situation, but a list of details is important.
Okay, sorry. I'll try to do better next time.