Is Acronis 2012 with Plus Pack 2012 compatible with Intel SRT

If your HD is dying, stop using it. Stop immediately.
The more you use a failing HD, the more likely that you will be unable to retrieve any data. Stop using it until you figure out how you will attempt to salvage data from it.

I would suggest that you download the ATI bootable Rescue Media from your Acronis.com account and burn the ISO to CD-R (using a different PC). At some point you will boot your PC from that ATI bootable Rescue Media, as that will not require Windows to boot from the failing HD.

If you have an external HD enclosure, or can borrow one, I'd suggest removing the HD from the PC and placing in such an enclosure from which it can be backed up when appropriate. That would allow you to boot from the ATI bootable Rescue Media to see if it recognizes your PC's hardware. If it doesn't, you could try a different PC, and that's another advantage of having the failing HD in an external enclosure or interface, as you could connect it to any suitable PC that works with the ATI bootable Rescue Media in order to backup the failing HD.

My second PC's cd burner doesn't work so could I download the ATI bootable Rescue Media to flash drive? I don't know if I can boot from that in the future. And as far as my other question, does Acronis 2012/Plus Pack back up entire system including OS when my system is set up with Intel Smart Response Technology? Thanks for your help.

LibZ wrote:

My second PC's cd burner doesn't work

Find another one, perhaps a friend with a PC and burner.

LibZ wrote:

could I download the ATI bootable Rescue Media to flash drive?

If a friend has True Image installed, he/she could use True Image Media Builder to create a bootable Rescue Media on flash drive. You could do it yourself without needing True Image installed by downloading the Rescue Media ISO and using a tool like Xboot to create a bootable flash drive containing many ISOs or just the Rescue Media ISO. That's what I do, I use Xboot.

LibZ wrote:

does Acronis 2012/Plus Pack back up entire system including OS when my system is set up with Intel Smart Response Technology?

I don't use Intel Smart Response Technology so I cannot answer. Someone else will have to comment on that.

LibZ wrote:

does Acronis 2012/Plus Pack back up entire system including OS when my system is set up with Intel Smart Response Technology?

tuttle wrote:

I don't use Intel Smart Response Technology so I cannot answer. Someone else will have to comment on that.

This depends on how acronis detects the storage controller on your MB. If it detects the disk being used for Smart Response as it's own drive, Acronis will back up that disk. If it does not (and more times than not it doesn't) then you should disable Smart Response in the OS. This is found under the IRST Configuration Interface, then change the operate mode of the storage controller in BIOS to AHCI. Perform the back up. Note: you will only get your system disk. When restoring, restore the image or partition to the disk with the storage controller set to AHCI. Then enter BIOS and change the operate mode to RAID... then boot into the OS and enable Smart Response in the IRST Configuration interface. Reboot once more.

shadowsports wrote:

LibZ wrote:

does Acronis 2012/Plus Pack back up entire system including OS when my system is set up with Intel Smart Response Technology?

tuttle wrote:

I don't use Intel Smart Response Technology so I cannot answer. Someone else will have to comment on that.

This depends on how acronis detects the storage controller on your MB. If it detects the disk being used for Smart Response as it's own drive, Acronis will back up that disk. If it does not (and more times than not it doesn't) then you should disable Smart Response in the OS. This is found under the IRST Configuration Interface, then change the operate mode of the storage controller in BIOS to AHCI. Perform the back up. Note: you will only get your system disk. When restoring, restore the image or partition to the disk with the storage controller set to AHCI. Then enter BIOS and change the operate mode to RAID... then boot into the OS and enable Smart Response in the IRST Configuration interface. Reboot once more.

Hi ShadowSports,

Can you (or anyone else here) comment on the KB post (updated last December) regarding Intel SRT?

http://kb.acronis.com/content/43073

Of specific interest to me would be whether or not any version of Acronis at this point in time is truly and fully SRT compatible.

I have a client who has been using TIH2013PP (for about 10 months) to generate incremental backups of their HP SpectreXT Ultrabook (originally shipped with Win 8.0 Pro, upgraded by client to Win 8.1 Pro via the Windows 8 Store).

A recent Windows Update pushed in a non-compatible Intel Graphics driver and now, although the system still boots, there's no video display after the Win 8.1 kernel is up (neither internal nor external).

Because of this I have no access to the Intel RST/SRT control interfaces as the HP implementation puts everything solely within the Windows Intel interfaces. HP Support says the only option is to factory restore and call it a day (adding that Win 8.1 updating is not supported at present for any Win 8.0 HP shipped systems). I can't disable/break the HDD/mSATA raid relationship for the SRT and RST because HP locks users out of the Intel-Raid-Controller management BIOS (and there's no response to the normal Ctrl-I access method).

As far as I'm concerned standard or bare metal Acronis catastrophic restore scenarios for Win 8 environments using SRT / RST is purely a fiction at this point in time.

Any suggestions would be heartily welcomed and greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,
John

John,
Just to be clear. SRT and RST are different features. Similar premise. You are referencing SRT, but the Spectre is RST. Intentional???
Based on what I know of others experiences with the product (later builds of 2012 and all of 2013), support of SRT is extremely limited. In the majority of cases the SRT volume is not seen and cannot be backed up. While Intel touted this technology with the release of the z68 chipset, we all learned very quickly that SRT offered very little or no performance gains given its expense and management overhead. Also 64GB limitation with the rest of a disk going unused. I have no real world experience with SRT myself since I never deemed it worthy of my time.

But you do have other issues. 2013 is not certified for windows 8.1. In fact windows 8 users with 2013 can receive a free upgrade to 2014 (until April 1st). See the sticky post at the top of "Older Versions" forum.

Your life is further complicated by HP's implementation of "RST" and RAID with the hardware you describe above. I guess you have fully confirmed that the RAID Configuration Utility cannot be accessed. Seems strange this is not accessible in some way. Other keys in addition to "CTRL+I" Maybe hold the Tab key while holding CTRL and tapping I. Timing is sometimes everything as I'm sure you know.

I would like to make some recommendations:

You can download a trial copy of 2014 Boot Media. It has to be registered, and has a trial expiration but might allow you to determine compatibility with the hardware.

Does the user have or did they create a recovery drive or USB stick?

I created these for my w8.1 laptop and Surface Pro2. I migrated my windows 8 non GPT and non Secure Boot to an SSD using a 2013 build 6514 boot CD.

Have you tried starting the machine, holding down Shift and tapping the F8 key repeatedly. Aggressively is good, ok in this case. A refresh might be in order as I don't believe "Last Known Good Configuration" still exists. There is an option to enable low res video mode. Certainly worth a try.

Try holding down "Esc" and tapping F10 during POST

How about connecting it to a network and allowing it to boot. Then RDP to it from another PC??

Interested in hearing more about this issue.

Thanks for the fast response ShadowSports,

Actually this particular model SpectreXT implements all three of the Intel "voodoo" technologies, SRT, RST (each using a separate PTN on the mSATA SSD card), and SCT - A rather unholy trinity for bare metal or catastrophic recovery scenarios (thanks in part to some HP design goofs). I do have what was once a viable/functional Acronis 2013 PP (WinPE) recovery environment for this system (which used to work for the Win 8.0 configuration) but when I try to use it to save the user data file areas out of the current Win 8.1 upgraded environment it crashes at about 75-80% of completion.

HP takes a rather interesting support stance for these particular SpectreXT systems (due to their design oversight regarding accessing the Intel Raid configuration BIOS). As it turns out even they can't access it - the system has to be sent in to HP for disassembly and temporary removal of the mSATA card while the recovery is performed. Yes - This has to happen even if using the current HP recovery media (WinPE based recovery DVDs for this system) or the on HD WinPE recovery PTN -- and get this, you are first forced to use one of these avenues (thereby destroying any HD content) before they'll do an RMA for the factory rebuild. They claim to be working on a replacement "fixed" recovery disc set that (if need be) flashes the appropriate ROMs to get around all this (while also making the system supposedly win 8.1 compliant), but thus far this is not yet an option.

FWIW; The HP Recovery manager that "lives" in the WinPE recovery PTN has a File backup function as well, but the HP Tech told me not to bother as it won't work correctly (presumedly for the same reason that WinPE Acronis recovery media doesn't)...

All I can say at this point is that I'm glad I don't own one -- but I also have to feel sorry for the poor client. One would think that HP would be sued to death over stupid stuff like this. I have an HP Envy notebook myself, but it's more conventional using an SSHD to derive it's performance.

Thanks BTW for the tip on the free 2013 to 2014 for Win-8.1 upgrade - I have four licenses I need to do this for...

Kind regards,
John

Hmm... That's a very interesting idea/suggestion regarding trying the RDP access route, ShadowSports...

As you know, by default RDP is disabled, but I might be able to boot into the WinPE recovery PTN, open a command prompt, and use regedit to activate RDP on the Win8.1 PTN... Definitely worth a try! Thanks for the suggestion.

BTW: Due to having to force power-off the system when booted into the Win8.1 PTN the file system gets locked. The locked state then prohibits doing a Refresh from the WinPE recovery PTN...ergo a cart and horse problem.

Thanks again for the RDP suggestion - I'll post back as to success.

Kind regards,
John

reinstalled on computer and not right. Tried to uninstall and didn't work. Tried to erase and many files would not. Now on system and useless. Can't install/can't uninstall. Any suggestions?

Follow-up...

Was finally able to use the backup function within the HP Recovery Manager (within the on-HD HP WinPE Recovery PTN environment) to save most (if not all, hopefully) of the user's important data. Turns out there was GPT file system damage that was inhibiting a normal backup (assume this may also explain the Acronis backup failure, though I did set it to ignore read errors) - proving once again that when Intel SRT/RST gets sideways it's bloody misery. FWIW; Did try the RDP (using the WinPE command prompt to edit the boot PTN registry and enable RDP) but no joy - best guess being that RDP was being prevented by the current 3rd party (Symantec) firewall rule-set configuration - Used a net sniffer to verify that the ports were up - just not allowing access. Oh well - now knowing that there's GPT damage to some data areas, who knows what might be clobbered in the System areas too...

So we are now at the obligatory "failed in-field" system recovery point referred to in my earlier post, and trying to deal with HP escalated retentions minions...

It will be what it will be.

Kind regards (and thanks again for the attempted assist),
John

John,
Excellent effort. I'm sure your client is satisfied, if not pleased with the service you provided. We both know you don't always get a perfect outcome.

That install sounds "busy". A little too much technology there for the hardware's own good and certainly not something the average person could be expected to support. The absolute inability to fully control the environment is criminal. If the data recovery was successful, you have won the day. You sir deserve a cold one.

Cheers,

Rick

Thanks for the kind words, Rick -

I'm presently engaged in the process of assisting the client in obtaining a different replacement notebook from HP (as this now makes the second occurrence of this exact same failure path the client has endured in under a 10-month time period). Furthermore HP's own support forums for this device denote a minimum of four different known Microsoft Update KB pushes (for Win 8.0 and for Win 8.1) that end in an unrecoverable "Black Screen" event, requiring a return to an HP service depot for remedy. It's pretty obvious to me that this Ultrabook could easily be "Fixed" by disabling all the Intel acceleration voodoo, removing the small capacity mSATA card, and replacing the low performance HD with a high performance SSD. BTW: This is exactly what HP has done in all current versions of this Ultrabook series, thereby indicating (to me) that they (may) have finally learned their lesson on the matter.

Cheers,
John