[BUG] LINUX RECOVERY - Acronis Linux will not show new attached drives

Hello I have elaborated this problem and it seems that ATIH b6027 has issues with drives that will be attached later.
Mode is AHCI. Is there anything how we can track this down, as this is really issueing me with operational usage of ATIH.

To the best I can tell, all prior versions of TI allowed booting of the recovery cd and actually allowed you to perform a backup. Starting with TI2016 build 6027, I now get "this is a trial version of true image", even though I have an activated copy of 6027 on this drive. I still prefer booting from a cd so all files are closed, new emails won't arrive... This way I can easily enter the actual file name of the backup set instead of all backups having some weird file name. I'm getting tired of entering folder names to name the backup set (wish it coulf be in the file name, like prior versions allowed). Looks like we should all make copies of the recover cd for version 5634 until Acronis gets this sorted out. Or, is the plan to not allow making backups from a bootable cd???

I am still waiting for a reply in this regard.

Hello, Karl.

Just checked on two different machines. Booted into the Linux-based Media and tried connecting/disconnecting drives. Both USB and SATA (AHCI) drives were detected fine.

Have you managed to test this on other machines as well?

Hello Dmitry, I have tested this on some laptops and my computer. I have a feeling that USB 3.0 support may trouble here.

On the other hand, same as you found out it is not like it does not work anymore at all, so on some computers the plug and play detection worked fine.
 

Try using the Windows PE recovery media and see if it works better on your system.  The Linux drivers seem to be a bit out of date for some hardware.  I have an ASUS T200 and the linux version of ATIH 2016 still won't detect my EMMC flash hard drive, however, WinPE does.  What's even more interesting is that my Linux bootable media for Acronis Snap Deploy 5 does have these drivers though and 2016 v6027 came out roughly the same time as the latest version of Snap Deploy.  Would be nice if they all got the same updated drivers across the board on the Linux side, but WinPE is the work-a-round / alternative. 

I will consider that in such cases Bobo

Hello Dmitry I am doing some extensive tests with the Linux enviroment again and can still repro the issue. The USB 3.0 HDD is visible in backup / partitions but not visible in the browser (opening backups or choosing a saving location), which is weird enough. Sometimes, it does appear in both.

It seems to a lottery if my USB 3.0 which works fine all times in Windows will be recognized in the Linux enviromnent. However, I am doing a full disk scan and sector scan on this disk now which may take some time.

Luckily ATIH made me aware about  read sector errors after I have plugged it in. Chkdsk also found some NTFS related issues, so all in all it might be that the HDD that is troublesome in the Linux environment is itself the problem. I will test this with another HDD or after the troubled one has passed its check.

I also found some other issues:

1. A 64 GB Sandisk USB 3.0 stick will cause a crash (reproducible) when I try to use the explorer in the Linux Recovery environment.
I am confident the problem is not the size of the stick but the fact it is formatted with ExFAT. Perhaps you can repro this with a smaller USB stick that is using ExFAT.

2. the Acronis medium (USB 3.0 stick) will not be removed in the explorer even when plugged out it is visible as drive e (Wechseldatenträger). Is this potentially intended? Well I agree, no one wants to unmount the partition the current OS is running on.

have look at the photo I am holding this stick in my hands, while it is still mounted in the explorer. Previously when testing the functionality with other sticks they removed instantly after they have been pulled out.

the chkdsk found some NTFS issues on the drive but the sector scan was clean. 0 sectors were damaged. Also Crystaldiskinfo says the drive is healthy.

I will continue the hotplug tests another day. I agree with you that hotplug works generally @Dmitry but for some reason this USB 3.0 HDD drive seems to be special.

Unfortunately I still face this issue with other external disk drives.

Last time I tried to restore a backup of my sister attaching the drive to her brand new computer but ATIH Linux did not recognize the Seagate USB 3.0 drive again when plugged. Also, and different to that I've reported earlier, it was also not visible in the backup window / just if I would like to backup the external HDD, so in this case it was not visible in both, the Linux Explorer and the Backup / Partition view.

I wonder whether the Linux environment has issues with USB 3.0. Mea culpa, I haven't tried to use USB 2.0 as I was in hurry.

Karl,

I think the Linux driver support for USB 3.0 is partly to blame yes.  I have seen a few posts complaining about that in Windows as well and I suspect that drivers are at fault in those cases as well.  During upgrades from Win 7, 8 systems to Windows 10 the default Windows drivers installed for some hardware are problematic.  Best to use manufacturer supplied drivers.

Well I can only partly agree here. So far I have not seen issues when migrating to 10. From my experience it is the best practice to use the Windows 10 standard USB 3.0 drivers that are included in the OS and not installing any manufacturer drivers, which are needed for Windows 7. Normally Windows 10 will uninstall the drivers which were in use with Windows 7, but manually removing them after the upgrade helps anyway.

Moreover I manually check for firmware upgrades at station-drivers.com. This is a french site with Multilanugage support meanwhile and the best source to obtain drivers and firmware alike. Many, including myself, should not even be aware that one needs to upgrade firmwares for USB 3.0 PCI-E cards AND those integrated on your mainboard. But it helps to solve speed issues and connectivity problems. So far I have no issues with Windows 10 and standard Windows 10 drivers as long the firmware is up to date. Mostly Renesas and ASmedia chipsets are such, that desperately need firmware updates.

To be honest flashing the USB 3.0 firmware is really tricky and reminds much of old BIOS flashing back in the time - while updating is mostly possible in a Windows enviroment using an elevated CMD prompt - without a floppy or boot CD / USB stick - , hence first of all the customer needs to query which of the many USB 3.0 chipset OEMs is being used and which specific model. This is a fairly tricky part.

Funny that OEMs and board manufacturers like Asus do not provide these USB 3.0 firmwares on their support sites or they are considerably outdated compared to stations-drivers.com.

I hear you there with most often the Win 10 drivers work.  From my observations these problems are machine specific and not all machines exhibit issues but those that do are often corrected by updating the drivers. 

Firmware upgrades are indeed tricky in most cases and definately can be at issue.