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Problems with Acronis Universal Restore

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I have the actual Windows 10 version as well as the actual TIH 2016 version. When I try to build the media builder for Acronis Universal Restore I get the attached error message

"Missing driver file c:\Windows\Inf\Itmdm64.sys"

Is this error known?

KL

 

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I was able to build Universal Restore recovery media on my Windows 10 laptop with ATI 2016 yesterday with no problem and with no issues over missing driver files.  

Are you trying to include all the drivers from the C:\Windows\Inf\ folder when you are building the UR media?

If you are, then your system may have got an old Soft Modem device physically installed that Windows tried to find drivers for but failed to install completely, as that is the only reference that I can find for the missing device driver.

What happens if you just build the default UR media without adding any additional device drivers?

Thank you very much for your answer Steve. Yes, I selected to include all drivers from the C:\Windows\Inf folder. My considerations were quite simple as there is a dilemma:

If I do not include drivers, I will probably not be able to succeed with the Univeral Restore to a new hardware. If on the other hand I include all drivers from Windows 10, I should have a much better chance that Universal Restores at least works with a -may be- suboptimal driver. Anyhow, if I do not prepare a Universal Restore media in due time and my actual PC fails,  I cannot produce an Acronis Universal Restore media even If I then know details of a new PC. 

The general problem with the present Acronis team is that there is no clear information what the instructions imply. Thanks for your explanation. Frankly, this is the first time I have heard about an old Soft Modem device. But I must stop further tests. Although Acronis sells the Universal Restore option I question whether it is usable when needed. At least the risk is too high. It used to work before!

Regards,

Klaus

Hi Klaus, the key problem with planning for using Universal Restore ahead of time is in not knowing what the new hardware you may be restoring to will look like, and therefore the drivers in your current C:\Windows\Inf folder are unlikely to be of much value to you, as these only apply to the hardware where you are taking the backup image from.

The most likely scenario that you will be faced with is in needing to restore your backup image onto the same hardware you have today, in which case none of the Windows\Inf folder drivers are needed to be added and Universal Restore isn't needed to perform the restore, as the standard Acronis Recovery media should work fine, assuming that you have tested this before needing to use it for real!

When you have got new hardware, then the drivers you would need to add to your Universal Restore media will be those that are specific to that new hardware, for example, if you are building a new system and have purchased an updated motherboard, then this will normally be accompanied by a CD containing the essential drivers needed to recognise the key motherboard components.

Of course, there are other considerations for using Universal Restore besides having the correct drivers - you need to consider if your license for Windows 10 will be valid on the new hardware - if you have an OEM license, then this is tied to your current hardware only and you would be in a 30 day trial period at best and possibly locked out by activation otherwise.

Note: A Soft Modem was an internal hardware dial-up modem that was mostly supported by Software to provide the communications capabilities, hence the term Soft Modem - lots of older machines had these installed in a PCI slot and had 1 or 2 RJ11 telephone jack sockets to connect to the telephone line and allow a phone to be connected as well.

Dear Klaus,

I fell short on the same "logical failure" as you back in the days. Of course if you are pretty sure which drivers you will need you can include them. Including the whole windows\inf path is not a good idea as it contains many non-storage related drivers that could cause your problem.

If you are running a computer that uses AHCI (I would like to say 95% of the computers built in the past 6 years are capable) you do not need Universal restore and do not need to worry about drivers anymore. AHCI storage are generic and availably across OS versions like from Vista to Windows 10.

If your BIOS is AHCI capable but you haven't enabled it but run on an IDE emulation, you can enable AHCI afterwards without reinstalling.

Please google for enable AHCI drivers for Windows 7 or Windows 10 (8.1 and 10 have different reg key), alter the the BIOS settings, otherwise you get one of the famous BSOD stop 0x7b errors aka "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE"

The only need for UR today is if you are using RAID drivers OR AMD SATA drivers as an exception. You can lookup your used driver in the device manager.

If you are using Intel RST, and optimized software RAID capable driver (it is no must have to use it nor to make raids, so they work for single drives aswell) then you should keep some RST "floppy drivers" at hand, to include them in to UR at the time you need them.

a popular place to get those is either intel.com/support > search for RST or http://www.computerbase.de/downloads/treiber/mainboards/intel-rapid-sto… (I assume you are a german user).

One thing that might arise the need for UR again might be the new technology that is going to replace AHCI. I think it is called NVMe.

 

Karl Heinz,

thank you very much for your detailed, precise and most knowledgeable reply. I very much appreciate your willing to help. Trying to understand your instructions I come to the conclusion that very likely I would not need UR. With your help I should be able to produce an UR media (at least I will try) but I do hope that I need not to use it. Of course I will save your contribution and I am convinced that it will also help many others having similar questions.

Klaus (from Germany)

Hello Klaus,

you are welcome! I am glad it helped you. Please remind: The UR functionality is an addon that will be included as seperate application within the Linux Boot Medium. UR is not able to backup or restore data, but True Image. UR is just a tool, to "inject" drivers into an installed OS e.g. on drive C to make it bootable. We might compare this to something similar to MS Sysprep but I think UR is working slightly different from that.