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Acronis True Image OEM Does not Support Dynamic Disks

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I have an existing image created from Acronis that I want to use to re-image my Intel Pro 2500 Series 240GB SSD. When I try to use the Acronis recovery to re-image the disk I get the following error, “Acronis True Image has detected unsupported hard disk drives. Acronis True Image does not support Windows Dynamic Disks, EZ-Drives, etc.” It has been confirmed that the disk is Basic and MBR partitioned. All of the drivers for the SSD are up to date. There are no RAID disks connected to the system. The BIOS settings have been changed from AHCI to IDE and I still get the above error. A working Windows 7 image with the Acronis True Image OEM software is currently on the disk and is functioning properly. Again, the issue just comes up when I try to re-image the disk using Acronis recovery.

Thank you for any help.

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Hi Daniel,

The only thing we can do from here is speculate.

Things that come to mind:

Your OEM copy of Acronis may be tied to specific hardware (Acronis doesn't normally do this, but a OEM's like WD have done this in the past)

Something to do with the way the disk is formatted 

Was the disk the image was created from used in the system that utilized iRST? 

You may want to consider the full version for the following reasons.

OEM versions of the product are often older (outdated).  Many features are crippled or not included at all.  The software comes with a limited feature set and often limited hardware compatibility. While we'd like to help, in most cases the MVP's and even other forum members don't have access to the OEM copy you are using.   OEM versions of Acronis are supported by the vendor providing the software, usually as a bundle.  If you would like to provide more information about your environment, an Acronis System Report, or something that provides greater insight about the error beyond "...does not support Windows Dynamic Disks, EZ-Drives, etc", then maybe we can help.  But my primary advice would to be purchase the full version of the software and complete your task.  You'll get official support from Acronis....  something you won't get from the OEM, and have the support of the community as well.  We'll help if we can, but are hands are tied is some respects as I'm sure you understand.  

I'm working with Daniel and this hardware and OEM media has successfully imaged two Intel SSD DC S3500 300 GB disks.  The "new" disks are Intel SSD DC S2500 240 GB, the only difference being the series and size, neither of which makes any sense as to why the one successfully images while the other will not launch the Acronis software.  This same setup was used to successfully image a Toshiba 320 GB spinning disk as well as the S3500s.

Note that the Acronis software, whether launched from the OEM installation or from the recovery disk issue the same dynamic disk error while Microsoft clearly indicates the SSD is not.

Is there any reason to question the Intel S2500 ?  Or the size less than 300 GB ?  We've tried two separate S2500's with the same result . . . .

mark

How does one create an Acronis System Report? Please be as detailed as possible. Thank you for your help.

I reboot the system from the recovery disk and select Acronis System Report.  The failure show the following:

 

Acronis

Loading, please wait . . .

no block devices found

     reading all physical volumes.  This may take a while . . .

Setup AVD devices

Unknown error.

Please plug in a USB flash device.

-------------------------

In case it's not obvious, I can't launch the software for the system report.

 

Mark, it may be possible to create an Acronis System Report from within the Windows Acronis product - on my older ATI 2013 product this option is provided via the Help menu (? icon in the top right corner).  As Shadowsports stated earlier, it is difficult to know which product your OEM version of TrueImage equates to in terms of the full ATI product range, so difficult to be able to advise you more directly.

I have encountered issues in trying to run the System Report from recovery media where it did not find any internal drives - this was due to the Linux based recovery media not being able to see drives in newer UEFI / GPT or Secure Boot environments.  You may wish to try changing the BIOS settings and turn off Secure Boot if this is enabled.

An alternative would be to download a trial copy of the latest ATI 2016 product from the Acronis web site and try booting that as a Recovery CD and see if that will allow you recover the backup image.

See http://www.acronis.com/en-gb/personal/computer-backup/ where a 30 day free trial copy is offered for download in exchange for your email address.

Hi Everyone,

The recommendations above are all helpful.  I'm not going to try and guess why or what is keeping the OEM "limited" version of the software from working with ANY drives other than the one it was sold with, and honestly, even then there is no garuntee.  You should be able to run an Acronis System Report from bootable media and save off to a USB stick... but, obviously, something in this environment isn't compatible or working.  No way to tell if its the drive, controller, BIOS version, etc.  Its working with some hardware, systems and disks, but not others.     

Yes, trying in another machine is a good idea.  I don't think cloning is available in the trial version, but that bootable media will support latest set of controllers, USB and UEFI BIOS, so this may help identify where the problem lies.  Might even be the FW version on the disk which would explain why a similar model, different size disk works, and another doesn't.  If a problem with the environment or hardware is keeping the OEM version of the software from functioning, the full version might be needed.  Free, you get what you pay for.  If its free, well, you get what you pay for.  Sorry if this isn't a popular answer.  Appreciate everyone's efforts and suggestions. 

The URL provided for the trial will only install from the internet.  My system is located on an isolated network, and the download only pulls the downloader / installer which requires internet to complete.  Thus I cannot use this trial version.  Suggestions?

I believe you have to supply a valid email address to get a trial key.  No other way to activate AFAIK. You can complete on another machine if you wish.  Once registered, you should have access to the .iso for bootable media download.  This is in your Acronis User Acct.

Shadowsport,

I used the URL for the US site instead of the UK site posted by Steve.  I used

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/computer-backup/

which takes me to a page with a box to enter my email (which I did) and a button "start now", which I click.  This downloads a file called

AcronisTrueImage2016_web.exe

This exe attempts to connect to the internet to complete the download and install.  Since I am on a standalone (isolated, not-connected-to-the-internet) system, it fails.

Do you have any suggestions?

Mark, can you complete the install of the trial version on a different machine that is connected to the internet, then within the installed product, you will have the opportunity to create the recovery media either as an ISO file or directly burn to a CD or USB stick?  The site (UK or US) shouldn't make any difference here as both only provide US English versions - I guess they use the web installer to avoid people downloading 300MB directly.

The other question here is: have you tried going into your Acronis Account online, if you have now registered your email address - if so, then in the account you should be able to download an ISO image of the trial version as advised above.

I followed Steve's advice and downloaded the 2016 trial version directly.  I generated a system report.  The disk report indicates that it is an MBR disk but nothing I see classifies it as either a dynamic or basic partition.

The Clone Disk option is not available in the trial version, and the Universal Restore function requires internet access to download the plug-in.  Recall I'm on an isolated network, so that doesn't work.

Nothing else I see in the trial version is of any help.  Suggestions ?

Mark, the original problem was described as:
I have an existing image created from Acronis that I want to use to re-image my Intel Pro 2500 Series 240GB SSD.

Have you tried using the trial version recovery media to restore the existing backup image to your Intel SSD drive?

You should not need to clone the existing drive in order to test this, and you shouldn't need Universal Restore if you are not moving your backup image to run on different hardware, assuming that the SSD will directly replace the existing internal drive and connect to the same controller.

Steve,

As "registered" user, I was able to download the executable directly.  After installing the trial version of 2016, the backup options do not allow me to recover an entire disk from image.  It is unclear if this is because of it being a trial version or some other reason.  I downloaded the 2016 user manual:  Page 21, Case 1 indicates choose Backup, then Recover disks.  This option does not exist.  I can browse to my image from the file explorer, but Acronis won't let me choose that image file.

I followed Case 2 by creating a rescue DVD.  I was able to successfully recover the image.  Thanks for all the pointers.

mark