Acronis True Image and boot camp

I have a somewhat similar situation. Just purchased a MacBook Air (8gb, 256gb SSD) with OS X 10.10.2 (Yosemite) and installed BOOTCAMP to allow dual boot into either OSX or Windows 8.1. This is a really sweet setup for my needs.

So far my experience with ATI 2015 is limited. I upgraded my 3 user license of 2014 to 2015 primarily because of the "support" provided by the ATI for Mac 2015. Little did I know....

After making a half dozen ATI backups (from within OS X) which included both the BOOTCAMP and MacintoshHD partitions, I decided to turn off Time Machine - as it seemed semi-redundant and it did not provide any way to backup BOOTCAMP. So with my faith placed totally in ATI 2015 for Mac I rolled along for a couple of weeks - making daily image backups of BOOTCAMP and MacintoshHD partitions.

Then one day last week I changed a bunch of stuff in my Windows 8.1 (BOOTCAMP) environment that I decided were a mistake. And given my success over the past years with earlier ATI image restores, I set about to restore my BOOTCAMP to the previous day's image backup. Turned out to be the start of a nightmare. The restore seemed to work - or perhaps I should simply say that the ATI recovery process did not complain about my attempt to restore the BOOTCAMP partition. It went through the motions just fine. Until I attempted the re-boot following the completion of the backup. At that point all attempts to boot into the BOOTCAMP partition failed with errors that obviously were related to the EFI boot process itself. I then attempted to restore all 4 of the backup partitions that ATI had been making all along. These too appeared to restore without complaint. But this time, upon attempts to reboot, not only would it not boot into the Windows partition, it would not boot into the MacintoshHD partition either. NOTHING WORKED! Well - the "Option" key boot process appeared to work - it gave me choices to boot either Windows or MacintoshHD, but upon selecting either, it just barfed and threw up errors saying it could not do so.

The one saving grace in this fiasco was that I had retained a couple of my old Time Machine backups. I was able to restore a functioning MacintoshHD partition from that old backup to get the OSX booting again. Once that was working I attempted to restore the ATI BOOTCAMP a few more times without success. Reluctantly I deleted the BOOTCAMP partition - reclaiming all the 256gb space for my OS X. Once I determined that this configureation was stable I recreated a new BOOTCAMP, re-installed Windows 8.1 from scratch and installed dozens of updates to get Win 8.1 current.

This experience taught me several things.

1. ATI for Mac may make backups just fine, but it doesn't do image restores properly. I had no luck restoring either the BOOTCAMP nor the MacintoshHD partitions on my MacBook Air.

2. Time Machine did properly restore my MacintoshHD partition and made it bootable again. The biggest two issues with Time Machine are that (a) it doesn't provide option to backup the BOOTCAMP partition, and (b) it is a slow backup process (much, much slower than ATI for Mac)

3. Don't do any image restore from any backup made by ATI for Mac. It might be fine to restore individual files and folders. But the image restore option has yet to work for me - either for BOOTCAMP or MacintoshHD partitions.

Will be following this discussion in the hope that Acronis works hard to make this right. It would do them proud to recognize their shortcomings with ATI for Mac and to fix them promptly. I'm disappointed that Acronis brought this product to market in its current state.

Meanwhile I have installed ATI for WIndows within my BOOTCAMP partition and made backups with it. I do not have confidence that I could restore them, thus I will hope that I do not need to tempt fate again by attempting an ATI image restore on my MacBook - at least until and IF Acronis announces they have taken care of these problems.

And I shall make an occasional Time Machine backup of Yosemite just in case.... :)

If anyone has occassion to restore their BOOTCAMP partition using ATI (any version) please share your results. I would love to learn that my ATI for WIndows 2015 image backups of BOOTCAMP are indeed restorable. Would do a restore myself but I haven't got a few spare days to rebuild the Windows partition if it craps out again.

TIA for any insight...

John,

For sure you won't be able to restore a bootcamp partition made with Acronis for Windows running in the bootcamp environment.

For your Mac restoration problems, you should contact Acronis support. Support for restoration is always free. You definitely should be able to restore your Mac partitions. Please let us know how it goes with Acronis support. I don't use Acronis for Mac (although I could) so I am curious to learn about your experience.

Pat,

My experience thus far with ATI 2015 for Mac has been utterly frustrating. It _appears_ to make image backups without complaint, and it _appeared_ to restore both the BOOTCAMP and MacintoshHD partitions without complaint. But upon that restore - it left my computer totally trashed. I could not boot either to the Mac OS or to Windows 8.1 in BOOTCAMP. The partitions were intact as far as I know - and I could see both partitions using the Acronis restore USB flash drive (the only thing I had that would boot). Restores ran for ~12 minutes or so and appeared to go normally. But the resulting image would not boot. At the VERY LEAST I would expect Acronis to add logic in their software to warn you that restoring to either BOOTCAMP or a Mac OS will possibly result in an unbootable computer.

I guess what frustrates me so much is that I've had a long and very successful time using ATI products over the years. I can't even count the number of times I've relied on an Acronis restore from .tib files that I had written to a wide variety of storage media. The latest ATI 2015 should not even claim to be kin to its line of reliable products.

For now I'm just going to use Time Machine to make my OS X backups and go without a backup of my Windows 8.1 partition. Fortunately this is a personal computer (and not my only notebook) and I will survive a Bootcamp failure if it happens. But I am tired of shooting myself in the foot with this crappy ATI 2015 for Mac. If it can't backup AND RESTORE BOOTCAMP, then what good does it do to include BOOTCAMP in the backup?

I put the ATI 2015 for WIndows on my BOOTCAMP partions (Windows 8.1). It runs okay and says it is making a backup .tib file. But upon completion it immediately identifies the .tib file as corrupted. That happens regardless of the target device I write the backup to. Best thing for me right now is to give ATI a rest and come back in a few months to see if anything useful developes. It is just too much wasted time when I attempt a restore only to have to re-build my notebook from scratch and lose all my updates and settings.

Sign me off as tired in North Carolina... :)

John,

I share your frustration. I used ATI for years before I switched to Mac. It always needed a wee bit of tinkering to make it work but it came in very useful on many occasions.
When I got the Mac I used Parallels to run Windows on a VM but eventually got fed up as it slowed everything down and caused some problems with the Mac. I got more and more annoyed with the determination of Apple to make you do everything their way which is fine if you spend your life on Facebook, Twittering, playing with photos and arranging your music library but not if you are trying to do something useful.
I suppose the alternative is to forget boot camp and Parallels and set up two bootable drives. I could then start either system by using the boot options. I assume that ATI would then work as it would then be the only system on the machine.
A lot more hassle but it may be the only solution. If it is it would be helpful if Acronis made it clear that ATI would not work with bootcamp.

Sisyphus

Wow! I wish I had found this thread prior to purchasing ATI 2015 3 license pack. I too have used ATI successfully for years in a Windows environment and only had great things to say about it. My experience with this crapware since trying to restore everything to a new 3TB drive in my Late 2011 27" iMac has been nothing short of time-consuming and frustrating at best without success! I mean c'mon Acronis, you don't even have the ability to clone a Mac HDD, WTH? Same experience, made .tib files just fine. Made restore USB just fine after I performed a reinstall of Yosemite so the recovery partition was there. Restoration of the BOOTCAMP.tib seemed to be going through without a hitch after I used Disk Utility to create a new partition for the ATI recover USB to see and "restore" to, until it rebooted and I got the black screen and "No operating system found" message. I mean, ATI 2015 for Mac doesn't have the ability to even partition? This software is a joke! What a waste of my money! The software devs need to go back to the drawing board and rethink this all the way through. How the hell did this software make it past quality inspection? I needed ATI to restore my BOOTCAMP partition so I wouldn't have to go back through the entire process of setting it up manually, locating my Windows 7 disk and license key, and reinstalling everything by hand!

ATI Mac 2015 was a total flop for me. I resorted back to using Winclone, it is tried and true. I also use Carbon Copy for the mac side, another flawless program. I am very please with the ATI for windows but the MAC side simply does not offer reliable restore functionality. I thought about upgrading to 2016 but based on the track record I will stay with the things that work.

I tried to contact "support", but that was impossible. I obviously can only communicate through this forum.
I bought years ago Acronis True Image Home 2010 Standard and wanted to upgrade to the newest version.
But, before doing so, I wanted to know if this software would be able to backup my new computer (Macbook Air with Windows 10 on Bootcamp).
I am glad that I read all your remarks, because it is clear that it is not possible to recover from a backup (which obviously can be made without warning
that you are trying something impossible).
I am very disappointed with customer service from Acronis; nobody is giving any feedback to the posts about this subject.
The one-liner (Customers come first) from the Acronis Vice-President on the website is an overstatement!

Now I have tried a beta program from Paragon and guess what: that works!

I have repeatedly asked Acronis Support if backup and restore of a Boot Camp partition is supported for Windows 10 in True Image 2015 for Mac and the answer is always "YES! for build 6725". I was also told by Acronis Support that Boot Camp partitions containing 7, 8.0 and 8.1 can be backed up and restored as long as I have ATI for Mac 2015 build 6725. ATI for Mac 2015 has ALWAYS failed in my experience in backing up and restoring a Windows 8.1 Boot Camp partition on Yosemite 10.10.5 - supported according to Acronis.

There was no error during the restore using the latest rescue media, but the Boot Camp partition was un-bootable. The restore was to a Fusion drive. This has cost me 6 days of wasted effort.  I always had to completely remove the boot camp partition using Boot Camp Assistant, re-install Windows, update a truckload of updates, remove and re-install ATI for Mac 2015 (sometimes) and if/when the Boot Camp partition became corrupted I would restore from an ATI image to a healthy USB drive. It would create an unusable Boot Camp Partition. Go back to step one. Arg!!!

I've been told that True Image for Mac 2016 will also work. I'll believe it when someone else decides to give it a shot (beat their head against a wall). 2016 is not currently listed as supporting El Capitan, so I'm not sure what the point of upgrading is. I've been searching for a comparison list between ATI for Mac 2015 and ATI for Mac 2016 and haven't found one.

My experience was identical to John McDermon's except the hardware was a recent iMac 5K.

Has anybody EVER used Acronis True Image Backup 2015 to work as advertised to backup and restore a previously working Boot Camp partition with either Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 on Yosemite with a Fusion drive? I haven't.

To be fair, Microsoft and Apple have been equally useless in providing support in this endeavor. Each vendor points a finger at the other and says, "They should help you with this".

Regards,

-Matt (I feel like Sisyphus. It would be VERY helpful if Acronis made it clear what their product can and can't do before they take our money and time!)

I have been a long time user of Acronis products in the past especially for their disk cloning functionality. I needed to replace my wife's hard drive in her laptop with a SSD and after looking around decided once again to go with Acronis True Image 2016. I for some reason decided to go with the 3 user license that way I could use the software on my Macbook Pro (2011) with bootcamp and Windows 10. I thought this would be a great way of backing up the Windows environment. Well after several tries on different external media types I have not been able to even get a backup to run successfully. It fails at different places at different times and will not get the intitial full backup. I have tried numerous times and am getting very frustrated with the process. After seeing all of these posts about the viability of backups I have decided to stop trying until we either get a definitive answer from Acronis or some brave sole breaks the code.

I will continue to use Acronis for cloning but right now my bootcamped Apple will continue to use the standard Time Machine backups. By the way I am using El Capitan as the base OS on the Macbook.

Hi Michael,

thank you for your posting!

Please note that we don't support installation of the Acronis True Image application for Windows into bootcamp partition itself. But you still can protect your bootcamp from outside using Acronis True Image for Mac application. Please read more about bootcamp support in this article: https://kb.acronis.com/content/47222

Thank you,

I'm so sorry to find this thread that late...

I thought and did the same as John McDermon and sisyphus described; but with ATI 2016 and EL Capitan / Win10 on Bootcamp.

Guess what... my Win10 bootcamp partition is destroyed. Just to let you know, nothing has changed during the last months.

Thank you Acronis for several years of working software on windows machines, but my trust in you was devastated some days ago on a MacBook Pro.

I appeal to Acronis to add logic to their Acronis True Image software to recognize any attempt to backup (or restore) from/to any incompatible hardware environment - and to forewarn the user that it is a path to destruction.  For example, if ATI won't backup and restore a bootcamp partition reliably, then find a way to recognize that it is indeed a Bootcamp partition and refuse to make the backup in the first place.  Sheesh - this isn't rocket science guys.  If this logic had been in place for the past few years it would have saved numerous ATI users many days of frustration.

Back in my PC only days I had grown very comfortable with ATI.  The last version that I really liked was 2011.  After that they began to update it's user interface beyond its usefulness IMHO.   When it got to a point that a FULL BACKUP turned out to have dependencies on prior backup files (that I had deleted on purpose) I went back to 2011 and gave up on the ATI experience.  I attempted to use the ATI for Mac and WIndows with the above documented disastrous results.  Still own it - don't use it though.

Perhaps the challenge of backing up BootCamp (or Parallels and VMware Fusion virtual machines) on a Mac is beyond the scope of what ATI intends to ever support.  If so BE CLEAR ABOUT THAT!  And build some safeguards into your software to prevent the new users from having to destroy their hard drives to learn this lesson.

FWIW, I long ago abandoned use of the Bootcamp option in favor of a VMware Fusion solution.  I upgraded my SSD drive to 512GB and have a couple of Windows 10 virtual machines on it.  One is used as a platform for the "fast ring" Windows 10 beta program.  The other VM is essentially a safe backup of Windows 10 to have available for when/if the beta VM fries itself.

Performance on this setup is suprisingly good.  I'd estimate that it runs about 95% of the speed I saw when using Bootcamp.   (8GB of RAM and the big SSD drive really do give splendid performance.)  And I am using the Mac OS a bit more than I used to - largely just to educate myself a bit more about that OS. 

ATI just sent me an invitation to upgrade my multi-user license to ATI 2016.  Well - no thanks.  Not until I read some GLOWING reviews of how well it handles El Capitan, BOOTCAMP, and both Parallels and VMware Fusion virtual machines.   I just don't have the inclination to put myself through that turmoil again.

Seriously,

John McDermon

Hello John,

Thanks for the suggestion about detecting incompatible environment proactively.

Acronis True Image 2016 (Mac version, not Windows) does support backup and recovery of Boot Camp. There are two limitations, described at https://kb.acronis.com/content/47222 : 1) Parallels virtual machine that is running Windows on Boot Camp must be shut down before starting backup and 2) third-party drivers on Mac that write to NTFS partition on Bootcamp may be conflicting with backup process.

Regards,

Slava

I have some information that may be helpful to those who've had problems restoring Boot Camp partitions from backups created with True Image for Windows. The end of the True Image restore process leaves you with an un-bootable Boot Camp partition, but this can be fixed - first, the partition table needs to be fixed, then you need to recreate the BCD on the Boot Camp drive. This has worked on multiple occasions for me on a 2011 Mac Book Pro running El Capitan, with Windows 7 SP1 64-bit installed on a Boot Camp partition and running Acronis True Image 2013.

The process I've used is as follows:

1. Restore as normal with ATI.
2. After the restore completes, boot into OS X. Open Disk Utility, select the internal disk (NOT any of the partitions) and run the "First Aid" option on it. When that completes, open the Partition tool in Disk Utility and create a new partition - it doesn't matter what size, you're going to delete it in a minute. When the new partition has been created, delete it. When this has finished, reboot.
3. Boot from either your Windows install media or a recovery disc, select "Repair your computer" if booting from install media, then select the option starting "Use recovery tools that can help fix problems..." and click Next. It doesn't matter if your OS is listed in the window when you click Next.
4. Open the command prompt (the bottom option from the recovery tools - if this doesn't appear, you can try to open it by pressing Shift + F10 together). Within the command prompt, run the following commands (if C: isn't the root of your windows install, replace C: with your root drive letter):
   1. bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup (this exports your existing Boot Configuration Data file to BCD_backup)
   2. cd /d C:\boot (this ensures you're in the right volume and directory for your BCD file to be manipulated)
   3. attrib bcd -s -h -r (this changes the attributes on your existing BCD file so that it can be renamed - "-s" marks it as not a system file, "-h"
   4. marks it as not hidden, and "-r" marks it as not write-protected)
   5. ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old (this renames your existing BCD file to bcd.old)
   6. bootrec /RebuildBcd (this rebuilds your BCD and scans your system for any Windows installations)
5. When the last command completes you'll see a prompt asking if you want to add that installation to the BCD. Type "Yes" and press Enter. You can now close the command prompt. You should be returned to the recovery tools menu. Run "Startup Repair" (the top option in the recovery tools menu), and restart when prompted. Your recovered Bootcamp partition should now be available and bootable.

It's tedious, but it does mean you can actually use your backups if necessary, even if Acronis do not officially support this.

Kyle, thank you for the effort you put into describing the process, with detailed explanation for every step suggested. We have not tested it, but I hope this workaround will help those who used Windows version of Acronis True Image software to back up Boot Camp and then needed to restore it.

Regards,

Slava

I know that this thread a little bit old, but have not found any step by step guides how to make BootCamp partition bootable again after ATI restore.
I have collected here info that allowed me to restore bootcamp partition to the new hard drive in my MacBook Air Mid 2014 (MacBookAir6,2)
I have to note that backups were done at disk level from ATI running in windows 7.

Mainly I have used info from the two following post:
1. https://superuser.com/questions/628038/boot-bcd-status-0xc000000f-error
2. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6465316?tstart=0

Install fresh windows install via BootCamp in the "regular" way
Now boot from Acronis restore media and recover bootcamp partition (do not recover MBR, disk signature or any other partition you have in your .tib file)
After reboot you suppose to end with 0xc0000225 error, the info from previous post didn't helped me, I think that the main reason it's presence of EFI.
So, as a first step, I think, you will need to try step 6 from the guide below. But I have listed all steps what I did to get bootabale partition, may be some of the are unnecessary...

Boot from win 7 DVD or usb stick, preferably with the same version and type of windows you have on the target boot drive.
After picking the language, select 'Repair your computer' (do not install win7!)
Select 'use recovery tools that can help fix problems starting Windows...'
Select 'Command Prompt' (CMD) to launch CMD with admin privileges.

1. Diskpart - I am actually not sure that this part is requred, but I did it
type “diskpart” (without quotes) and press enter to launch DISKPART utility:
type “list disk” to get a list of physical disks installed. Identify which disk has windows boot partition.
type select disk 0 where 0 = disk # with Win7 boot partition
type list partition. Win 7 has a 100 or 200MB boot partition size and is primary.
type 'select partition 1` where 1 = the boot partition #
type detail partition and check to see if the partition is active. If active, go to next step.
to make boot partition active, type active and when CMD reports the partition is active, restart the computer into recovery/repair mode (win7 install disk again) and return to CMD prompt.
type exit to exit out of DISKPART utility

2. type c: to get to the boot partition drive's root folder. (c: is the drive letter of boot partition
3. type bootrec /fixmbr. Should get 'The operation completed successfully' message.
4. type bootrec /fixboot. Should get 'The operation completed successfully' or 'element not found' message.

Restart the computer back into recovery mode/repair mode and load CMD prompt.
After this step bootcamp disappeared from boot menu accessible by holding option key during startup.
In order to fix it use step 6 below

Switch to your boot partition directory if you are not already there (usually c:)
type bcdboot c:\Windows where 'c:\Windows' is the exact path to your windows folder.
If you get an error 'Failure when attempting to copy boot files'  - this was my case,
So I did:
5. bcdboot c:\Windows /s c: /l en-us

6. Recovering bootcamp as boot device: boot into MacOs, start terminal - more info in the second post I have referenced
sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk0
p
setpid 4
07
flag 4
p
write
y

I you are running El Capitan or above you should boot in recovery mode and disable system integrity protection by running "csrutil disable". Without this step write command in fdisk will fail...

That's all.

Armourer Men, thank you for sharing your experience with the Community, useful information! 

Had a lot of faith in this software because of the pc version ... until I bought the Mac version of this software to specificly back up a disk on a Mac containing Mac OS and boot camp both healthy partitions on the original drive..the software claimed to beble

to leave boot camp and Mac OS bootable ..

ran backup of the disk that contained the partitions... swapped drive restored..

4 Times now inconsisant results even after 2 diff full back ups..

has cost me a week of hassle at this point and does not work..

With vArous results sometimes it leaves the Mac OS bootable... some times it trashed the partition table on the new drive but windows boots to boot errors other times Mac OS is workin And Windows cannot boot...

They are making aronous claims about the Mac version thay truly do not work out of the box... wish I had gone with other software and now have to... 

I wonder if the company even tested a restore of both... Buggy and not a retail release of software.. I’ve worked for both Apple and Microsoft this would be a show stopper in a lot of development projects ;)

I would be impressed with getting the point where I can even try the fix mentioned.... Which which baffles me you haven’t fixed know it’s a issue .... need a refund or a solution