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Upgrade to 2010 to identify SATA drive via boot-disk?

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Hi,

last week I had a complete crash of my Windows XP installation. The boot-CD of TI Home 2009 didn't identify my SATA hard disk, so I couldn't recover my system backup. Due to a couple of enquiries it seems to be a common problem, that Acronis TI Home 2009 isn't able to identify SATA hard disks while running Acronis from the boot-CD. Is this right?

So my idea was to upgrade from 2009 to 2010. But is it guaranteed that the sytem recovery to the SATA hard disk would work then? I just want to be sure before I spend money for the upgrade. Otherwise I could easily keep using TI 2009 and risk the system after a potentially next crash.

Thanks for all replys,
Sven

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Sven-

Unfortunately, there are no "guarantees" in this matter. But something you can try before spending any money is as follows:

TI Home 2010 with the Plus Pack allows the building of a WinPE ISO image file bootable media, which provides excellent driver support. You can make a "base" WinPE ISO - without True Image - and see if the environment will identify all connected disks. If they are seen in the WinPE environment, then True Image will work with them. The Windows Automated Installation Kit needed to build a WinPE ISO is free, although it is a painfully BIG download.

This tutorial http://forum.acronis.com/forum/9449 is for making the WinPE ISO with True Image, but it does give the links for downloading the WAIK if you would like to try out a WinPE ISO build. Driver support for the Linux-based bootable media is improved constantly, but driver support in a WinPE build covers a wider range of hardware. If WinPE works, then you could upgrade to TI 2010 (with the Plus Pack) with some assurance that it would work with your hardware.

I am sure that you now realise that you should have tested the rescue disk, at least by going to the Proceed button and cancelling out or preferably carrying a restore to a spare drive.

However, that does not solve your problem. I am not sure if 2009 downloads includes an iso file or if this file was only started with 2010. The iso file is updated more often than the standard rescue disk download. If there is, you will need to log into your account at Acronis, download it and burn the iso to a CD, I believe you can use any computer to do this, as you are not installing the program.

Or you could PM one of the Acronis Moderators on this site and ask for a link to an iso for 2009 that will work with your sata drives, you may have to provide some information.

An alternative would be to download and install the trial version of TI 2010, make a rescue CD (I always use RW disks to prevent making coasters) and see if you can see your Sata drives. If so, you should be able to restore your 2009 image.

Thanks you two for your answers.

You're right como, I should've tested the rescue disk while my system was ok. Well, I won't make the same mistake again.
I'll try your proposals as soon as possible (lack of time in the moment). BIG downloads shouldn't be the problem, due to my flatrate. If it really takes ages, I could run the download overnight.
So I think I start with reading the tutorials.

Hello all,

Thank you for your posts and all your help!

Sven 205,

I will do my best to assist you with this issue. In a few minutes I will send you a private message with the latest trial version of Acronis True Image 2010 Home boot disk. Since it is a trial and limited to recovery only, you can actually use it to restore the image. It is backward compatible with images created with Acronis True Image 2009 Home. And we will be able to see if your SATA drive is detected by the newer version.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot for the download link in your PM Anton. :)

I've downloaded already and will burn it on CD shortly. The InfraRecorder was unable to do the job, but I found out that my Nero6 version is able to do it - should be done tomorrow evening.

I'm going to report here as soon as I know something new.

I almost believe, that I've got a totally oldfashioned hard disk - or too new, who knows.

Means, I've burned the iso file onto a CD and started Acronis from it. After a few minutes, while it showed that it is processing something, it told me the following: "Lesen aus Sektor '0' der Festplatte '0' fehlgeschlagen" - translated: "Unable to read from sector '0' of hard disk '0'.

I'm sure, that my hard disk is linked to the SATA slot 0, as the BIOS is recognizing it on this slot. So what is going wrong here? My hard disk is the following: Western Digital RE3 500GB WD5002ABYS - bought in october 2008. I can't believe that none of the required drivers and controllers for this hard disk is installed onto the iso file from Acronis TI 2010.

Any more ideas?

Regards.
Sven

Hello Sven 205,

Thank you for replying.

Please accept my sincerest apologies for the delay.

It appears that our software can detect your hardware properly but it cannot read the disk. There can be bad blocks on it or some other issues.

Please make sure that the hard drive is operating properly and there are no errors on it, you can perform chkdsk in Windows.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Thank you.

Hello Anton,

don't worry about the delay. I have two young children and so I can imagine that there are always enough reasons not to have time for everything.

I've performed chkdsk as you have recommended. The result is as good as it is bad. Chkdsk couldn't find any errors or other problems with my hard drive. On the one hand I'm happy about that, on the other hand I'm not, because we still don't have a reason why TI can't find the hard drive.

Is there any chance to copy a SATA driver additionally onto the boot CD so that it has everything it needs to run the hard drive?

Regards,
Sven

Hello Sven,

Thank you for replying.

I am very sorry for the inconvenience. I would recommend building a BartPe disk using Acronis True Image 2009 Home plugin, you can then add your mass storage drivers to it. Please check this article for instructions and if you have any issues with it, please let me know.

Thank you.