The problem with loading the drivers for the SSD (M.2)

You are saying that True Image opened/runnig in/on Windows 7 does not see your M.2 drive?

I have an old version (2006 ???) that runs from the CD as a startup disk when you start your computer.

You will not find driver support for your M.2 drive with the old version.  True Image 2016 is a completely different application than is 2006.  As for driver support for your M.2 drive that would be supported with TI 2016 installed in Windows so long as Windows drivers supporting the drive are installed.

As for bootable or Recovery media your only option is to use a WinPE based media that uses a Windows 8.1 or10 ADK for driver support along with the True Image addon.  I might suggest you have a look at a MustangPE which might serve your needs.

I understand, that if buy a new version of 2016 I create my current operating system boot disk, then automatically the boot disk will be implemented driver for SSD M.2

Thanks for the clarification. Check also proposed by you MustangPE.

Thank you for your help and greetings.

Please note that with the current True Image product support for M.2 drives is dependent on a system boot disk that is WinPE based.  The Linux version of the boot disk product does not support M.2 drives.

Will M.2 drives ever be included in the standard Linux Recovery media?

I'm running Build 6571 and the recovery media does not recognize my Dell XPS 13 PCIe M.2 system drive.

(And yes, I'm booting in UEFI mode.)

Yes, it currently does.  As of v6559 and forward.

Just to clarify... m.2 is only a form factor.  m.2 sata drives work just like other SATA drives.  There are m.2 SATA drives like the Samsung 850EVO that have been working fine all along as they use the same SATA standard as 2.5" SATA drive, but just in the m.2 format.

The m.2 PCIE drives like the ones in the Dell XPS are PCIE drives and not SATA drives.  Those are the ones that support was introduced in version 6559 and onwards with the default Linux bootable recovery media.  

And yet, as I stated above: Linux Bootable Recovery media created with ATIH Build 6571 does not recognize my Dell XPS 13 M.2 PCIe drive (booted in UEFI mode).

Perhaps the XPS uses a special raid controller not found either?  Not sure as I don't have an XPS to test with.  I have all of the Latitude Eseries up to E7470 an precision mobile up to 7710 and have no issue finding the PCIE drives in those with the latest Acronis Linux media.

As a test, you could try a WinPE version by downloading the Windows 10 ADK and insalling from Microsfot directly first.  Then run Acronis bootable recovery media builder and select WinPE.  IF it can't find your drive either, it could be the controller.  If it can find it, then perhaps it has the necessary controller in Windows already though.  These drives are defintely supported though.  See my screen shots with a Samsung 950 Pro showing as both available for backup and recovery using default Liinux media v6571 on a Latitude 5570 just as of this morning.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/114598#comment-371719

The M.2 PCIe drives are defiitely supported however, some of the XPS series Dells use 2 of these devices in RAID 0 as boot devices.  These arrangements use Intel RST drivers and those drivers are not native to either the Linux based or the WinPE recovery media.  If this is you then you will need to attempt driver injection into the WinPE media of IRST drivers for access to the RIAD 0.

I created a WinPE-based bootable media on a usb flash using True Image 2016 build 6571 without adding the Intel's Rapid Storage Technology (RST) driver.  I have been using it to make back-up images for a primary partition on my Dell XPS 15 9550 with Toshiba's NVME M.2 PCIe SSD (model: thnsn5256gpu7).  When I used to back up the primary partition (C: drive with Windows 10 on it), it automatically backed up a small (~100 Mb) EFI system partition.  

A few days ago my Windows 10 refused to shut down and started to continue to reboot.  For the first time, I restored a recent back-up image using the bootable media (again I did not add the Intel RST driver).  It seemed to restore the image well, and asked for a restart at the end of the recovery step.  When it rebooted, the machine made a loud beep sound (before the Dell logo appeared) and did not do anything further.  I contacted Acronis tech support, but they don't seem to have a clear idea about what to suggest.  Any suggestions?  Unfortunately, when I tried to repair it with a Windows 10 copy, it did not recognize the drive.  I had to switch the UEFI setting to Legacy so that Windows installation can recognize the drive.  I consolidated all partitions into one so I can clean install Windows 10 after loading the Intel RST driver.  i don't think I can go back as I deleted all partitions and recreated one for Windows 10 now.  I should have looked for this forum before consolidating all partitions...  I still have a combined back-up image for the primary and EFI system partitions.  If there is a way that I can restore the image by recreating the partitions, please advise.  I've attached some pictures that I took from the BIOS after the wrong recovery and a list of the partitions (1-4).  I learned that partitions 1-3 are Windows generated ones, and partition 4 is the one where Windows 10 was installed.

Now I completed a clean Windows 10 installation, I made a back-up image using the same bootable media but have not tested a recovery yet.  Before I run a recovery test, I am wondering if I need to add the RST driver to the bootable media.  If yes, can you let me know how to add it?  Also, previousy I made the WinPE bootable media from my desktop which does not have the M.2 SSD.  Do I need to install the Windows 10 ADK and re-make a bootable media from my XPS for a successful recovery at this time?  I am afraid I don't see the SSD drive again...  Thanks in advance.

Hello JY,

I do not have one of these Dell machines so my help will be limited by that.  There have been a good number of posts here from users with these devices having issue with the M.2 drives and quite frankly I am at a loss to explain why.  In looking at your screenshots I see that your Win 10 System disk is 256GB capacity.  I also see that you have SATA configured as RAID.  I also see that you have a 5th partition on the OS drive, is that for DATA?

Given the capacity of the OS drive I would and the fact that you have been able to see and backup that drive up to now I would think that it is a single drive and not using the IRST RAID drivers.  Having said that it seems a bit odd to me that you can no longer see the drive so this suggests that Dell has leveraged the M.2 drive even though it is a PCIe drive against the SATA drive controller for operation.  If that is the case then the IRST drivers would need to be present when booted from the REcovery Media in order to work with the drive.  Since it worked before without those drivers I wonder if that is truly the case of not.

Bobbo has experience with these machines so I think he would be able to help here.  I'll see if I can get him to have a look and post a reply.

Hello Enchantech,

Thanks for your prompt reply.  Yes, all the 5 partitions are on the same single 256 GB drive (drive 1), and the 5th partition with a 97.7 capacity is for data.  I do not know what the RAID configuration setting does.  But, I did not change the setting as it is the original one when the system came.  

I have one more Samsung SSD 850 Evo 500 GB drive (drive 0) to save all other bulk data including back-up images for storage.  This drive is always detectable by Windows 10 installation SW and TI 2016.  I have posted 3 more picutures of the BIOS settings about the two drives.  Both are set to non-RAID physical disks, and the OS drive PCIe interface.  But, when I see the SATA configurations from the BIOS settings, both SATA 0 and 1 are checked (I will post the picture later today).  I guess Dell has configured the drive as you suspect.

I have now two partitions on the OS drive: one for Windows 10 and the other for recovery (Windows 10 seems to automatically generate the hidden ~450 MB partition in case).  Evidently it's a huge amount of work to install application SW and reconfigure all the SW settings.  If there is a way that I can use the back-up image to go back, I would greatly appreciate it.  Thanks again.

JY,

Thanks for posting the additional screenshots.  Viewing them it is apparent that even though the BIOS storage controller is set in RAID mode your drives are not configured into a RAID array.  The IRST drivers of today include RAID/AHCI, and NVME drivers all in one roof so to speak.  Since your drives are not configured as a RAID array explains why you were able to view and backup the NVME drive.

Do you know if your machine uses UEFI to boot?  Is your Win 10 install an X64 version?  Does the machine boot to Windows at all or not?  If not do you see any error messages after the Dell Logo displayed?

Hello Enchantech,

XPS 15 9550 allows UEFI to boot, but my current booting mode for Windows 10 on a single partition of the OS drive is set to "Legacy".  I have posted several pictures below from the current BIOS settings.  Yes, my Windows 10 install is x64 version, and currently boots O.K.

I have also posted a screen shot for one-time boot options.  The SanDisk flash under the UEFI boot option contains WinPE-based TI 2016 bootable media.  The USB storage device under the Legacy boot seems to be the same SanDisk flash as it is the only USB attached to the machine when it was booted.  When I boot the machine using the UEFI USB flash option, I can load the TI 2016 and back up an image.  Although I can see the image on the other drive to recover, I have not tried recovering it yet.  I am afraid of the same failure, and it is why I asked above whether I need to add the Intel RST driver to WinPE to successfully complete the recover operation after restarting the system at the end of the recover process.

Since I guess the USB storage device refers to the same thumb drive containing WinPE-based TI 2016, I tried the option to see if I can use TI 2016.  However, when I boot it with the option, I get an error message of "Selected boot device failed.  Press any key to reboot the system" before the Dell log shows up.  Please see the attached.

In summary, although the boot set-up is in Legacy mode, I need to select "UEFI option" to boot the WinPE-based bootable media.  I also tried with a bootable media that does not require WinPE (is it Linux-based?) with build 6571, but do not remember if I had to select Legacy or UEFI option.  Important thing is that I could not close the TI after backing up an image with it although I could see the back-up image was generated.  I do not know why only UEFI boot option allows the WinPE bootable media to work, particularly when Legacy is chosen as a boot option.

Overall I am not sure if my current BIOS settings are reasonable ones that can go with WinPE bootable media.  If there is anyone who has an experience with XPS 15 9550 and can make suggestions, I'd really appreciate it.  Thanks.

JY,

Windows 10 X64 systems should be booted UEFI not Legacy.  Did you change the boot mode from what it was originally and if so why?  I cannot imagine Dell. setting up a Windows 10 X64 system on an M.2 PCIe drive to boot in Legacy mode.  I note that you said previously that after you restored the system and rebooted, the  machine made a loud beep sound.  This would indicate possible error such as that of a bad configuration setting.

You are correct in your assumption that the USB boot device (SanDisk) is listed both under Legacy and UEFI.  The boot device media created with True Image is capable of using either mode so as to be of use by all users. 

Given all that you have provided and said here I am going to make an educated guess as to what occurred here.  I believe that when you performed the restore of your backup image you mistakenly booted the machine in Legacy boot mode to the USB Recovery Media.  This would work as your screenshot 180629 shows that Legacy Option Rom is enabled meaning that Legacy devices can boot the machine.  So you restored the image in Legacy mode, rebooted and the machine complained with the load beep.  In addition, the machine, sencing the error, reset the bios to Legacy mode and booted the device.  This worked as retoring the backup image you had while booted into Legacy mode performed the restore as a Legacy install.  Thus your machine boots normally.

To remedy this situation if I am correct in my guess you would need to change boot mode to UEFI.  Boot the USB recovery Media in UEFI mode by choosing the device shown under the UEFI Boot.  Once booted select your backup image, all partitions,  as what to recover and select your M.2 drive as where to recover.  You might get a warning message stating that the disk will be converted to GPT which is fine as UEFI boot requires a GPT format disk.  Ackowledge the warning and proceed with the restore. 

After completion of the restore, restart the machine.  Machine should boot fine without error.

If you wish to await a second opinion I understand that and don't blame you for desiring that.  I sent a message to Bobbo asking that he have a look here but he must be tied up with other things over the July 4th Holiday.  He has a number of these Dells deployed and knows his way around them well so I can understand if you want to await his reply before proceeding.

Hi Enchantech,

Thank you for replying to my post every time with your suggestions.  I think I have confused you with my previous and current settings, and wish to clarify what happened and I have now so you can better guide me.

My original Dell came with Windows 10 in UEFI on the M.2 drive.  When I tried to recover my TI image onto the M.2 drive, I did not change the UEFI setting to Legacy.  The "Enable Legacy Option ROM" of the screenshot 180629 is always checked regardless of UEFI or Legacy.  It was not automatically checked when I switched to Legacy.  My guess is Dell allows for this even in UEFI so that CD/DVD and other devices can be accessed.

The TI recovery operation just failed by making the loud beep sound when restarting the machine at the end of the recovery operation using the WinPE TI bootable media.  After the failure, I tried to re-run the recovery operation using the same media, but the media could not detect the M.2 drive.  This is why I think the current WinPE TI bootable media is not complete.  It is also why I asked if I should have manually added the Intel RST driver to the WinPE bootable media and how (if I should).  I also checked if the BIOS could detect the M.2 drive in UEFI after the recovery failure, and could see the drive in UEFI mode from the BIOS after the failure. 

Then I decided to have Windows 10 installation automatically repair the issue by running it, but unfortunately even Windows 10 could not detect the drive.  Until this moment, I did not change the UEFI mode to Legacy on the BIOS.  Then I changed the BIOS setting to Legacy and re-ran Windows 10 installation, which still could not detect the drive.  Then I loaded the IRST driver during the Windows 10 clean installation, after which Windows 10 could detect the drive after rebooting the system twice (right after loading the driver, it could not detect, either).  What I missed here is to check if the Windows 10 clean installation can be done with the IRST driver in UEFI mode.  My guess is that the WinPE bootable media does not contain the IRST driver. 

The USB boot device (SanDisk) listed both under Legacy and UEFI works with UEFI boot mode only.  Even if my current Windows 10 is in Legacy, TI on the boot media is not bootable under Legacy.  It says "Selected boot device failed.  Press any key to reboot" as shown the screenshot of 114103.  This is another weird thing that I cannot understand.  Why doesn't it boot when the system is in Legacy mode?

I guess somehow I need to check if the IRST driver is included in my WinPE bootable media, and need to add it to it (if not included).  Then I can switch the current Legacy to UEFI mode in BIOS for a second recovery trial.  Otherwise the TI image on the bootable media may not be able to detect the drive again, and I may need to reinstall Windows 10 from a very beginning. 

Since my back-up image includes two partitions (one for EFI system and the other for Windows 10 OS partition), I tried to create a 100 MB parition for the EFI system using Disk Director 12.  A CD bootable media was generated for DD 12 using Linux option (not WinPE).  When it was booted, it does not detect the M.2 drive again.  I guess the bootable media needs the IRST.  If yes, how can I add the driver to the media?

Sorry to confuse you so much.  But, I hope these now clarify your understanding and wish to get your guidance once again.  I also appreciate you sending a note to Bobbo, which I also did after your earlier note.  It would be great if I can get guidance from both of you.  Thanks again.

JY,

Just some observations here:

You apparently have wiped your M.2 drive clean, changed the boot mode of the machine to Legacy/MBR boot, and clean installed Windows 10 onto the drive.  Because of this you are no longer able to view the drive with the machine booted to Recovery Media.  Reason being that the Recovery Media whether it be WinPE or Linux version does not have driver support for these devices by default.

It is not possible to inject the IRST drivers into the Linux media.  It is possible to inject drivers into a WinPE media.  Injecting the IRST drivers into the WinPE media I think would work for you to again be able to see your M.2 drive as currently configured in Legacy/MBR mode.

The question is however do you really wish to do this?  Do you not want the advantages of UEFI that your machine supports to be used as designed by Dell?  I would think not.  I think at this point since you have made the change to an MBR disk to fix the problem you are going to have to start from scratch and reinstall Winodws 10 as a UEFI/GPT installation.  Once that is done then the Recovery Media will be able to recognize the M.2 drive with either media Linux based or WinPE.

To do that you will need to enable UEFI in the machine bios, boot the machine to the Windows 10 install media, and once you get to the screen of where to install Windows 10 you would need to delete all partitions currently on the drive so that it shows as unallocated space.  Then select that drive as the install destination.  Windows 10 installer should at that point determine that you have a UEFI capable system and are installing an X64 vresion of Windows 10 and install Windows as a UEFI/GPT installation.  Once completed my bet is that the Recovery Media, Linux or WinPE, will once again recognize your M.2 drive.

Hi Enchantech,

Thanks for your guidance once again.  

Currently I have wiped my M.2 drive and clean installed Windows 10 in Legacy/MBR, and have a few more things to clarify as below.

1) My WinPE-based True Image 2016 (TI) bootable media can currently show all partitions on the M.2 drive in Legacy/MBR.  But, my Linux-based Disk Director 12 (DD) bootable media does NOT show the M.2 drive in Legacy/MBR.  I have NOT added the IRST driver to any of these bootable media, and suspect only WinPE-based media can show the M.2 drive.

2) If possible, yes, I'd like to go back to Windows 10 in UEFI/GPT, and understand I will need to reinstall Windows 10.  To do this, it is very likely that I need to add the IRST driver to WinPE-based TI & DD bootable media.  Can you let me know how to do it?  After switching the BIOS setting back to UEFI, I can boot the system again with the bootable media with the IRST driver on it to see if the bootable media can show all partitions on the M.2 drive in UEFI.  Another question that I'd like to ask you is whether I can use a WinPE TI bootable image made from a different system.  I guess it's likely to work as long as I add the IRST driver.

3) If this is doable, do you think I can still use the TI back-up images to recover the two previous partitions: one for EFI system and one for Windows 10?  Since this is the easiest option to go back to my previous system, I wish to try this one first.  But, in this case, Windows 10 had another hidden recovery partition (~450 MB), which I wiped out and do not know what to do for this partition.  Since current Windows 10 in Legacy/MBR also has one for it, I hope there is a way to use the partition.  If this option does not work, I will do another Windows 10 clean installation...

So, if I learn how to add the IRST driver to WinPE bootable media and my plan above sounds worth trying, I will give a try.  Thanks.

JY,

You need to understand the PCIe based driver support was introduced in TI 2016 bootable Recovery Media (Linux version) in build 6569.  So if you create the Linux based version of the Recovery Media you can use it rather than the WInPE version which would require the driver injection.  The reason this is true I believe is because you used the True Image app to make the WinPE media and the version of WinPE used by True Image lacks the driver support necessary.  Had you downloaded the Win 10 version of WimPE ADK yourself and created the WinPE media using that version I believe that driver support would be included in it as well.

I am not for certain but I do not think the DD 12 boot media has been updated to support the PCIe devices yet.

In restoring the various partitions you ask about, I would hope that when you created the backup image you did so as a full disk image that included all partitions on disk.  Besides the ones you mention there is an MSR partition that is hidden as well.  A full disk image would have captured all of these partitions so if you have a full disk image then restoring that single image file will restore your system to a bootable state.  If you however did not create a full disk image and rather created images by partitions then you would need to restore each partition image separately.  This scenario is not ususally the case as the default is to create a full disk image so I would suspect that to be true here as well.

You will not be able to restore an image from another machine to this device as Windows 10 licensing has changed so that the hardware installed is tied to the installation by the device hardware.  Therefore activation of an image from another machine onto this one would not be successful.

The 450MB partition you talk about is something that is created by Windows 10 as a recovery partition and is created when Windows 10 is upgraded to a new build.  You should not have to restore that partition however, restoring it will bring with it the ability to rollback to a previous install if you do.  That partition would also be included in the single full disk image that you likely already have.

My recommendation is that you create the Linux based True Image Recovery Media, use it to restore the backup image you created to the disk.  Make sure that UEFI is turned on in the bios and that the machine has been booted in UEFI Mode (with UEFI active) before you do.

Enchantech,

When I made the Linux-based TI 2016 bootable media, I used build 6571 but couldn't see the M.2 PCIe drive.  But, it could not detect the M.2 drive after the recovery failure.  Although I used the Linux-based TI 2016 build 6571, it did not properly shut down or reboot after making a back-up image.  When closing down the TI program after back-up, it just freezes.  I also saw from the release note of build 6571 that Acronis fixed the issue, but this is not the case.

Also when I made the WinPE-based TI bootable media using the same build 6571, I made it myself but used a different machine which doesn't have such a M.2 PCIe drive.  I did not install Windows 10 ADK on my XPS 15 because of its size.  It is why I asked if it is necessary to install it on the same XPS 15 machine so it can add the IRST driver to WinPE.  I also found a WinPE driver package for XPS 15 posted by Dell below, but cannot find how to add to WinPE.  Can I simply copy the CAB file to WinPE bootable media under the root directory?  When I closely look at the WinPE bootable media, I cannot find directory including drivers.

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/11530…

Thanks for pointing out the 16 MB MSR (reserved) partition in the screenshot of 155209.  I did not create a full disk image and backed up an OS partition (Win10).  I do not know what this MSR parition did as I do not see such a partition after a clean Windows 10 installation.  In the original partition settings, I could find that only 100 MB EFI system partition is automatically included in the back-up image.  If you think I would need these partitions back again, please let me know what to do.  I can currently see only two partitions after a new Windows 10 clean-installation in Legacy/MBR: one for Windows 10 and the other for hidden recovery.  If we do not have a clear idea about what to do with the MSR and EFI partitions, I guess it may be best to clean-install Windows 10 again once I make a reliable TI bootable media.  If there are other recommendations, please do so.

I still think this is a bug that TI 2016 build 6571 has because the back-up image should have successfully been restored when I restarted the machine at the end of the recovery operation under the original Dell BIOS and partition settings.

Thanks again.

JY,

As I stated in an earlier post a number of users have reported difficulty with using the Linux based Recovery Media on these Dell machines.  Bobbo says that he does not see this issue and again, he has a number of them deployed at his work place.  Hopefully he will chime in here tomorrow with some insight into that.

You cannot simply add the IRST driver CAB file into the root of the WinPE.  The driver must be installed into the WinPE build so to speak.  Additionally, the actual drivers will need to be extracted from the driver package and injected/installed in their native form as .inf or .sys files.  I am providing link to the driver file package direct from Intel below:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25165/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Tec…

These drivers as downloaded come in a RAR package and can be extracted using a program such a 7zip.  You will find a total of 7 files.  Four of these files will have either .inf or .sys extensions.  Those four files are the ones you need to inject/install into the WinPE media.

I am also adding links to a definitive guides to adding these drivers to WinPE.  One written inhouse by a fellow MVP and another from Windows TechNET.  Those link appear below:

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/100770

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825070.aspx

As for the rest of your issue it sounds to me like you should just fresh install Windows 10 onto the drive as I think given all that you have said here your backup images being restored to and creating a bootable drive are minimal.

Hi Enchantech,

Thank you again for your guidance with the detailed information.  I will try and let you know what I find.

In the meantime, I created a Linux-based combined TI 2016 and DD 12 bootable media on a single USB flash drive and tried it in my current Legacy/MBR.  I could detect the M.2 drive and make a back-up image although I did not recover using the back-up image.  However, I followed the steps necessary for recovery (I just did not click on "proceed") and noted that the recovery operation is set to "sector by sector".  I did not use this option when making a back-up image.  Actually when I had the failure recovery event in UEFI/GPT, the recovery partition was set to "sector by sector" as shown in the screenshot below.  When I used older TI versions, this never happened before.  I do not know the difference though.

But, I still could not see the M.2 drive from DD 12, and guess the IRST driver is not included yet in Linux-based DD 12.

As a next step, I will make a WinPE-based combined TI + DD bootable media by adding the IRST driver to it.  After making sure that the M.2 drive is detectable by both TI and DD programs, I will (1) switch the BIOS setting to UEFI, (2) delete/re-create a Windows 10 OS partition in GPT and (3) clean-install new Windows 10.  I will share what happens again.  

Thanks once again.

Hi all.  I just got back from travelling for the 4th and am checking into this one.  It seems like, JY, that youd did finally get things to detect using the default Linux recovery media and that a recovery is seeing the drive as well, although you haven't tried yet?

I don't actually have any XPS systems at work - only E-series and Precisions, but just about every make/model since 2008 imagineable and have been able to get all of them working with the default Linux media since v6559 (minus those with specical RAID controllers - which require WinPE).  When it comes to the WinPE creation, I have found that the best compatibility with the Dells, is by first letting Acronis create the default WinPE (using the Windows 10 ADK) and seeing how it detects by default.  Even then though, I generally will go out and grab the latest Dell driver WinPE Pack for Windows 10 ADK and injecting the drivers into the Acronis WinPE (I always make a USB drive so it's easy to modify the boot.wim file using ADK DISM commands).  The Dell WinPE driver packs should have all of the necessary network, RAID controller and hard drive drivers necessary for any current Dell machines.  

FYI on the DISM driver injection commands... just grab the boot.wim file and copy it to the root of your C:Drive and make sure "all users" have full access on it.  You don't have to do anything specials - just mount the boot.wim and inject the dell driver pack into it, dismount and save the changes and copy the modified boot.wim back to the original location on the USB drive and that's it.  The following commands assume that you're working with the boot.wim file and have it on the root of your C:\drive and you have created a new, blank folder called "Mount" on the root of C: as well.  The second command also assumes that you've extracted the dell driver pack to the root of the C: drive and called it "delldriversextracted"

***EDITED - had a type-o where /inded:1 should have been ***

Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:C:\boot.wim /index:1 /MountDir:C:\Mount

Dism /Image:C:\Mount /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\delldriversextracted /ForceUnsigned /Rescurse

Dism /Unmount-Image /MountDir:C:\Mount /Commit

Typically, I have not had to use WinPE since the default bootable linux media from v6559 and newer, but the XPS systems controller may still require it so using the Dell driver pack injected into the WinPE should solve any problems.

Going forward, as Enchantec mentioned, I would start over with a fresh build of Windows 10 with the system installed on a GPT formatted disk in UEFI mode.  The easiest/best way would be to create a UsB installer with the Win 10 Media Creation tool .  Then, boot to it by using the one time boot menu (F12 after reboot) and making sure to launch the Windows 10 installer from the UEFI USB.  The only caveat is that if your drive is currently formatted as MBR, you may need to use another Windows machine to format the drive as GPT first, or use a 3rd party tool like minitool partition wizard free to do this offline as well.  I have not used Acronis Disk Director so am not able to speak to it's ability or usefulness, but minitool has worked a treat for me and can even be launched as "portable app" from WinPE... I've foudn that you can install it in Windows the normal way and just copy the folder from C:\program files (x86) to a USB and run the executable in WinPE or from any Windows system like a portable app.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress. 

Hi Bobbo,

When I followed your instructions, I have the following question.  It sounds like I need to extract the Dell drivers that I want to add to the boot.wim file.  If I have multiple drivers to add, how do I have all the drivers to be added to the boot.wim file?  When I create a folder, C:\delldriversextracted, under wich there are multiple driver folders, the command on the second line generates the following error message.

"Error: 87

The rescurse option is not a valid command.
For more information, refer to the help."

Thanks.

Could you post the folder paths for your main drivers and the exact command you're using?

If you grabbed the Dell WinPE driver pack and extract the .cab file to it's own folder under

C:\delldriversextracted

it should be pretty straight forward.  

I would make sure that you're launching the Windows ADK command prompt with a right click and "run as admin" to make sure it has the highest privileges.  Also make sure that you are the owner on the "delldriversextracted" folder or whatever you called it.  Also give "all users" and "everyone" and "admins" full access to the folder.  I'd do the same for "C:\Mount" as well. 

Below are the folder paths for my main drivers and the exact command I am using.  I have created the following three folders and have the ownership of all the folders.

F:\Temp

F:\Mount

F:\Drivers

After mounting the boot.wim, I extracted the Dell cabinet file under the F:\Drivers folder.  The cabinet file generate multiple file structure like \9550\Win10\x64 under which there are multiple sub-folders like audio, chipset, etc. containing all device drivers.  Then I ran the following command  and got the error message below.

Dism /Image:F:\Mount /Add-Driver /Driver:F:\Drivers /ForceUnsigned /Rescurse

Error: 87

The rescurse option is not a valid command.
 

Then I pulled out two storage-related driver folders named "iaAHCIC.inf" and "iaStorAC.inf" out of the long folder path like F:\Drivers\iaStorAC.inf.  Then the Dism command recognized the drivers.  Does this mean that I need to pull out all sub-folders and files (if a sub-folder name does not end with ".inf")?  A complete command that I found work is given below.  For some reason, the "/Rescurse" command option still does not work...

Dism /Image:F:\Mount /Add-Driver /Driver:F:\Drivers\iaAHCIC.inf /ForceUnsigned

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.10586.0

Image Version: 10.0.10240.16384

Searching for driver packages to install...
Found 1 driver package(s) to install.
Installing 1 of 1 - F:\Drivers\iaAHCIC.inf\iaAHCIC.inf: The driver package was successfully installed.
The operation completed successfully.

Thanks again.

Here is an update.

After adding the two storage drivers, the WinPE bootable media could detect the M.2 NVMe drive.  I ran multiple recovery operations after completely deleting all partitions on the M.2 drive using the multiple back-up images created using the WinPE TI 2016 bootable media under UEFI and Legacy settings.  All the recovery operations say "successful".  But, when I reboot the system, none of the back-up images went back to their original states.  The image made under UEFI shows the error message in the 164337 screenshot below.   The image made under Legacy shows the error message in the 231214 screenshot below.  Every time when I create back-up images using the bootable media, I always have the back-up images validated.  So this is not a corrupt file issue.

Here comes my question.  When I use the TI bootable media to back up the images, by default automatically selects (1) a hidden EFI system partition and a Windows 10 partition under UEFI/GPT and (2) just a Windows 10 parition under Legacy/MBR settings.  There is another hidden partition Windows 10 creates called Windows Recovery Environment.  In both cases, this partition is not selected for back-up by default.  I did not think this is a parition that should be included for back-up.  I have submitted this issue to tech support and now it is passed onto the development team.  They say I may be contacted in a week or so.  I will post whatever outcome I will have.  

In the meantime, I need to revive this system and face another problem.  When I try to clean-install Windows 10 under UEFI, Windows 10 bootable USB cannot detect the M.2 driver even after loading the two drivers as shown in the 123731 screenshot.  This is why I clean-installed Windows 10 under Legacy/MBR after the first recovery failure.  Any suggestions?

Thanks again.

First - glad you got the drivers installed.  Perhaps the folder path was too long, not really sure. I have not had an issue using the recurse option so far, but you could rename some of the folders to cut the 240 character limit down to something a little smaller.  I also believe there is a folder for both x86 and x64 and is more likely the issue if you selected the root.  Since Acronis is using 64-bit winpe, you would want to only inject the 64-bit drivers, but it was probably trying to add them all and bombed out.

Second issue - I believe you booted your recovery media improperly and this is confirmed by the Windows installer too.  Here's why:

IF you boot the Windows installer in legacy mode, but have a GPT formatted disk, Windows will say that there are no compatible disks.  You would have to relaunch the installer in UEFI mode with your GPT formatted disk and then it should be an acceptable location for Windows.  Or, format the disk as MBR and then launch in legacy mode.  Either scenario will work, but the bottom line is a GPT formatted disk, needs to have the Windows installer launched in UEFI mode and a MBR formatted disk needs the Windows installer launched in legacy mode.  

Working off of this same concept, how you boot your Acronis bootable recovery media is also important.  The media is capable of both 32 and 64 bit opernation as well as legacy/MBR boot and UEFI boot.  Based on the no MBR found errors, I would say that your OS was originally a UEFI/GPT install, but you booted the Acronis recovery media in legacy mode and it tried to restore as an MBR formatted disk so is not bootable.  If you boot the recovery media in UEFI mode, then it should restore correctly. 

See this post with screen shots about the different boot mode views so you can see the difference.  You should be able to specifically pick either legacy boot or UEFI boot when using your bios one-time boot or boot-override menu.  https://forum.acronis.com/forum/122101#comment-374851

As for the first BSOD... I get that on my new Z170X board if I set the boot order in the bios to a specific drive instead of "Windows Boot Manager".  On my UEFI/GPT install of Windows, I must always have the bootorder with "Windows Boot Manager" listed first and then I don't get a BSOD.  Took me a long time to figure this out as all of my previous motherboards simply let me pick a specific disk and it worked fine... not the case anymore with newer motherboards and UEFI OS installs.

Hello all,

I found this thread off of a google search on this issue.

I have an older True Image 11.5 and have been using it for years.  I realize maybe that is the problem because it is older but what the heck lets get the drivers injected into the wim file and see if we can see the new Toshiba m2 nvme 256gb SSD.  I downloaded the drivers from here: http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/11659… and injected all 54 drivers.  Now I get network access and I can read / write to USB sticks so we made some progress, but I still cannot see the hard drive.

In the Optiplex 5040 BIOS I changed it from RAID to AHCI and it still cannot see the hard drive. 

Any ideas?

1st - there are no native drivers in Windows 7 for NVME hard drives.  Windows drivers became available in 8.1 so the Dell driver pack won't have what you're looking for.  If you can get Windows 7 drivers from Toshiba and inject those, you might be in luck.

2nd - Acronis 2011 is years before NVME PCIE technology arrived.  Acronis 2011 can use Windows 3.0 (possibly 4.0 too) ADK, but I don't believe it will work with 5.0 (windows 8/8.1) or 6.0 (Windows 10) ADK.  

Only shot at trying would be to remove your existing Windows ADK (assuming it's less than 5.0), then manually download 5.0 or 6.0 ADK from Microsoft and intall.  After installing, run the Acronis 2011 PE media builder and see if it prompts you to download the Windows ADK or not. If it builds the WinPE, you're probably in luck.  If it tells you that you need to download and install the Windows ADK (even though it's already installed), it means it doesn't detect the newer Windows 10 ADK in 2011 and won't be able to use it to build the media.  

Might be time to upgrade your 6 year old software to get the compatibility with the newer hardware so you can take full advantage of it. 2017 just came out and includes a year of support now. 

Just to clarify a point here, ATI didn't have a version 11.5 - it had version 11.0 and 2011 where 11.0 was released in 2008.

Is this Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 that you have, in which case, please post in the Forum for that product at https://forum.acronis.com/forums/acronis-business-products-discussions/acronis-backup-117-former-acronis-backup-recovery-115/a where you should find someone better able to advise you.

Ok I went ahead and purchased the Acronis True Image 2017 software.  Your right it was time to upgrade from 6 year old software.  The old version worked well enough but with these new advancements in hardware its time to get updated.

Sure enough yes the 2017 WinPE boot media can see the Toshiba NVMe drive in the Dell without an issue.  It could not see the network to back it up to a NAS device though, but I used DISM commands to inject the Dell drivers I needed and with a commited new wim file I was able to boot into it and have full access to the hard drive and the network.

Good suggestion. Thanks.

I think your biggest problem is that your machine is not booted using UEFI.  It is likely your machine is booting in Legacy/MBR mode.  Your machine must boot using UEFI mode as the UEFI firmware carries an Intel driver that has a role in NVMe PCIe drive discovery.  It is not enough that you machine has a UEFI capable bios, that capability must be in use when using these new PCIe drives.

KJSTech, any chance of getting some detailed instructions for building a working WinPE image?  I just bought a Dell XPS 13, and discovered ATI 2017 standard rescue media wouldn't work.  I have tried making a WinPE image by injecting just the SSD drivers following instruction in the 2017 userguide, but it didn't work.  I am a home user, pretty much a total novice, although I was a real-time software engineer many years ago.  I can follow directions pretty well.  I don't want a PC with not image backup capability.

J WEllman,

Easiest method using your default linux bootable media - go into the Dell bios and temporarily swith the sata mode from RAID or RAID-on to AHCI.  Then boot the recovery media and it should work.  When done with the backup or restore, then go back into teh bios and switch back to RAID before booting the OS - if you forget to switch, you'll get a BSOD (blue screen of death), but don't worry, it's just a reminder to switch to RAID.

If you want to use WinPE, you need to add the RAID controller drivers.  To create the WinPE, download the latest Windows 10 ADK and install - you only need the top 3 items checked when prompted which pieces you want to install - roughly 3.6Gb to install.  Once installed, run your ACronis media builder but pick WinPE instead of the default Linux media - it will build the WinPE automatically.  I suggest using a USB flash instead of a CD or DVD since you're going to need to inject the RAID drivers into the PE so it needs to be something you can modify.

Once you have your USB flash drive made with Acronis, grab DISMGUI.  This is a GUI tool that runs Windows ADK commands for you to simplify the driver injection process.  Launch it using right click and "run as administrator".  On the first tab "Mount control" under WIM file, you navigate to the USB flash drive >>> sources >>> boot.wim.

Under "Mount location" You then point it to a temporary location (an empty folder that you should create first) that will be used to "mount" the boot.wim file.  Click on "Mount Wim"... should see success.

Now move to the second tab in dismgui which is "driver management" point it to where your RAID controller drivers are.  You should download and extract them to a folder first (here is the link for them - get the 64-bit version) and then point dismgui to the 64-bit folder that you extracted.

Click the button "add drivers"

When you see succes, go back to the 1st tab again.  

Click on "Dismount Wim"

You'll be prompted if you want to commit the changes or not - say YES to save the changes.  The boot.wim will now be updated with the drivers and you're done.  

Bobbo, thanks a bunch for this info!  I'll try both methods.

Bobbo, I don't know if you are a genius, but you are one helluva jungle guide.  The switch from RAID to AHCI did the trick!

ALL YOU OWNERS OF THE NEW DELL XPS 13/15 WITH TOSHIBA PCIe NVMe 256GB SSD...

Please see Bobbo's solution above for booting off Acronis' standard rescue media.

Many thanks, Bobbo!

:) Thanks for the vote of confidence.  Yeah, it's a pretty easy work-a-round.  You only run into trouble if you have an actual RAID setup with 2 or more drives (especially if using RAID 0). Then, you have no choice but to create the WinPE since you'd need to be able to see both drives a single unit.  Most of us are getting them with a single NVME drive though, so the AHCI work-a-round is easy enough. 

All:

Here is my final update.  It took almost 2 months that I heard back from the development team since late July.  After multiple deferrals, they told me that they could not reproduce the issue in the Acronis lab and suggested a refund.  Instead I got a free upgrade from True Image 2016 to 2017.  Acronis recommended back up from Windows (I am using Windows 10) and run recovery operations using the bootable media.  Since my last failure, I followed their recommendations.  The only difference in the back-up methods between Windows and bootable media is that the hidden partition called Windows Recovery is selected in the True Image installed on Windows.  It's not selected by default from the bootable media.  Acronis says the hidden Windows Recovery partition is not selected by default when the bootable media is used because the drive letter is not fixed.

A few days ago my Windows 10 was automatically upgraded to the Aniversary edition (version 1607), which gave me another headache.  Since then my Windows continues to reboot from the sleep mode.  People say it happens when a drive is encrypted using BitLocker.  Today for the first time, I ran the recovery operation from two back-ups made using True Image on the bootable media and Windows.  I have confirmed both methods work now!  Yes, the failed recovery operation was derived from the deselected hidden Recovery partition. 

Here is another note: True Image 2017 WinPE-based bootable media still cannot recognize my M.2 NVMe drive and had to insert the device drivers using the DISM command.

Thanks for your help in resolving this issue, and hope this helps.

Bobbo,

Worked great with my new Asus G701VI.

Thank you!!

Glad to hear it!  

FYI, if you're using a current version of Acronis 2016 (and it has the latest Acronis WinPE files .... unfortunately, it looks like these are not always upgraded during an "upgrade",) you can also build WinPE.  We've put together a very nice (and easy to use) WinPE creator tool that helps with the process and it includes the IRST Raid controller drivers for Windows 7-10 already.  With this tool, I'm only building/using WinPE for my own personal use from now on as I find it to be more convenient for hardware conpatibility for the time being since we need RAID support with NVME drives out of the box.

(00). MVP WinPE Builder 
(09). ADK WinPE10

Awesome post Bobbo, just what i was looking for!!!

BTW there is a type in this command - this may have been caught later in the thread, but in case it hasnt

Dism /Image:C:\Mount /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\delldriversextracted /ForceUnsigned /Rescurse

it should be

Dism /Image:C:\Mount /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\delldriversextracted /ForceUnsigned /Recurse

Recurse had an extra 's' in it