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HDD Destroyed

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Hello,

 

I have the Acronis True Image 2018 and a destroyed Notebook Harddisk thrue Acronis Recovery Disk.

Installed was:

Win7 x64 / NTFS

Mint 18.3 x64 / ext4

Debian9 x64 / BTRFS

16 GB RAM

500 GB SSD

32 GB SWAP

 

That I could make the Image, I must activate “sector by sector” copy.

How can I make an sector by sector backup like dd(=disk dump), without questions?

 

Can someone help me, please?
Thank you in advance

Ralph

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Acronis_Mint.png 121.12 KB
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Ralph, welcome to these User Forums.

Acronis True Image is aimed at Windows users primarily and supports a limited list of file systems, which does not include BTRFS.  Support for other file systems is provided by sector-by-sector mode but this assumes that ATI is able to correctly recognise the sectors used by any unrecognised file system.

I have used ATI to backup my laptop which has both Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installed, where the latter is using EXT4 alongside NTFS used by Windows.  ATI forces sector-by-sector mode automatically when it encounters this combination of file systems, but there are also options in the Backup settings that can be used to force this mode yourself.

With regards to your subject for this topic "HDD Destroyed" - please can you clarify exactly what you mean here?  Do you mean that the file systems on your HDD was damaged by using ATI, and if so, what were you doing, was this damaged during a Backup or when doing a Recovery of such a drive?

I would recommend opening a Support Case directly with Acronis if this is the case and they can verify what actions were taken and how your particular combination of file systems should have been handled for both backup and recovery.

Hy Steve and thank you for your kind reply,

 I had a perfect environment with Win7, Mint 18.3 and Debian9, but I still have a few bugs to solve for Mint, then I made another mistake. I wanted to solve that through a recovery.

then came the message (Recovery failed) and the notebook could not boot anymore. A new recovery attempt shows that all partitions must be reassigned. Which does not work. Then I wrote my case here in the forum.

Regards Ralph

Ralph, when doing a full disk recovery, then provided you select the top Disk box on the recovery panel, you should not need to configure the settings for each individual partition.

See the attached PDF document showing a full Disk Recovery that I did using the ATI 2017 Rescue Media.  Note: this was a simple recovery without the partition / file system mix you have but the principle remains the same.

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443187-144174.pdf 719.56 KB

1. The Notebook SSD recovery failed with the CDROM and the USB stick


Create that Acronis bootable rescue media (USB-Stick=ATI_Stick)

Ext. SSD connected

ATI_Stick connected

Notebook started

F12 Boot Menu openend

ATI_Stick selected

boot from ATI_Stick

1) Acronis True Image (64-bit) selected plus Enter with press 1

Recovery click on

search for Tib File in ext. SSD sub DIR.

Selected File is vostro_09_02_2018_x64_full_b1_s1_v1.tib and OK

klick on minus

View = vostro_09_02_2018_x64_full_b1_s1_v1 (only)

klick on vostro_09_02_2018_x64_full_b1_s1_v1

klick on Drive-Recovery (shows a blue Field)

klick on minus

View = vostro_09_02_2018_x64_full_b1_s1_v1 (only) again

klick on vostro_09_02_2018_x64_full_b1_s1_v1

klick on Forward

New Window with „Select Recovery Method“

 

Method 1

Recovery of complete drives and directory [with Enabled (Sector by Sector)]

klick on Forward

Klick on Drive 1

Select all 8

klick on Forward

New Window

Specify the Recovery placment from Partition C

New Location

New Volume Type

New Volume Size

Abort cause it was 2 times never succesfull

 

Method 2

Recovery of complete drives and directory [with disabled (Sector by Sector)]

klick on Forward

Klick on Drive 1

Select all 8

klick on Forward

Specify the Recovery placment from Partition C

New Location

New Volume Type

New Volume Size

Abort cause it was 2 times never succesfull

 

 

Basic

The MBR is 100% destroyed and to repair is not possible

Repair with fixboot/fixmbr not possible from Win7 install DVD

Repair with UBCD = Ultra Boot Repair CD and Super Grub2 not possible

Repair in a other Computer with installed gparted and gpart not possible,

Message= No file systems could be detected

 

New Questions

Can I exit the menu and enter a direct command (like dd) on the command level?

can I copy from the * .tib file, files on the SSD?

 

Many thanks for your help

Ralph

 

Ralph, what is the make / model of your notebook computer here (Dell Vostro?)

How is the notebook set to boot in the BIOS settings, is this using Legacy / CSM or is it set for UEFI?

The Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM) uses a small Linux OS to boot into a standalone Acronis application environment.

DD is a linux command tool so will not be available if you are using the 'Simple' version of the ATI 2018 Rescue Media as this is based on Windows PE (from the Windows Recovery Environment).

What is the current status of the notebook SSD drive?  From your earlier updates it sounds as if there is a problem with the drive if all the tools you listed are not able to work with it?  

I would suggest checking for any tools from the SSD manufacturer, i.e. Samsung Magician for their drives which may offer drive preparation tools?

Do you have a spare HDD or SSD you could use with the notebook?

 

Hello Steve,

My Notebook is an Dell Vostro 15 / 3000 Series (for Linux optimized/created) with Legacy and activated S.M.A.R.T Report without any problems.

 

When I bought ATI2018 I had no information that the BTRFS is not supported, only the ATI recovery process showed me that.

 

I just want to restore it and save the files it contains.
Are there any possibilities/Tools?

 

Regards Ralph

Ralph, sorry but back to the question about the SSD drive?  This will be key to being able to restore the ATI backup image, and given that you have a mix of filesystems with NTFS, EXT4 and BTRFS any restore will need to be performed in sector-by-sector mode (for those non Windows partitions at least).

Accessing the files on the non Windows partitions will only be possible if either the Linux OS is active or the partition can be accessed by an OS that recognises it.  Ideally, this should be the OS that uses the partition on the Dell Vostro, but this again depends on the SSD being able to be restored fully, including the MBR to enable the boot data to be read / used.

If you have a spare HDD or SSD to use for the recovery, that could help eliminate any issues with the original SSD drive.

If the current SSD is 'destroyed' as you termed it, then what happens if you tried to boot from and install either Windows, Mint or Debian from the install or live CD/DVD media? Would this prepare the SSD to allow this?

Hello Steve,

Now I am massively further.

When I bought the Acronis Dec. 2017, I could not find any limitation on the BTRFS in / out of Acronis.

I replaced the SSD
The S.M.A.R.T reported no problems.
The 6 Hard Disk Test's have not reported anything
Additionally, I started the DELL test environment and did the simple and hard extra-long tests.
There were always passed all the tests.

The ATI has no problems with BTRFS because it secures absolutely nothing.
Neither [with Enabled (Sector by Sector)]
Have just opened the backup and it has absolutely no file in the BTRFS partition included.
I'm convinced the ATI has made things worse.

dd is free in all Linux and has no problems with the BTRFS file system
I have now developed two dd lines with which I can create / restore a backup.
I have now developed two dd lines with which I can backup / restore a MBR.
The Acronis backup has 285 GB
The dd backup has           38 GB
The dd backup has been successfully tested
The ATI backup has failed.

The data, the time I spent on BTRFS configuration and the money, everything is lost.
I'm extremely angry, because that's a wordcase high 10 and unacceptable.

Thank you for your help
Greeting Ralph

Ralph, sorry to hear that you are still so angry / disappointed in ATI with regards to how it works / does not work with your specific combination of different OS's and file systems.  I can only suggest opening a Support Case directly with Acronis if you would care to spend any more time on this issue.  I can understand that you may not wish to do so!