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[SOLVED] Can I Use TIH 2015 to Backup a UEFI HDD

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I have an HP Envy X2 notebook that I want to reload.  The Envy has no CD/DVD so I have to use an external drive.When I  boot, I can hear the disc spin up but I it appears the TIH never starts (I never see any  prompts).  It always  boots from the HDD.  

The Envy had Smart Boot enabled and I  have  disabled it.  I also  disabled BitLocker.  I suspect that it is an HP issue but I thought I'd ask to see if  anyone has seen  this issue.  The Envy has Windows 10 Home 32 bit.

Thanks

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Chuck, I would assume that ATI 2015 can make a backup from the Windows ATI application of your HP Envy X2 notebook, but you may not have as much luck in getting the ATI 2015 Rescue media to recognise the internal eMMC UFS SSD drive that it may have installed?

UEFI doesn't really have much bearing here other than being required to allow your SSD to use GPT partitioning, this is really more about the BIOS used in the notebook.

Your ATI Rescue Media needs to be booted using the UEFI option for the device where it is held, i.e. your external CD/DVD drive - this should not be booted in Legacy or CSM mode if offered.

All recent versions of ATI Rescue Media support both UEFI and Legacy modes of operation, but the real question here is whether your 2015 media has any support for eMMC UFS storage media, as if not, you would need to create the Windows PE version of the Rescue Media (not trivial with 2015) or else consider upgrading to the latest ATI 2019 version.

Thanks Steve.  I can't say that I grasp everything you said (but will over time) but I am grateful for the suggestion of purchasing TIH 2019.  Would 2018 work as well?  

Chuck, either 2018 or 2019 should work fine but would suggest going for 2019 as this will also offer the prospect of a year of support whereas any support for 2018 will be ending very soon, if not already!

OK.  Thanks.  I am always leery of buying new software so I often resort to the prior year.  In this case though, I think I will try the free trial for 30 days and if ok, buy it then.  Thanks again.  I hope that this is the issue.  I will let you know.

Hi Steve.  It worked - Partially.  Acronis started to load. I was then prompted that it  was loading the protected kernel and offered that  I could change it.  I didn't. It accepted the default and the screen went black.  Nothing after that.  Do I have to  modify the kernel?

I have tried to edit the kernel mode (pressing <e>) but it still  just goes black.

Chuck, which specific rescue media are you trying to boot from here?

If you have downloaded the Rescue Media ISO file from the Acronis account page, then this is the older, Linux kernel version and will be more limited.

Ideally, you should install ATI 2019 (assuming you have embarked on the 30-day trial) and then create the Rescue Media on USB or CD/DVD from the main ATI application in Windows.

One new option with ATI 2019 that could be very useful in this situation is the ability to make your external USB backup HDD drive into a 'Survival Kit' which combines the Rescue Media on the same drive as used to store your backup images.  It does this by carving out a 2GB FAT32 partition at the start of the external drive and writing the rescue media to that partition.  For a UEFI system, ATI will try to create a WinPE version of the rescue media on the Survival Kit (using the Windows 10 Recovery Environment present on the internal drive).

I created a Rescue media on CD from the ATI 2019 Trial package.  I was prompted to select WinPE or Linux and I chose Linux.  Should I try the WinPE vesion instead?

Chuck, the WinPE version will have better device support for your hardware than the Linux media.

I made another boot device with WinPE but it made no difference.  I also made a USB boot drive with x86 and it made no difference.  I then tried to boot a Windows 10 disc and it would not boot from it at all.  I am now pretty convinced that this is NOT an ACRONIS Issue.  

I would appreciate any other thoughts from you and thank you for your help.  

I just tried it again and it finally booted into Acronis.  It took over 2 minutes and I believe that the 32bit was the reason why it booted.  This is crazy.

Chuck, there are some strange implementations of UEFI BIOS out there where a 32-bit version is implemented for booting the system regardless of running a 64-bit OS.

The actual ATI boot process can take some time to complete, especially when booting from the WinPE version of the media.  Note: the standard media builder tool only builds 64-bit WinPE media but the MVP Custom ATI PE Builder script (link below) can create both 32 & 64 bit versions of WinPE media.

Thanks Steve.  I will take a look at the link and create a 32/64 bit disc.  I can now move on with my project.  This was quite the  ordeal and I spent so much  more time than had expected.

Thanks again.