Restore from recovery media shows no progress
I created Acronis recovery media on an external WD Passport drive and tested it to ensure it was bootable. I then performed an image backup of my C: drive (Windows 10 v1809) to that same external WD drive. I booted into the recovery media environment and assured myself I could access and peruse the image backup performed on October 7, 2019. My PC operating system became unbootable after a failed chkdsk today. I booted from the recovery media and tried to restore the image backup sector by sector. I left the settings as they had defaulted and the "next" button quit working. I could not proceed. So, I initiated a restore files procedure. That began about 4 hours ago and there still is no indication of progress on the display, hoever there is persistent disk activity. Shall I take it on faith that files are being restored or should there be some progress showing on the bar under the words "Recover Backup Archive (1 of 1) ..."
The backup was an image backup, which I had been led to believe by another member of this forum was the same as a full backup. I am now attempting to restore all files and folders within that backup.
The restore began sometime after I went to sleep, which was 7 hours after I initiated it. For the last hour, the progress bar has stood at just under 50% and the time left indicated 2 minutes. Clearly any progress tracking from this utility is useless.
I would have preferred to do a sector-by-sector image restore, which is why I took an image backup. But, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn't able to move past the point of leaving suggested defaults in place. Or, at least that's what it looked like. I can't think of one good reason why it would take more than a few minutes to walk through the restore settings options and initiate the process.
The last time I did a disk upgrade, I was able to insert a caddy and clone the existing hard drive to the clean, new one. Now, after having what I perceived to be problems, I'm wondering if my "image backup" strategy will work when I do upgrade the hard disk, assuming I can boot into a stable OS again. Will it?
I believe I caused the OS to become unstable because some impatient woman (me) tried to stop the chkdsk before it completed. I can't say I wasn't warned that might happen before I interrupted the process. The laptop had been booting fine at the time I took the backup I'm restoring so I was hoping that these 24-hours that I'm spending restoring the last backup are not a complete waste of time.
Thanks for the KB link but it is not very useful if I cannot access the operating system. I created Acronis Bootable Rescue media (Simple method) on the same removable drive that I had been using for backups. The Simple Method advertises itself as being the best choice for configuring the rescue media for the device. I used the "Tools" section to create it, not the "Advanced" method.I created it on the same device I'm trying to recover. Recently, Acronis notified me that the Rescue Media needed an update, so I performed that and tested that I was still able to boot into it and access my backups. The Simple Method advertises itself as being the best choice for configuring the rescue media for the device. I created it on the same device I'm trying to recover.
Marjorie, all Acronis backups result in a backup 'image' file (.tib) but for the Windows OS and all associated applications etc, this needs to be either an 'Entire PC' or else a 'Disks & Partitions' type backup image, in order to do a successful recovery of an OS drive.
The point about the KB document was really about ensuring any recovery is performed correctly using the same BIOS boot mode as used by your Windows OS. I understand that the methods shown in the document are mainly intended for checking from within Windows, but you can also check in other ways too.
The other method is to look at the BIOS boot priority / device settings:
If you see 'Windows Boot Manager' as the primary boot device in the BIOS boot settings, then this is a UEFI / GPT boot system, otherwise if you see the name of a disk drive, it is Legacy.
All of this is simply information to be set on one side if you are still in the process of doing a file recovery, but as advised earlier, doing this for any Windows system files / folders etc is unlikely to result in a working system.
With regards to using 'Sector-by-Sector' mode for either recovery or backup, this has to be chosen when creating the backup image, or else will not be used. The exception is if Acronis detect file system errors such as bad sectors, when the application will default to using Sector by sector mode in that case.
See the following reference documents.
KB 61621: Acronis True Image 2019: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media
When doing the restore of your backup, this needs to be done as a Disk & Partition restore and at the top Disk selection level.
Please see forum topic: [How to] recover an entire disk backup - and in particular the attached PDF document which shows a step-by-step tutorial for doing this type of recovery / restore.
Thanks for your reply, Steve.
The Image Backup I'm restoring from was taken sector-by-sector and it was a 'Disks & Partitions' type backup image.
You suggested for the second time that what I was doing would not work so I killed it and rebooted. I've looked at your documentation for recovering disks.
The Items to Recover for Disk 1 lists 4 areas. I've listed them below
NTFS (OS) C: PRI 444.1GB 281.GB NTFS
MBR and Track 0 MBR and Track 0
FAT 16 (Unlabeled) PRI 39.19MB 213KB FS: FAT16 Partition: 0xDE (Dell Server Utils)
NTFS (Recovery) Pri,,Act. 21.67GB 10.28GB NTFS
I waded through all the subsequent screens leaving the defaults and this time I got to the "Proceed" choice.
I chose only one disk this time, which was not what I tried to do last night. Now the progress bar is indicating that it is actually doing a partition sector-by-sector recovery. And, it is moving faster, too. :)
In theory, a sector-by-sector recovery of the drive will result in a usable system, as it was when I performed the image backup sector-by-sector on Monday night.
I'll have to resort to the Windows recovery/reinstall process if this fails. I am hoping against hope that doesn't have to be the case.
You've been very helpful. I wish I had known about your detailed documentation about disk recovery before now, but such is life. If you'd like, I will report back.
The restore completed successfully but, on reboot, I was greeted with a BSOD and error, "inaccessible boot drive."
I've booted from a Windows Recovery USB and initiated the disk repair option. From what I've read about this, it could take 7-8 hours before I know if I'm whole again.
I have no one to blame for this debacle but myself. I'll adjourn for an evening of self-recriminations.
Thanks, again, for your assistance.
I have an update on this activity.
Twice, I performed the sector-by-sector recovery operation while booted into the Acronis Recovery USB and twice it failed. I was ready to throw up my hands in disgust and buy a new laptop. I'm glad I held off on that because I found another way.
While searching for a way to make a Windows Recovery Tools USB from another computer, I came upon this link:
https://www.tenforums.com/software-apps/27180-windows-10-recovery-tools-bootable-rescue-disk.html
I downloaded their bootable rescue media from their link and ran it. I got a normal Windows Desktop with a few extras, including Acronis Recovery Media. After verifying partition sizes, for the available disks, I initiated the backup image restore sector-by-sector. I didn't have a lot of hope that it would work, but I'd spent two days on trying to recover my system already, so what the heck?
I woke up this morning and the system indicated that the process had completed. I verified that the partitions looked the way they were supposed to and perused the recovered file system on the C drive. Everything looked to be good so I gracefully shut down the computer, removed the recovery tools USB, and powered up again.
I had quite a quiet celebration here when I saw the old lock screen image appear on the laptop and I was able to login again.
I have no idea why the recovery media image restore didn't work from the Acronis Recovery Media. I wish that I did but I thought I'd let you know.
Marjorie, first, good to read that you have been able to recover your laptop successfully.
Second, the WinPESE Windows 10 ISO contains a pirated copy of ATI 2017 WinPE rescue media which should not have been any different to that you created yourself for ATI 2019 other than the launch platform being the Win10 offline desktop environment.
I would recommend that you try creating the MVP Custom WinPE media for yourself from your laptop - the link is in my signature. This too combines a Win10 offline desktop environment and will include your own fully licensed ATI 2019 rescue media.
A couple of late comments from me...
No need to do a sector-by-sector backup. There is no greater chance with recovery with it than the standard backup. The difference is that sector-by-sector might potentially allow you to also use a recovery tool (like Recuva or something better) to recover deleted files from the unused space. In most cases, that really doesn't work unless none of the deleted files have been overwritten, defragged, etc. The only time you really need sector-by-sector, is if you have a hard drive failure coming on and it is corrupted, forcing the entire disk to be backed up so the odds of recovery are better. Long story short, I'd skip the sector-by-sector backups... they take much longer, result in much larger backups and don't really offer a better recovery %.
As for the recovery not booting... A couple of potential issues....
1) how you boot your rescue media determines the type of restore. If you booted the original rescue media in legacy mode, but your OS was a UEFI install, it will never boot. It's possible you missed this and booted the recovery incorrectly with the ATI original media, but it booted correctly with the WinPE SE media. Double check your OS install type now that you're working again, and keep it in mind in the future. Use your bios one-time boot menu to ensure you boot your rescue media to match in the future.
2) After a recovery, the bios does not always have the correct boot order anymore! Especially if you've recovered a legacy OS install as UEFI or a UEFI OS install as legacy. Always go back into the bios and make sure of the boot order to ensure it is correct.
3) If you end up not being able to restore to a bootable OS anyway, it is possible to repair the BCD using a WinPE or WinRE version of Acronis rescue media or a Windows installer, just in case.
Since you found yourself in a pickle here, a little bit of practice might not be a bad idea. Just don't practice with your restored and working OS drive. If possible, swap it out with a new one (or an old one - just something different). Restore your backup to it and see how it goes. Hopefully, it boots (keeping these items in mind). If not, you can always pop back in the original like nothing changed. But if it doesn't boot, then we can try to help you figure out what's going on.
@Bobbo_3C0X1 The description you laid out in item #1 was what @Steve Smith helped me understand when I first posted my problems to this forum. My next attempt to use my Acronis Recovery from the bootable external drive got me further and I've since concluded that the failure on that restore could also have been due to my own confusion. Allow me to explain.
The image backup had two partitions, one was the mSATA "fast boot" drive and the other was the larger drive where all my programs and data were stored. I only recovered the latter because I misinterpreted Steve's instruction to only recover one drive.
I appreciate the suggestion to practice. As I'm sure you can appreciate, swapping out a hard drive in a laptop is not a trivial undertaking. Plus, the configuration of this laptop makes swapping out the hard drive more problematic because of the fact that the "data" drive is part of an array sort of "enslaved" to the 30GB mSATA. This configuration was an experiment of Dell's in their quest to build a faster-booting laptop which they've since foregone.
I did a sector-by-sector backup because the Intal Rapid Storage Technology application indicated an error on the 500 GB SATA drive, although it booted without any obvious problems. Another user tool, Crystal Disk Info, displays the health status of that drive as "caution." I bought the laptop in 2013. Hard drives don't last forever and I was worried about a disk failure since Crystal Disk Info was reporting read errors. The last time I had a dying hard disk in a laptop (Dell Latitude D520), I was able to clone the failing disk to a new one using Acronis and, when I initiated that process, I used sector-by-sector and ignored bad sectors.
Steve, I had no intention of posting a link to a tool employing what you've said is a bootleg copy of your older software. I'm surprised the link included in my "success" reply was published under those circumstances, actually.
Today, I have a related but new question. I'll include it in the next reply.
I've recently purchased a refurbished laptop from Dell rather than continue to fight issues that have manifested with it in the wake of being unable to update it to Windows 10 v1903. I'm moving files and licensed software onto the new device and part of that process included downgrading the version of Acronis on the old laptop to ATI 2018 so I could install ATI 2019 on the newer device. I want to do another backup before I unleash Microsoft on another upgrade attempt. The Acronis Recovery Media is still part of the bootable USB drive but it was created with ATI 2019.
If I perform a backup with ATI 2018, will the Acronis Recovery Media created using ATI 2019 work to restore the system?
I'm also back to a seemingly stupid question since Bobbo_3C0X1 brought it up again. If I perform a full backup, will a recovery from that type of backup include all the registry entries and installed programs or not? It was my understanding that only an image backup did that.
Marjorie, all later versions of ATI can normally handle backup files created by earlier versions, so ATI 2019 should be fine to restore your ATI 2018 backup when / if needed.
Provided your full backup is of Disks & Partitions for your Windows OS drive, then yes, it will include all your registry entries, installed programs and user data etc.
It is Files & Folders type backups that do not / cannot capture such OS data to enable a system to be recovered correctly.
You've been very helpful as I've navigated these struggles, @Steve Smith. Thank you.
I'll embark on the MVP Custom WinPE media creation adventure next week and see if I can create my own mashup of tools. One tool that came in very handy on the USB that I downloaded from the other site was a partitioning utility. I see you've provided instructions for adding other Acronis utilities in your tutorial. I'll try to work out from that how to add the mini partition tool.
Marjorie, adding in the MiniTool Partition Wizard is really just a matter of storing the files needed in the Extra\x64 folder of the MVP tool, but in order to use this application, you need to have a licensed copy of PW - it will not work if you are using the free version of PW.