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UEFI, BIOS Recovery Question

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Hello,

 

This is my customer inquiry.

Server: HP Gen 8~10
Acronis version: Acronis 12.5
OS: Linux (Maybe Red Hat)
 

Contents :
My client wants to back up the OS on a Gen 10 server, and perform heterogeneous recovery on Gen 8 and Gen 9 servers.
However, a warning message was displayed as in the attached image.
 

(Translation:
The backed up volume contains a portion of the operating system that uses UEFI at boot time.
Turn on Bios' UEFI, boot from bootable media and perform recovery.
Otherwise, the operating system will not boot after recovery.)
 

The Gen 10 server supports UEFI mode, and the operating system appears to be installed in UEFI mode.

However, Gen 8 and Gen 9 do not support UEFI mode. (Only BIOS, legacy mode supported)

In this case, is recovery impossible at all? Or is there any way to recover?

Please let me know if there is a way.

 

Thank you.

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Hello Lemoning!

There is an option when running bootable media builder that asks which boot method should take precedence. The default seems to be "As on the target machine". If doing a recovery through the UI there is also a boot tab within recovery options that has the same selection. If you created it this way it's entirely possible the message is there to make sure you know the backed up machine is in UEFI mode.

If I remember right the EFI partition will still be restored - if you don't touch volume mapping - but the OS will boot in legacy mode after recovery.

-- Peter

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 0
Comments: 2016

Hello Lemoning,

thank you for posting on Acronis forums.

Changing Boot mode option is available for Windows machines only but not for Linux ones.

BIOS machines could be restored to BIOS mode and UEFI ones to UEFI mode.

 

Hello, Péter Szatmári

Thank you for answer.
If so, is it possible to create this by setting the option value to "BIOS" when creating boot media?

Thank you.

Hello, Maria
 

Thank you for answer.
If so, can I ignore the warning text displayed in the image above?

Thank you.

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 0
Comments: 2016

Hello Lemoning.

We can't recommend ignoring this warning because it will lead to the unbootable system after restore.

Transferring a Linux system between UEFI and BIOS is not supported.

Hello.

I have a further inquiry and write a comment.

I backed up on a device (GEN 9) without UEFI mode.
And I recovered from the equipment (GEN10) with UEFI mode.
(The image used for recovery was a WinPE image.)

However, it did not boot after recovery, and booted after reinstalling the bootloader.

I thought there would be no problem because the GEN10 device supports both UEFI mode and legacy mode, but it was not the actual recovery result.

Can you tell the cause?

Hello Lemoning!

A few ideas:

  • Are you sure legacy boot mode is set for the GEN10?
  • Did you include drivers for the GEN10 in the bootable media?
  • Is the backed up OS 64 or 32bit?

-- Peter

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 0
Comments: 2016

Hello Lemoning.

The most common reason why a target system may become unbootable is a lack of drivers that can be necessary for the target system. In such a case, try to back up the source HDD and restore it to the target HDD using Acronis Universal Restore.

More information on how to troubleshoot bootability issues are listed in this KB article: https://kb.acronis.com/content/45432

Hello. Peter
I'll answer your ideas.

Q. Are you sure legacy boot mode is set for the GEN10?
A. They were in UEFI mode.

Q. Did you include drivers for the GEN10 in the bootable media?
A. When configuring RAID, the controller information was loaded and the driver was not installed separately.
(Universal restore was not applied, and the HDD ini file was loaded and restored using the driver load.)

Q. Is the backed up OS 64 or 32bit?
A. They are using CentOS release 6.8 (Final) / 64bit.

Thanks for your interest in my question.

Hello. Maria

During the restoration, the ini file of the HDD was loaded using the driver load.
Is Universal Restore still required in this case?
Is it necessary to load a driver other than the HDD driver for normal recovery?
Can you tell me which drivers are needed for recovery?

Thank you.

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 0
Comments: 2016

Hello Lemoning.

Please make sure that you have the drivers for the target hard drives, RAID controller drivers, and the chipsets. These drivers are critical to start the operating system. The driver files should have the *.inf, *.sys or *.oem extensions. 

Please read the respective KB article (Preparation part) for more details: https://kb.acronis.com/content/35681

Hello. Maria

After applying the drive file required for recovery, attempting recovery did not result in normal recovery.
(After restoration, the Universal Restore was also started.)

The problem is as follows.
1. After recovery, if you look at the drive capacity, it appears that it has been restored normally. However, booting is possible only when the boot area is restored with the boot loader.
2. Data area drive recovery did not work.

What is the problem and what is the solution?

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Posts: 0
Comments: 2016

Hello Lemoning.

1. After recovery, if you look at the drive capacity, it appears that it has been restored normally. However, booting is possible only when the boot area is restored with the boot loader.
2. Data area drive recovery did not work.

Was it an entire machine backup (recommended for multi-drive system recovery) or several separate disk backups?