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ATI 2021Cloning UEFI vs Legacy/partition mismatch

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Acronis support tech just told me it doesn't matter that the Acronis Linux Boot Media loads UEFI but when I run msinfo, my computer says BIOS: Legacy. Is this now the case with the current ATI version? If not, how would I force the Linux USB to boot in proper mode? Saw no option for Legacy when creating it.

No method of cloning has properly sized the destination partitions to match the source even though both source HDD and destination SSD are 1TB. They generate "There may not be enough free space on the system partition to boot up your operating system after disk cloning". Acronis wants to clone this way:

Source:

  • System Reserved 549 MB NTFS
  • Data 930.42 GB NTFS
  • Recovery Partition 571 MB NTFS

Destination:

  • 1 MB FAT32
  • 930.2 GB NTFS
  • 1+ GB NTFS

Also, even though both disks are MBR, it thinks the source is GPT and destination "will be converted to GPT layout that makes the disk bootable". This is confirmed by trying "AS IS" method which results in error message saying the "partition styles do not match"

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Look in your bios setup for UEFI boot and disable it then boot the Linux based media.  That will force a Legacy MBR boot.

Benjamin, welcome to these public User Forums.

The boot mode used by any of the Acronis rescue media is critical and does matter contrary to the advice you have received from Acronis Support! 

KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

There is an internal support request in place for: TI-179333 Allow selecting the boot mode (BIOS or UEFI) after recovery/cloning.  This is as a direct result of users finding their cloned or recovered disk drives have been migrated to the partition scheme used by the host PC they did the clone or recovery from!  By partition scheme, I mean MBR for Legacy systems, GPT for UEFI systems.

There have been lots of complaints about this behaviour reported in the forums where systems fail to boot correctly after some migrations, i.e. migrating GPT to MBR will not work!

If you are cloning between two 1TB drives that will be used in the same PC where the clone is being run, then you should check your BIOS settings to either disable UEFI or give priority to Legacy boot options.  All rescue media is capable of booting in both Legacy and UEFI boot modes, so you should see both options in your boot menu list.

Thanks to both of you for your quick responses. That's what I thought from reading your other posts. I'll try and find BIOS setting and update this topic with results this evening.

It's actually not possible to boot the Linux media in Legacy\MBR mode. However, what you want to do will work. Boot the Linux media un UEFI mode. When you see the boot menu appear, you will see two choices for TI. Option 1 is for UEFI support. Option 2 is what you need to select. The cloned disk should be created in MBR style.

Paul, I have just booted an ancient AMD PC using the latest ATI 2021 Linux DVD media in Legacy mode and saw no specific options to choose between UEFI or Legacy modes?  The PC was Legacy only by virtue of age!  Boot was painfully slow but did get to the ATI app panel eventually!

Thanks for that Steve. The important thig is that on a UEFI system the Linux media can be booted in UEFI mode and the boot menu provided can handle both UEFI and Legacy clones and restores. It's just not very clear that option 2 is intended for use with Legacy functions.

I've been looking all over and so far I have found no way to prevent Acronis from booting the laptop in UEFI mode and nothing in the BIOS to disable UEFI nor any mention of Windows Boot Manager. Also, i don't see the two options you guys are discussing. I just get

Starting x64 UEFI loader

1. Acronis True Image (64-bit)

2. Acronis System Report (64-bit)

c. Continue Booting

should i recreate ATI 2021 media and select an older OS? I selected Windows x64 when creating usb.

Benjamin, if start any clone operation from within Windows, then you cannot control how it will boot as it will always follow the same boot mode as used by Windows!

You have to select the appropriate BIOS boot override option to boot from the rescue media in Legacy mode, assuming that your BIOS will show you such an option!  This has been the same with most, if not all, of the recent versions of ATI and has been the focus of many complaints from users.

Your options at this point are to either set the BIOS to not use UEFI (if possible) or else to find another PC which only has Legacy boot, or else use a competitor application that doesn't impose these rules and gives the user a choice of how the target drive should be setup (or preserves the setup from the source drive!).

Does your computer BIOS have a setting in the Boot section called CSM. This is called Compatibility Support Module. It needs to be set to Enables to allow Legacy boot. How is this computer booting a Windows system that is on a MBR disk? MBR can only be booted in Legacy mode.

Have you tried WinPE based recovery media?

Thanks Steve,

I can check with ASUS why the BIOS has no option to turn off UEFII guess.

Paul,

The computer does boot in Legacy mode normally. I've confirmed it using msinfo and confirmed that the disk is MBR by looking at the properties. CSM is enabled and Secure Boot disabled. I have no problem booting into the ATI Linux Rescue Media as UEFI x64. After that it doesn't go so well. Can you please tell me more about the Option 2 you mentioned? Mine is just to run a report.

I tried WinPE first but got an error about being unable to lock the disk. Support told me to use the Linux Media.

Benjamin, with an Asus system are you able to press F8 when starting (at the same time you would normally press F2 to enter the BIOS). That gives you a boot menu. In my case, I will see my boot USB drive listed twice, once with UEFI and once without. I select the one without for a legacy boot, or with for a UEFI boot.

Thank you!! I just found the answer to that question. The ESC key. Did what you said and ATI launched in Legacy mode. I'm in the process of opening up the laptop to take out the HDD and put the SSD in (yet again). I'll keep you all posted.

after getting the software booted in legacy mode, i used Automatic and it properly identified the partitions, did NOT tell me it might not be able to boot, and maintained MBR. In short, it behaved as intended. Right now it says Step 5 of 7 Copying and merging partitions with Time left:10 hours. I hope that's a normal amount of time. Anyway, fingers crossed. Hopefully all goes well. We are ending remote work and I have to go back to office tomorrow. I'll either update you tomorrow or when I get back next weekend. :)

Benjamin, 10 hours for a clone between 2 x 1TB drives sounds excessive to me, I would expect this type of clone to take only around 1 hour at most unless there are file system errors such as bad sectors when I have seen times over 12 hours to do sector-by-sector mode backups with the option to 'ignore bad sectors'!

Please check the Log for the clone when it does finish and before you reboot out of the rescue media environment and the log is lost.

seemed high to me too though it's down to six hours now. i'm hoping it's due to the old USB 2.0 Sata adapter cable and the fact that the drive has over 900 MB of data on it. I did not check the boxes to reboot or shut down so should be able to get the logs.

I went to bed a little after 11pm. It had been running for about 7.5 hours. It finished between then and 5am and everything looks good so far. All three partitions copied, files seem all there, and every application i've run has worked. Thanks!

Before disconnecting source HDD from USB and rebooting, I looked under Logs in the ATI Linux environment but there was nothing there. Is that a setting? I ran the Acronis System Report before restarting in case that's what you meant but foolishly saved it to the source disk rather than the clone so I won't be able to access it till this weekend.

Perhaps long duration had to do with disk damage or the third partition which I'm thinking is an ASUS recovery partition? It's showing as 100% free in Windows Disk Manager so I don't think Windows can read it's contents like the 2GB Disk 1 Acronis WinPE environment partition shown beneath it.

image 331

In any case, the computer is performing soooooo much better than with the HDD. I haven't seen the hard drive pegged once. Previously it would go to 100% utilization frequently when certain programs ran and stay there for several minutes.

Thank you all for your help!!!!

Glad that all went well and that you have a faster drive to play with now!