Bare Metal clone of Dell Optiplex 7000 with m.2 drive fails
Hey All, I'm a long time user of Acronis for bare metal cloning and have never had an issue until now. We have 125 Dell Optiplex 7000 workstations that I need to create several different clones for. After a couple of months of getting the "base" workstation working exactly like I need I tried to perform the bare metal clone via bootable USB. The first issue I ran into was Acronis not seeing the OS drive at all. I then figured out I needed to change RAID1 to AHCI. It then saw the disk but I ran into an issue with bitlocker enabled. I then disabled that. Now, I can do the clone, and it takes HOURS, but it always fails at the end with "The File is Corrupted" "The File is Corrupted "Backup Operation Failed" errors. This is the first workstation I've tried to clone where the OS was on m.2. I'm not sure if that is the issue, but I desperately need to get this project going.
FYI, I opened a ticket with Acronis and they haven't been much help. They actually stood me up on a Saturday night 8pm call.
Hello James,
Question, you state that your attempts to clone M.2 disks fails. Jose suggests that you validate the backup file to see if it is corrupt or not. Are you actually performing a clone operation or are you performing a backup image recovery?
If you are performing a clone operation on M.2 hardware with bitlocker enabled on the source disk, after the clone finishes how are you enabling bit locker again on the target disk? Or can you?
I would strongly suggest that if you are trying to do this using the clone tools that you abandon that idea and instead turn to a backup disk image recovery method of your source disk to your target disk. This will have the greatest chance of success.
Thanks for the quick replies all!
Hey Jose,
The workstation is brand new, out of the box Dell Optiplex 7000. Is there any preferred way you would like me to check the NVMe?
Enchantech, it is a bare metal backup ran from an Acronis bootable FAT32 USB to a NTFS formatted USB stick as the destination. It may be important to note the bootable USB was created on a dissimilar Windows 10 laptop. After I posted this I did some searching through the forum for similar questions. I ran across a question with solution regarding Intel RST VMD. I did the computer management > Device Manager > Storage Controllers lookup and the NVMe is indeed using Intel RST VMD. I have to change the BIOS from RAID1 to AHCI for Acronis to see the OS drive to perform the backup. I'm thinking I need to do my own custom injector with those drivers.
FYI, I have disabled Bitlocker and have no plans to re-enable it. It is going to remain off for the procedure, and for all Optiplex 7000 workstations restored from the backup image, when I finally get it working.
Thanks again!
Storage Controllers screenshot attached.
James Wilkerson wrote:Storage Controllers screenshot attached.
Hi James! Please reply to the email our support team sent today so a call can be scheduled.
Thanks.
James,
So changing your machine to use ACHI from RAID is not a viabl3e option here. What you need to do is to create new media and add in driver support for the VMD drivers.
You can locate the installed driver on your subject machine using Device Manager-Storage Controllers-Intel RST VMD managed controller. the 09AB controller driver is what you are looking for. You may have more than one in the Device Manager list and this is normal.
Right click on Intel controller and select Properties-Details tab, use the drop down property box to locate the inf name and click on it the driver name will be displayed (example oemXX.inf where XX is a number). Make note of this number.
You can find this driver in C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository. You can use a third party driver extractor utility to capture the driver file, then copy the result to a friendly location on you PC. When you build media and get to the add driver step add that location to the list. The builder will add the driver in the final step of the creation process.
Hey All,
SOLUTION FOUND! Enchantech's link "Inject Device Drivers in Acronis Media Builder" was the key. These Optiplex 7000 workstations use NVMe and use an Intel RST VMD software controller layer that is basically a "fake RAID". Initially, when I used my old faithful bootable Acronis USB it didn't even see the OS drive. I found something on the web about changing the BIOS from RAID1 to AHCI. That allowed me to see the drive but the backup failed. The VMD storage controller driver needed to be a part of the bootable media builder to work. I'm going to mark Enchantech's post as the solution, but for those folks who like to be spoonfed step by step instructions (like me) here they are:
1. Install Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office ON the machine you want to do a bare metal backup on. You can apply the license but it will require account login. My corp LAN blocked it, resulting in a generic failure. I took it home to activate the license successfully.
2. Go to My Computer > Manage > Device Manager > Storage Controllers
3. Right-Click on the Intel RST driver, click on the Driver tab
4. Click on Driver Details and note the name. In Dell Optiplex 7000 it was iaStorVD.sys (I grabbed the Microsoft Storage spaces Spacedump and Spaceport as well, just in case)
5. Open cmd prompt as administrator and type dir iaStorVD.sys /s to get the full path. Copy the path to clipboard.
6. Launch the Media Builder pane in the Acronis Cyber Protect app and click on Advanced > WinPE-based media > Windows Recover Environment.
7. The process has changed slightly from Enchantech's link. It used to be a + or - apparently, but is now a "add folder". Click on "Add folder" and paste in the directory from clipboard.
8. Once all the drivers are added put your USB stick in and select USB from the "Choose Media Destination" menu and click <Proceed>
9. The builder will create the bootable USB with the Dell Drivers.
10. Restart workstation, hit F2 for BIOS and change boot configuration so that USB is on top. NVMe drive will now be present and you can follow the backup procedure error free.
Thanks for the help everyone!
James,
Glad you got it sorted. Good work
James Wilkerson wrote:Hey All,
SOLUTION FOUND! Enchantech's link "Inject Device Drivers in Acronis Media Builder" was the key. These Optiplex 7000 workstations use NVMe and use an Intel RST VMD software controller layer that is basically a "fake RAID". Initially, when I used my old faithful bootable Acronis USB it didn't even see the OS drive. I found something on the web about changing the BIOS from RAID1 to AHCI. That allowed me to see the drive but the backup failed. The VMD storage controller driver needed to be a part of the bootable media builder to work. I'm going to mark Enchantech's post as the solution, but for those folks who like to be spoonfed step by step instructions (like me) here they are:
1. Install Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office ON the machine you want to do a bare metal backup on. You can apply the license but it will require account login. My corp LAN blocked it, resulting in a generic failure. I took it home to activate the license successfully.
2. Go to My Computer > Manage > Device Manager > Storage Controllers
3. Right-Click on the Intel RST driver, click on the Driver tab
4. Click on Driver Details and note the name. In Dell Optiplex 7000 it was iaStorVD.sys (I grabbed the Microsoft Storage spaces Spacedump and Spaceport as well, just in case)
5. Open cmd prompt as administrator and type dir iaStorVD.sys /s to get the full path. Copy the path to clipboard.
6. Launch the Media Builder pane in the Acronis Cyber Protect app and click on Advanced > WinPE-based media > Windows Recover Environment.
7. The process has changed slightly from Enchantech's link. It used to be a + or - apparently, but is now a "add folder". Click on "Add folder" and paste in the directory from clipboard.
8. Once all the drivers are added put your USB stick in and select USB from the "Choose Media Destination" menu and click <Proceed>
9. The builder will create the bootable USB with the Dell Drivers.
10. Restart workstation, hit F2 for BIOS and change boot configuration so that USB is on top. NVMe drive will now be present and you can follow the backup procedure error free.
Thanks for the help everyone!
Hello James.
Thanks for sharing the solution the users with similar hardware may find this useful.
Cheers!