Mistake using Survival Kit - D'oh!
Should know better but managed to click the [Create Survival Kit] thinking that it would *then* let me choose the USB Drive that I wanted to make bootable, but instead it just uses the drive selected for the just-completed partition backup. C**P! It only had about 1 sec (cancelled as soon as I saw it running) - but that was still enough to write an un-allocated 2GB partition and then mark the rest of the drive as empty space. C**Px2!
Win10 Disk Management snapshot included.
Yes it's my bad on many, many levels - hence the D'oh - so consider myself appropriately humbled. If nothing else use this as a reminder to pay attention......However I thought I would just ask if anyone knew how to ún-pick' the creation of these new partitions.
As the process had hardly started my Data Recovery software looks like it will easily (though not quickly) find most, if not all files (not the backup files but others!). So although a PITA it's not the end of the world, I'm more curious to know if it can be done.
I haven't confirmed this but I'm wondering what happens if a customer was to click the [Create Survival Kit] on a drive that had already has this operation performed - does it recognise this? If not what happens?
FYI this was all in the name of comparing Disaster Recovery backup software to install on customer computers. The two other products I had been tinkering with - GenieTimeline10 Pro (licensed) & MiniTool Shadow Backup (trial) just would not create bootable media properly - the most annoying part is they would often report that the process had run fine. Win10 itself would not create a recovery drive so I'm guessing its related somehow.
Although I've always found Acronis to be kinda over-kill (system overhead seems fine) it was the *only* one of these 3 that would create bootable USB media on my test machine (HP laptop Win10 1909).
Adrian,
The disk shown in your screenshot shows as Disk 3, a USB-C SCSI removable disk. The Survival Kit option is only available for removable drives and will not present itself for any fixed system drive.
Are you sure that this disk is your C: system drive?
Thanks for quick replies :-) Definitely external usb drive.
Re: the warning, yes they are present it was more the order that caught me out.
I had just completed a back-up so the destination drive was already selected. I then clicked the ''çreate survival kit" link thinking this would then start this as a new process - ie. let me select the drive - so I ignored the alert. It was only when it started the format that I realised it was using the already selected drive.
It's my bad, however I'm still surprised it was that easy to overwrite a drive that already had data on it - especially a back-up - so I'll go through trying to repeat this error later today. And trying to create a survival disk on a survival disk etc.
There is a silver-lining. I'm guessing my only option is really just to pull the data from the drive (just annoying) but since I have to go through the process I'm chasing up my old Spinrite serial number to ''give that another spin" and it will also give me a chance to try out the Lacie (Seagate) data rescue that theoretically came '"free"with the drive to see if this service is worth the paper it's printed on.
Any other data recovery software options that folks think is better than Spinrite (haven't used it for a decade though...) please let me know!
Adrian, you said you "ignored the alert". Do you know what was said in that alert?
Comment removed.
OK - I've gone through and replicated the process - screen grabs in attached image. IMHO it isn't *entirely* clear that the Survival Kit is being created on the drive, especially because the alerts and warnings do not actually mention a drive letter.
Yes I can see it's implied - but only because the link is *below* the selected drive - and one could reasonably argue this is a completely different process to a Backup so aren't connected. As the implications of just starting the process (cancelling makes no difference) are huge on the formatting of the destination drive I definitely think the warnings could be improved. Deleting suggests some timeframe - this is basically instantaneous.
Yes, RTFM of course, but who does that? :-)
In particular I feel that since I had already created a back-up on the USB drive, then *surely* the software is smart enough to point out that I am about to delete this data as part of the warnings for creating a Survival Kit.....or is that too much to ask?
FYI the software is smart enough to *not* try and create a Survival Kit on a drive that has already had the formatting applied, so it really does come down to processing this in the correct order (survival > backup).
Adrian Kemp wrote:OK - I've gone through and replicated the process - screen grabs in attached image. IMHO it isn't *entirely* clear that the Survival Kit is being created on the drive, especially because the alerts and warnings do not actually mention a drive letter.
Yes I can see it's implied - but only because the link is *below* the selected drive - and one could reasonably argue this is a completely different process to a Backup so aren't connected. As the implications of just starting the process (cancelling makes no difference) are huge on the formatting of the destination drive I definitely think the warnings could be improved. Deleting suggests some timeframe - this is basically instantaneous.
Dear Adrian, thank you for making detailed screenshots and providing explanations, passed all details to the product management for review, thank you!
My biggest beef with Acronis is the truly terrible interface and lack of clarity. Help is almost useless.
One post above references The Acronis Survival Kit I wound up here after looking at that article. NO PLACE IN THAT ARTICLE tells you that making a drive bootable will wipe the disk. I have spent the last half an hour looking for that one piece of information.
Whenever I use Acronis I am terrified I am going to wipe something I don't want to wipe. The interface is that bad.
I am still using Acronis 2019. Older versions were much more user friendly. One of the reasons I don't upgrade is I am afraid I will have to learn a whole new interface.
Hell, just look at this blog. I went to POST this message and nowhere is there a POST button. Under this message it says FILE, then UPLOAD, then SAVE, then PREVIEW. To me all of those choices relate to FILE. I am going to assume that pressing SAVE will POST this message and hope for the best. That is the way I feel about everything in True Image. Never really sure what is going to happen or whether I will be given the proper precautions.
I will say that the software does work incredibly well. Just figuring out how to use it is onorous.
HAH! Another perfect example. There is a button above to add a hyperlink. I had added a hyperlink. I tried to 'Save' this message and got an error that says you can't put a hyperlink in text. Why are you allowing me to try and do something I can't do?
A final thought. I am a programmer. I am most definitely NOT an interface designer. I think you have the best programmers in the world. Just stop letting them have so much control over the interface.
Kim Mosher wrote:My biggest beef with Acronis is the truly terrible interface and lack of clarity. Help is almost useless.
One post above references The Acronis Survival Kit I wound up here after looking at that article. NO PLACE IN THAT ARTICLE tells you that making a drive bootable will wipe the disk. I have spent the last half an hour looking for that one piece of information.
Whenever I use Acronis I am terrified I am going to wipe something I don't want to wipe. The interface is that bad.
I am still using Acronis 2019. Older versions were much more user friendly. One of the reasons I don't upgrade is I am afraid I will have to learn a whole new interface.
Hell, just look at this blog. I went to POST this message and nowhere is there a POST button. Under this message it says FILE, then UPLOAD, then SAVE, then PREVIEW. To me all of those choices relate to FILE. I am going to assume that pressing SAVE will POST this message and hope for the best. That is the way I feel about everything in True Image. Never really sure what is going to happen or whether I will be given the proper precautions.
I will say that the software does work incredibly well. Just figuring out how to use it is onorous.
HAH! Another perfect example. There is a button above to add a hyperlink. I had added a hyperlink. I tried to 'Save' this message and got an error that says you can't put a hyperlink in text. Why are you allowing me to try and do something I can't do?
A final thought. I am a programmer. I am most definitely NOT an interface designer. I think you have the best programmers in the world. Just stop letting them have so much control over the interface.
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