Recovery doesn't work
Hi,
I just bought True Image 2016, installed it and created a bootable USB-Stick.
(I prefer doing backups and recoveries from a bootable tool, I don't want to have it installed.)
I wanted to make an image of the C: partition of my laptop, an Acer V3-111P. It has Windows 8 preinstalled and the usual GPT-partitions (Acer Recovery, EFI, and the System C:).
I made this image (I chose the EFI and the C: partitions).
Then I booted into Windows and made some changes (I uninstalled software).
To see if the backup worked I booted into the True Image USB-Stick again and made a recovery (both partitions had the proper destinations).
After that I booted back into Windows, but I realized that nothing had changed!
The software I uninstalled should be there again because I did the backup before I uninstalled it, but it isn't!
Btw, when I boot with the True Image USB-Stick I see the Windows bootloader in the UEFI boot menu twice now!
Whats going on?
Good idea, thanks, I will check that and report.
Ok, I think this one image is corrupted (although it had been validated).
Other images are working, BUT: It seems like Acronis still isn't able to handle UEFI/GPT: It doesn't save the MSR-partition!!!
And: With every recovery I get an duplicate entry in the UEFI boomenu! I always have to delete the dups with Easy UEFI.
One more thing that's just ridiculous: The touchpad of my Acer doesn't work in the bootable version of True Image!
Even in the small bootable GParted I downloaded some years ago the touchpad AND the touchscreen (!) are working!
What's going on here? I'm on the verge of demanding my money back.
Hello Johannes,
Have you already contacted our support team? If not, please raise a support ticket, it's free for all recovery issues in Acronis True Image: http://www.acronis.com/en-eu/support/
Thank you,
Johannes,
FYI, you won't see the MSR in the backup process. You also wont' see it in Windows Disk Management. However, you will see it in Diskpart if you select your disk and then run "list partition" or with other free tools like PartinWizardMini Free. In a fresh build of Windows, in most cases, the MSR is normally the third partition and starts at 16Mb can go up to 128Mb.
However, if you have restored with Acronis to a new disk, or larger disk, and sometimes the same disk, it will actually move it to the 1st parition and the size will be 128MB. If pushing a full disk image with all paritions though, the original order is usually retained. The MSR has no bearing on Windows functionality and is a placeholder for table informaiton of Dynamic disks. The biggest downside to having it moved to the first partition though is the update made to the bootloader regarding the other partitions. Acronis does this so that the recoveyr partition will still work so that the bootloader knows that the MSR is now the first parition and the rest of the new partition order
Take a look at these two forum posts.
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/112029
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/113176
As for your original issue. Acronis takes an image of your system exactly as it was configured at the time the image was taken - especially when taken with offline reocvery media. When you restored your image, did the application actually launch and run? If so, was it still in control panel? A lot of software uninstallers leave behind reminantss and folders and may not even get correctly updated in control panel when they are removed. Or, perhaps the removal did not actually work - I've had some strange programs that say they were removed, but still exist when using Windows Control Panel and have had to restort to other products like Revo Uninstaller to actually get them off the machine because the applicaiton won't remove (usually because of some background service or process that just won't stop and prevents the uninstall from occurring).
In your next test, before taking your image, double check to make sure the application is completely gone and left over folders in program files, program files (x86) and programdata are gone too - if not, delete them, and reboot and check again. Once you're certain the applicaiton is gone, take another offline image of it and navigate the files to make sure they're not there either. You can then do a restore to another disk (don't overwrite the main one if you can help it - just in case) and verify in Windows again that the application is not in your restored image.
Hello, Johannes.
When you say that "It doesn't save the MSR-partition", what exactly do you mean? True Image does not indeed backup the MSR, because the MSR doesn't contain any data, as Bobbo has already said. However, it does create a new MSR when restoring a GPT disk.
As to the problem with duplicate entries in the UEFI boot loader menu - this issue has been reported to the development team.