Try and Decide ...

I would say this is a major shortcoming. I suspect that the try and decide module was ported from ATI 2014; when 2014 was released GPT was not a common as it is today particularly on brand-name systems, rather than self build systems. I assume that the disk on which the Windows system partition is located cannot be GPT (I am assuming that try-and-decided runs on the system partition - very long time since I used it).

Ian

Robert, you said, "The error (attached) ALSO trashes my UEFI loader on a Sony VAIO i7 with only some fancy BIOS changes to get it to boot." Can you elaborate? It really trashed your system so you couldn't boot?

It's bad enough that T&D won't work with GPT drives- but to damage the system is incredible.

So, how do I know if I have GPT drives?
Joe

Oh, then Try&Decide is a useless feature for me. It's much more common to have UEFI install nowadays.

One way of checking is on Windows' System Information, and if BIOS Mode say UEFI then it's GPT. If BIOS Mode say Legacy BIOS then MBR

Ian and Joe ... Yes Ian, you are most likely correct about Try & Decide most likely being ported over from 2014. But I am just guessing at that. Here is the scenario I was faced with when attempting to use T&D on MY system. Sony VAIO i7, clean install of Win10 Pro with no viruses or spyware present.

System is booted ...
Acronis 2016 is started and immediately went to, and started Try and Decide.
Error message displayed as in the first post of this thread. "Failed to start Try&Decide"
Click ok on error and reboot system.
A. Upon boot, error message (Attachment 1.) displayed.
B. Pressing any key goes to Attachment 2.
C. Clicking on U.S. keyboard goes to Attachment 3.
Continue (Exit and continue to Windows 10) starts the reboot process and loops back to A.

MY solution ... Upon "A", shut down the system and go to the BIOS settings.
Change boot option from UEFI to Legacy
Save and let system restart. System will most likely NOT start and display "No Operating System"
Shut down and go back into BIOS settings
Change Boot Option from Legacy to UEFI
Save and allow to reboot .....................
System boots correctly

Joe ... Identifying whether or not you have a GPT or MBR disk is well defined and spelled out from our friends at SevenForums. Link is below ... http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/244566-hard-drive-gpt-mbr.html

But remember, just because a disk is GPT, does NOT mean that is has a UEFI BIOS. You must take both into consideration .. Windows 10 sure does. GPT or MBR has to do with the physical disk itself. The BIOS, UEFI or Legacy has to do with the firmware on the motherboard that "talks" to the disks and devices.

I have been in the data processing field for going on 53 years now. November of 1963. Even with that experience, find this realm of hardware-software confusing and frustrating. (I should have followed my gut and become a fishing guide)

Hope this helps !!

Black River Computer Services, Inc.

Hello Everyone,

in fact Try and Decide feature in Acronis True Image 2016 was majorly re-worked in comparison to one implemented in Acronis True Image 2014.

In Acronis True Image 2016 Try and Decide DOES support GPT disks but still doesn't support dynamic disks. Here is a correct link to refer to:
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/index.html#2…

KB article will be updated accordingly.

Robert, your support case isn't closed yet. If you have basic disks, we'll continue investigation. Please accept our apologies for this inconvenience!

Thank you,

Anna, how do we find out if we have a dynamic disk? My boot drive is a 256G Samsung SSD on my Dell from last fall.
Joe

Anna .... We truly appreciate your reply.

Attached is a screen snap of the Sony VAIO disk configuration. As you can see, the disk is configured at Basic/GPT.

I would definitely prefer to stay with Acronis 2016 and be able to utilize Try & Decide if there is a work around or a fix.

As it stands now, I am in "limbo" over a decision as to do with the 20 copies purchased for a new network we are building. The backup and imaging portion works as expected and we depend upon it immensely, but for us, working with unproven software, Try & Decide is a tool we use ALOT. I know there are options such as Rollback RX, etc., but as Acronis customers going back years, we would prefer to stay with one encapsulation software package, that being Acronis.

Your investigation into this issue would be greatly appreciated ...

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services

Joe ... I did not want to step on Anna's toes on your question, but download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard ver 9.1 from www.partitionwizard.com ... free tool ... amazing tool .... indispensable

Bob Wagner
Black River Computer Services

Robert,

This is just an educated guess here but looking at your screenshot I notice that there are 2 partitions on your disk that are dynamic. Might this be the source of your issue?

Joe,

In the documentation under Limitationin using Try and Decide, it is pointed out that disk defreagmentation, error correction utilities must not be used when using the try and decide feature. If Windows was set to run defragmentation, error correction, and possibly indexing, might this be the source of your issue?

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/index.html#2…

Joe .... you kind of lost me on this one. Specifically what two partitions on the screen shot are you looking at that are dynamic ?? I have always lived by the "rule" that a DISK can be basic or dynamic. Basic being the most common and the most easily manipulated. The PARTITION style/scheme can be either MBR or GUID (GPT).

Partitions on a specific disk all must be either MBR or GPT ..... as I see it.

Can anyone chime in ???

As for your second question, I only do manual disk fragmentation and chkdsk so I am sure that is not the issue.

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services

Robert,

Sorry for the confusion there, I really should have posted in 2 separate posts. I might be mistaken here but in looking at your screenshot partitions C:, Z:, and X: under the Type column show GPT (D...) which I assume indicates they are Dynamic Volumes? Could be mistaken.

Robert, I'm not having a problem regarding this issue. I just jumped into the thread out of curiosity- curious about how to know if a disk is dynamic. I would think mine is not- it's a SSD drive installed by Dell last fall. But, in so far as the issue of this thread is concerned-- it might be useful to know for sure that mine is not dynamic.

That is, I haven't yet updated to ATI 2016 and I do like Try & Decide, which I often use on an older Dell (running Vista) with ATI 2013. So, my decision to update to 2016, if I intend to use T&D on the new Dell, may depend on if I have a dynamic disk. I believe it's GPT since, I would presume, it's almost new and it's on a high end Dell (I got the best of all components).
Joe

Enchanted .... I can see what you mean ... the X and Z drives are Data drive ..... you are seeing the D in Data

Bob Wagner
Black River Computer Services ....

This image might put things back into perspective ....

See attached ...

Bob

I suspect the easiest way to check if Dynamic Disk is present is to look at the Windows disk management console (see screen-shot):

If there is a dynamic disk it should be indicated in the listing; Dynaic rather than Basic (I would assume) under "Type"

Mr. Zorzin .... (Joe) ... this is a snippet from a previous post.

Joe ... I did not want to step on Anna's toes on your question, but download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard ver 9.1 from www.partitionwizard.com ... free tool ... amazing tool .... indispensable

Bob Wagner
Black River Computer Services

This tool will show you ANYTHING you want about your disk(s) ... including whether they are Basic or Dynamic. Unless you had Dell setup a RAID configuration for you, I doubt if you have a dynamic disk setup. But Partition Wizard will tell and show you the particulars. Totally safe software, free of charge and stunning code ....

Bob

Robert,

I see what you mean and I was suspicious as a dynamic volume should not be present on a Basic Disk as shown in the screenshot. Thanks for clearing that up.

I wonder if the unallocated space on the drive could have something to do with the issue? I wouldn't know what exactly but try and decide might interpret that as something it is not. You might try creating a partition in that space and see if it makes any difference.

Enchantech ..... I will try that and see if the issue disappears ... I would prefer doing it that way, (creating a partition) rather than merging the unallocated space onto another partition and messing up the UEFI loader or the recovery partition ....

Thanks for the suggestion !!

Bob Wagner
Black River Computer Services

Yes, Try&Decide gives problems on my new SSD-PC too !
ATIH 2016 installs very well,all is working fine, backups extremely fast and accurate, but... after restarting in Try-modus I can only choose for "Discard", for going back in Windows again ! When clicking on "Continue" I get into an endless loop,always restarting in this blue T&D-screen and never restarting in Windows !
So, only option for restart is by choosing "Discard" , very,very dissapointing , because some software, or drivers, need a restart in Windows ,before they are working ok, this is not possible anymore coz its always "Discard" by restart !!
Im on a Win7 x64-machine with 32GB RAM ,Intel core Quad i7, Z97-K motherboard (ASUS).

Contacted support several times , but ,untill now, no luck !
Installed this program on my laptop,with HDD in it, and all is working perfect !
Someone has an idea for solving this problem,please, appreciate....

Piet .... I am going to stick my neck out here and ask you to try something.

Go to your BIOS setup and change the boot setting from UEFI to Legacy ...... then save and attempt to boot the system. It will probably fail with No Operating System or something like that. Then go back into the BIOS setup again and change it back to UEFI. Save and reboot .... see if that give you a successful start up ...

I am working with their software engineers on this issue .... stay tuned ...

Bob Wagner
Black River Computer Services

Robert, in your discussions with the engineers- can you ask if this problem is with all OS? Or just with W7 or W8 or W10? Does it make a difference if it's a 32 or 64 bit system?

On my old Dell with Vista (32 bit system)- that's my only PC that I care to use T&D. On my new Dell with 64 bit W 8.1, I might upgrade to ATI 2016 but I wouldn't risk the system with T&D- even though it's never failed me on the old system. I might like to upgrade both Dells to ATI 2016- but I'm in no hurry as I always wait for new/updated software to watch the bug reports.
Joe

Joseph ... I have asked the engineers to review this entire thread, as others, such as yourself and Piet have come forward with several questions and observations concerning this issue.

As for your try and decide working on Vista 32 bit, I would suspect that you might want to analyze the hard drive to determine if it is Basic or Dynamic, and does the disk layout use MBR or GPT .... that should give you a clue.

I have a test stand system that is running Win7, 32 bit and have had no issues with Try and Decide. Actually runs very well. Altho' that system DOES have a Basic/MBR SATA drive configuration ..... NOT GPT drive with a UEFI BIOS

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services

Thanks for helping me,Robert,just went into BIOS,according your mail, but did not found this "Legacy"-option at all !
Only know its a UEFI-bios utility in EZ-mode (??) Only could chance from OC to RAID , but only after a severe warning !! So, I did not do so.
Any idea ??
I do know when looking in info, its all MBR, but I do know Windows-CD installation "sees" your SSD, makes a standard system-partition on it( about 100mb) ,before installing the OS.

Im beginning to believe ; this Try&Decide future is NOT COMPATIBLE AT ALL WITH SSD ( this is the whole problem,I guess)

Piet ... your particular BIOS might not explicitly refer to the boot firmware is "Legacy". I would suspect that the boot setup has to refer to something similar, altho' the wording might be vague. I am only guessing on this.

If you have an legacy style MBR disk, even though it is an SSD, I would be shocked to find out that an SSD is not compatible.

Maybe a tech engineer can give you a little more information.

Here is some good reading material to help smooth out the UEFI confusion ... (not as much fun as tarpon fishing here in Florida tho')

http://windowsitpro.com/windows-8/q-what-tips-will-help-me-install-wind…

Especially note the paragraph as stated below ... remember, Windows will create 4 partitions.

UEFI Installation Screen Showing Partitions
The Recovery partition is NTFS, and it holds the Windows recovery information. The System partition is FAT32 formatted and contains the EFI system partition that the computer will boot from. The MSR is the Microsoft Reserved Partition (which is space Microsoft might want in the future for certain disk operations such as converting from basic to dynamic). Last, there is the actual NTFS boot partition.

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services
Cape Coral, Florida

Windows-CD gave me two partitions; one of 100MB system partition and the rest of the SSD (Samsung 250GB) is for OS (Win7 x64).
Also 2 HDDs of each oneTB (WD-HDD) are in desktop. Its an ASUS-motherboard and I just dont know HOW to reboot in try-modus ,with choosing for "CONTINUE" ,only 'DISCARD" can make a restart into Windows again !!
I can not find these 4 partitions ??!

I have heard there are many problems with SSD , this prog. works flawless on laptop with HDD in it,so............

Piet .. you will probably NOT have the 4 partitions I mentioned as you are running a Basic Disk, with an MBR disk. Your motherboard most likely is pushing the boot process into CSM (Compatibility Support Module) so that it boots to the MBR.

All in all, T&D SHOULD work on your system. It is pretty basic.

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services
Cape Coral, Florida

Yep, "it should work" but it does not !
pushing the boot process into CSM (Compatibility Support Module) so that it boots to the MBR. ?? How can we check this out ?

T&D just wont restart in Windows by clicking on "CONTINUE" it will fall in an endless reboot, untill you choose for "DISCARD( chances)" ,so what can possibly the reason, if you apply chances inside Windows it reboots and , indeed, it applies the chances and reboots into Windows.

I just dont know how to chance my BIOS-settings to make it work as it should, also some items I can not find, Legacy (??) where ??
Can see OC ( whats OC??) and RAID , I can choose one of them ,but a severe warning appears if you want to chance from OC to RAID,besides will it work ...??

Just a thought- but I've seen many discussions about BIOS settings- where the need is to change something. For non IT professionals, it's a daunting task, especially when we're not sure what we're looking for. There ought to be a way to print out the entire BIOS settings, so when having such a discussion, we'd have it all in front of us. Too bad Windows doesn't have such an option- to simply print out all of the BIOS settings- without even getting into BIOS. I should think that this is not a technically impossible thing to do.
Joe

Hi Guys,
Despite all the comments above, no one seems any nearer to sorting this out. Anna Trifonova commented that Roberts case was still open so I'm hoping for an answer before I rush out and upgrade again.
My two pennies worth is about the same, Basic GPT disks confirmed by the Mini Partition Tool Wizard, (thanks for that its great) and UEFI as it was supposed to be the bee's knees and promote security.
Not a dynamic disk in sight either. screenshot attached in case any one can spot a problem.
SSD is a Seagate

Well Mike,I tried everything, almost crashed whole system because chancing bios-settings, recovered by choosing for DEFAULT settings again in bios, so Im recovered, but.... still no luck, can not restart in Windows by choosing for "CONTINUE" , so if you need a restart in T-modus ,not possible ,only "DISCARD" brings you back into Windows again , Im a few days busy for solving this problem, also with Acronis-support, no luck so far !!

Will you ,please,let me know if this goes well on your PC ?

Mike .... just glancing over your Partition Wizard screen snap ..... nothing jumps out at me that would indicate any problems. No pun intended, but your configuration is pretty "Basic".

I ASSUME that you have not upgraded yet to Acronis 2016 and are holding off until the possible issue is fixed ???

Hopefully Acronis engineers can determine the problem with the info I sent them ....

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services
Cape Coral, Florida

*** Rant Warning ***

All sorts of naughty words forthcoming. For second time a post has got lost after pressing the save button. Not Happy.

The point I want to make is that I doubt that the issue has anything to do with HDD or 'bios settings'. The problem is that the code that sand-boxes the TryAndDecide installation is not properly emulating the reboot that is required by some programs. The way this emulation is handled may be different on different versions of Windows.

I am not an expert in programming but I can usually apply logic to a problem and work out the cause and sometimes even a solution.

Ian

Ian ... I wholeheartedly agree with you. I also THINK that the problem is a coding issue, and not something that is evident in ALL systems. It seems that we, as users, are running around with chickens with their heads cut off, poking around at potential solutions in areas that I am SURE have already been tested. I believe that if Acronis 2016 T&D fails on one machine, the good people at Acronis will isolate that particular BIOS, UEFI, disk, etc and make the necessary corrections or additions to the code that controls the sand box. To many different "manufacturers" of BIOS setups if you ask me. I used to make all kinds of tweaks to our hard drives when they were MBR, NOW, I am almost afraid to touch the thing if it is working. ....

I have to trust the engineers at this point and definitely WILL post when we have more answers and a fix ........................

Best

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services
Cape Coral, Florida

I just tried the T&D tool and I am having the same issue of it not starting because of dynamic disk. My disk is a samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB. I have windows 7 64bit with a UEFI install and GPT partition also.

Hi,I have same SSD,but T&D does start and applies /discards chances also, only reboot with "CONTINUE"does not function !

Still looking for a solution,but Im afraid its a compatibility-question...........

I wonder if it works anyway ????

Matthew ..... Acronis has confirmed that certain functions, including T&D will not work with a dynamic disk and that has been included in their documentation.

The question is this ... Have you checked to see if you actually HAVE a dynamic disk ???? I would find it strange that someone with a home or small business computer(s) would have, or at least WANT to use a dynamic disk, as a dynamic disk tends to lend itself more toward fault tolerant configurations such as RAID, spanned, striping or the necessity to require multiple volumes (partitions), which you can do easily with a Basic/GPT configuration.

Can you confirm that you do in fact have a dynamic disk ??

You can download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard ver 9.1 from www.partitionwizard.com and use this free tool. You will be able to confirm Basic or Dynamic and will then pretty much have complete control over ALL of your disks.

Another way is to use the Windows Management Console as spelled out by IanL-S in post #15 of this thread ..........

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services
Cape Coral, Florida

Have to thank you first, for your patience and interest, and helping me, just can not fix it myself this time.
I have installed Macrorit Pro, and it shows all the drives in PC.
It says the system-partition is "active" and about 100MB . The boot-partition, which is in fact the partition with Win7x64 on it , is a primary partition.( SSD)
All HDDs and the (OS) SSD are all formatted MBR -bootrecord and in NTFS.

Have tried to chance BIOS-settings, but things got worse,so I had to quit with the BIOS, I had to set it on "Default" .
I will try to make some File attachments ,maybe things get clear for you !

Piet ... well, you have me scrambling on this one .. haha ... I am DEFINITELY not Dutch, as I suspect is your country of origin, but was able to decipher and humbly translate your one error message from ----"het systeem is opnieuw opgestart zonder eerst correct ze worden afgesloten . deze fout is mogelijk veroorzaakt doordat het systeem niet meer reageert of is vastgelopen of doordat de stroom is uitgevallen"---- TO ----"the system is rebooted without first being properly sealed . This error is caused by connecting the system to stop responding or is jammed or because the power failure"---- .... Not understanding your languages "syntax", it is difficult for me to give you much advice. The one thing I DO see, and it jumps out at me, is that you are running a simple Basic/MBR disk system ... definitely NOT something that would cause any of the problems that this thread is discussing !! ....

I would contact Acronis support and have then start a "ticket" as you have an issue (it appears) that is unique to either your BIOS or THAT particular drive.

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services
Cape Coral, Florida

I'm using Windows 8 Pro 64 bit (6.2, build 9200) with i7 Intel processor {3rd generation} DH77EB Intel mother board & 500 GB Seagate HDD {Basic MBR Disk}. I tried installing Acronis True Image 2016 v19.0 Build 5518 on Windows 10 Pro 64 bit. When I try to activate try & decide mode from the app & reboot with the intentions to continue in try & decide mode it does not stay in persist mode instead the PC comes out of the try & decide mode & appears as if it was never started. This was never the case earlier with Acronis True Image Premium 2014 Build 6688 in Windows 8 Pro 64 bit version. In fact the 2016 version is not working under the Windows 8 pro 64 bit environment too.I've also reset the bios settings to default but the problem is still lurking. What could probably be the issue? Please help.

Paresh ... one of the feature of Try and Decide IS that it "survives" a reboot and continues on its merry way. I am also running Acronis 2016 build #5518 on a Windows 10 Pro 64 bit. Unfortunately I have not gotten T&D to even get that as far as you have. With you running a Basic/MBR configuration, and not Basic/GPT and probably UEFI, I would expect that Acronis support would be interested .....

I think I am going to build a new machine today, with Win10 and see how Acronis 2016 reacts under multiple conditions.

Stay Tuned ......

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services, Inc.

Thanks for the prompt reply Robert, would be eagerly waiting for your reply hopefully with a concrete solution. Thanks once again.

Aready contacted support several times , but it seems they are not in a hurry for helping me......
Anyway,I have a "casenumber" and have to wait. In the mean time maybe someone has a solution,never know !

Indeed, ATIH2014 still is a fine piece of software, but not compatible with SSD, so I upgraded to ATIH2016.
This version starts T&D , and you can apply/discard chances but only inside Windows , when a reboot is required, for some reason, you can not use it,coz it discards all chances after the reboot in Windows. ( This causes the Id;41 Kernel-Power in the Eventlog)

This is the difference between ATIH2014, with this program you could easily reboot and starting T&D in Windows again.

Im afraid we all have to wait for a new update ( or miracle?) for ATIH2016,for this time I really have no idea how to get it working ,just as ATIH2014 did....

Piet ... I agree wholeheartedly with your message. But I have to have faith in the fact that the engineers at Acronis are looking at ALL of the issues we are discussing, that is what software is all about. Creation, testing, beta testing and release. THEN more fixes ..... It is to bad that Acronis can't expand its beta testing base as Microsoft did when Windows 10 started out. When we started testing Win 10, on October 14th I think of 2014 it was a wreck. Hundreds of broken parts and user objections. Over the course of 10 months, with engineers fixing and creating new features due to the response and suggestion of Beta Testers, we have an operating system that is amazingly power and intelligent. Does it have some bugs ?? of course. ALL software has bugs. Over the course of my 53 years in data processing and working with organizations such as NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission, several of which were spent in designing software and coding, I came to EXPECT some bugs and we just fixed them. Hopefully Acronis will expedite the process and present a new build to its users as quickly as possible.

Here's HOPEING !!!

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services
Cape Coral, Florida

Gentlemen .... Ok, I built a brand new Windows 10 system for some tests. I started out with a simple configuration of a Dell Inspiron box, Windows 10 Home and used a Basic/MBR disk configuration.

I installed Acronis 2016 and then rebooted. I went directly back into Acronis 2016 and drilled thru to Try and Decide.

Try and decide executed properly and once past the "nag screens" it settled down.

I created a folder on the desktop called "Acronis 2016 test folder" and then restarted the system.

The system booted normally and then displayed a blue screen that is attached.

See attached before reading any further ................................................................

Piet has some questions on this particular function ...............

This screen obviously is Acronis asking if you would like to Continue with the Try and Decide OR Discard the changes .... I would have thought that Acronis software people would have added a more descriptive text to this and would encourage them to do so.

I clicked on Continue and it started Windows 10 successfully. Altho', it DID take T&D a full 20 seconds to appear in the SysTray.

I created another folder on the desktop called "Acronis 2016 test folder 2" ... restarted the system and it went thru the same process as above successfully.

I then created a third folder called "Acronis 2016 test folder 3" and shut the system down completely.

I then restarted the system and again received the blue attached screen .... I again selected Continue

The system restarted normally and the Acronis T&D module started a full 60 seconds after the blue screen ....

I then, using the Windows T&D interface, stopped T&D and choose the "Discard changes with a reboot" ....

The system rebooted, executed the necessary T&D tasks, and returned to the Windows desktop with the 3 test folders gone from the system as expected.

All in all, Acronis 2016 and T&D functioned as expected.

Granted, this particular system only has an AwardBIOS CMOS setup, so problems with UEFI are not present, but it DOES give us a baseline to work from .........

And NOW, it is time to head to the beach and do some shark fishing to take out my frustrations !!!

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services
Cape Coral, Florida

Hi Robert, yes I installed 2016-version also on my HDD-laptop and ,its working just fine ,as you have seen yourself .
Always used Acronis ,it never let me down, untill we got a new machine with the latest hardware ( SSD,32GB RAM,i7-Intel,ASUS Z97-K motherboard,etc) and then it just does not function anymore,as it used to.

Guess its the price we have to pay for more speed ( starting Windows in 10 seconds with 84 programs on it !), still it would be just awsome if we get this 2016-version just as good and accurate as the 2014-version.

Your latest reply shows again the incompatibility of ATIH2016 with SSD and modern hardware............

Robert, On your test rig, was UEFI used?
Will you be able to try again with UEFI and GPT disks to see if it has any bearing on our problems?

I'm wondering if some of the problems lie in the new types of motherboard / disk controllers / UEFI implementations.
Reason is I tried hard to see if I could repair an O/S installation using Safe Mode / SFC /Scannow (and another that helped but I forget the commands) and failed completely.
Windows just restarted again, I could not get into Safe mode using ALL of the suggested methods. So I restored a True Image backup with complete success.
My real interest in this beta testing was that Try & Decide was back, as well as an updated True Image for backups.

As I've tested the backup and restore cycle with V 2016 and its fairly fast, T&D may not be worth the effort if its a problem to use.
However its frustrating to be beaten by technology so I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this problem. Anything I can help with I'll be happy to contribute.

Mike

I indeed DO NOT have a dynamic disk. Screenshot from Windows management console enclosed.

It is interesting to note, that 3 people responding on this thread, are using the Samsung 840 Pro SSD. And it appears that all three are having "issues" with Acronis 2016 Try & Decide ....

1. Joseph Zorzin
2. Piet
3. Mathew Brown

Anna (Trifonova) Forum Support Engineer, are you seeing this ???? Chime in if you wish please ..............................

Robert Wagner
Black River Computer Services
Cape Coral, Florida

I've done some testing of TnD with TI 2016 build 5518 on Windows 10 systems. Here are my observations:

1. TnD will not start if the Protected disk is GPT. I tried this with the C: (Protected disk) as a GPT Basic disk and the disk to store changes on as a MBR Basic disk. This was done using a 64 bit UEFI booting Windows 10 system. TnD failed to start.

2. TnD will start and function properly if the Protected disk is MBR. I tried this with the C: (Protected disk) as a MBR Basic disk and the disk to store changes on as a different MBR Basic disk. This was done using a 32 bit non UEFI booting Windows 10 system on a UEFI capable motherboard. I successfully tested choosing the Apply Changes with a Reboot and Discard Changes with a Reboot options. The Reboot option in both of these previously mentioned case invokes the Acronis Loader. I knew in advance the Acronis Loader would work on the test systems. The Acronis Loader MUST be able to successfully boot the system before the changes can be applied or discarded.

You may determine if the Acronis Loader will boot a system by testing the Linux (default) Recovery Media. If the Recovery Media can't boot the system, do not use TnD with a Reboot option. I'm not sure if the Recovery Media test will guarantee that TnD with a Reboot option will work. There may be additional requirements. I haven't done enough testing to know if that is the case.

Also, as a general rule, you should never initiate a recovery or clone task using TI from within Windows without testing the Linux Recovery Media in advance. Tasks within Windows requiring a reboot will modify the system boot code, attempt to boot into the Acronis Linux Recovery system, attempt to complete the task and finally return the original boot code. If anything goes wrong halting the system during the booting of the Linux Recovery system or the completion of the task, the original boot code will not be restored. This will leave you with an unbootable system and much frustration.

I did not test using Dynamic disks (either GPT or MBR). I would be skeptical of TnD working with either type of Dynamic disk.

EDIT:
I just saw reply #48 after I posted. Test 1. above (where TnD would not start) was done using a Samsung 850 Pro SSD. Tests in 2. above (where TnD worked properly) were done using an HDD. When I get more time, I'll retest 1. above using a HDD and retest 2. above using a Samsung 850 Pro SSD and report my results.

Robert Wagner wrote:

1. Joseph Zorzin
2. Piet
3. Mathew Brown

Me too, but mine is a Samsung 840 Evo.

(with shadow defender it works)