Instructions for full disk recovery
I have a simple question but cannot seem to find the answer in any of the support and help files, so I thought I'd try here...
I have a PC running Windows 10 that has nightly Acronis backups performed to a NAS on my home network. The hard drive (C:) is starting to fail (many read errors in event logs). So, I ordered a replacement drive which should be here tomorrow. My scheduled backup makes full backups every 8 days, with incremental backups on the other days.
So when I get my new hard drive, what do I do? Everything I read starts with "Open Acronis True Image...". Well, with a new hard drive, I don't even have an OS. How do I boot the PC with the new hard drive? Do I have to make a boot disk or something? Should I copy the backup files onto a USB drive and recover from there?
Sorry if this information is on this site somewhere, I just can't seem to find it.


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Enchantech wrote:John,
The information in Web help should be of help to you at this Link
Look for Creating bootable media and Acronis media builder.
Thanks for the link. I downloaded the .ISO file and will make a boot disk.
I looked at the page labeled "Recovering your system to the same disk". It states (step 5) "Select the system disk or partition backup to be user for recovery.". I have been doing nightly backups to a folder on a NAS drive on my network. Should I copy all the backup files in this folder to a USB drive, then boot off the CD and plug in the USB drive? When I click "Browse", do I select the folder with all the backup files or select the most recent backup file? What if the most recent backup file is an incremental backup?
Sorry to ask so many questions, but it just isn't clear to me what to do.
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John, it is possible to recover your backup directly from your NAS when booting from the ATI rescue media but you need to be connected by a wired connection to the same network where the NAS is located, then to be able to connect to the NAS.
Sometimes it can be easier / simpler to copy the backup chain files from the NAS to a spare USB external drive, then do the recovery from that drive without the need for any network involvement.
When recovering, you just need to select the most recent backup file - if this is an Incremental file, then Acronis will walk back through the chain to find all the previous files needed. If your most recent file is a Full backup, then that is the only file you need to copy to the USB drive.
Note: you need to identify what BIOS mode is used by your Windows 10 OS - issuing msinfo32 in Windows will show this in the output report. You must boot the Acronis Rescue media using the same BIOS mode in order for the recovery to be successful.
See KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media - with reference to the above note.
Finally, please take a look at forum topic: [How to] recover an entire disk backup - and in particular the attached PDF document showing this process for recovery.
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Steve Smith wrote:John, it is possible to recover your backup directly from your NAS when booting from the ATI rescue media but you need to be connected by a wired connection to the same network where the NAS is located, then to be able to connect to the NAS.
Sometimes it can be easier / simpler to copy the backup chain files from the NAS to a spare USB external drive, then do the recovery from that drive without the need for any network involvement.
When recovering, you just need to select the most recent backup file - if this is an Incremental file, then Acronis will walk back through the chain to find all the previous files needed. If your most recent file is a Full backup, then that is the only file you need to copy to the USB drive.
Note: you need to identify what BIOS mode is used by your Windows 10 OS - issuing msinfo32 in Windows will show this in the output report. You must boot the Acronis Rescue media using the same BIOS mode in order for the recovery to be successful.
See KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media - with reference to the above note.
Finally, please take a look at forum topic: [How to] recover an entire disk backup - and in particular the attached PDF document showing this process for recovery.
Wow, super helpful. Thank you so much!
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