Data partition deleted when updating Survival Kit
Updated ATI 2020 to version 22510 tonight. When I re-opened ATI to the backup tab there was an offer to update the Survival Kit on my backup disc. Of course I clicked on this and so the program merrily when off and started the update to the survival kit. Saw a quick notification - something to do with locking the hard drive, but it disappeared before I had a chance to read it fully. Next I get a message that the update had failed with an option to try again so I did. Failed again. At this point I notice that the backup drive letter in the destination box had changed so I clicked the box to change it back to the original drive. Much to my irritation I find that the drive is no longer available. Not just not available for backups but no longer showing in File Explorer!!! I have rebooted, disconnected and re connected the hard drive (Western Digital Elements 5TB external drive) all to no avail. I have a free version of a partition manager and it reports that the data partition has been deleted. Does any one have any idea what has happened here? The partition Manager reports it can recover the partition but I would have to fork out £30+ to do it (would have to purchase the software) so dont really want to do that at this point. Any help would be appreciated because at this point I have lost a whole months backups. TIA
I would suggest that you shutdown (turn off) your computer. Remove the Survival Kit drive. Startup the PC and let it fully boot. Once the machine is fully booted, attach the Survival Kit drive.
Has the drive now regained the original drive letter?
If not, have a look at Disk Management. Does the data partition show a drive letter there?
If not, can you assign the original drive letter to the partition using Disk Management?
If you can do your backup files still show up?
If yes, can you open the backups by double clicking them in File Explorer? If yes, does True Image now show the drive back correctly?
If no to the last question, can you reconfigure the backup task to make the destination the correct location?
Hi Guys
Many thanks for all the advice it's much appreciated.
Now even though I have been using computers since 1976 (Mainframe and punched tape!!!) I am no IT expert so bear with me!
Initially even the drive letter wasn't showing, using EaseUS Partition Master (free edition) I did get the drive to show but the partitions were unallocated so was unable to use the steps from Enchantech. As an aside the original format of the disk was a Basic GPT but somehow this was switched back to Basic MBR when all this happened. I do have Recuva but in the end what I decided would be quickest was to delete the partitions and create a Basic GPT disk with a single partition and create a fresh backup rather than recovering the data and then copying it back to the backup disk.
I have had issues with Survival Kit in the past so I think I will just go back to creating a separate Rescue Media on a USB memory stick.
Anyway its all sorted now. Thanks again for the help.
John
John,
Thanks for the reply back. It is strange that the disk was switched from GPT to MBR, can you tell us how you determined that?
Some users create their own Survival Kit, some use the MVP Media Builder tool to create the MVP WinPE media on a FAT32 partition on disk using the remainder of the disk as backup storage. It works well for them.
The Acronis True Image way is very similar and works well too. The problem arises when you attempt to update the boot partition on the disk. That action I never had any luck with. As a consequence I do like you suggest, create recovery media on a flash drive.
John, please run the msinfo32 command in Windows on your computer where this issue arose, then check what it shows for the BIOS mode value - this can be either Legacy (for MBR) or UEFI (for GPT).
If your system shows as Legacy, then this may be why ATI didn't like the Survival Kit drive being GPT though that is just a wild guess here!
I have only created a Survival Kit for the purpose of doing testing - I do not use this method for myself as I prefer better control, so as Enchantech mentioned, I am one of those who create their own Survival Kit using the MVP Custom WinPE tool.
The process to create your own if straight-forward.
- Create a small FAT32 partition on your external drive. This should be 2GB for the default rescue media. (Personally I have a 32GB FAT32 partition but this is booting multiple different tools, including the Windows 10 Install media).
Download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software to do the above as this is easier to use than Windows Disk Management. - Assign a Windows drive letter to the new FAT32 partition, i.e. drive F:
- Run the normal Acronis Rescue Media builder tool and when it wants to know where to create the media, point it to your new drive F: FAT32 partition and let it go ahead and format the partition and create the media.
- That is it. If you want to use the MVP Custom WinPE tool, just do the same with that in step 3.
With the above process, if you want to update the Survival Kit software, just repeat step 3. There is no need to remove the drive letter from the FAT32 partition unless you want to have it hidden.