Problem: Recovery Manager (ATI 2020) does NOT work with PCIe boot systems

Rainer, welcome to these public User Forums.

The core issue here is the fact that the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM) is using a very small and limited Linux kernel OS which doesn't have support for various different things including RAID, BitLocker and some PCIe NVMe drives etc.

The other downside of using ASRM is that it is as much use as a 'chocolate teapot' in the event of having a fatal disk drive failure where a bare-metal recovery needs to be performed - it lives on the failed disk!

This is one of the reasons why Acronis have introduced their Survival Kit approach with ATI 2019 and later versions, where the recovery environment is stored in a 2GB FAT32 partition on an external HDD that also stores backup images, so that the PC can be restored by booting from the external drive.

You can manually create the equivalent of ASRM yourself if you wish to do so using the normal Acronis 'Simple' WinPE version of the rescue media but you will need to download a copy of the free EasyBCD tool to do this.

The method of doing this is as follows:

Launch the Acronis Bootable Rescue Media Builder tool and select to build the 'Simple' version of the media as a .WIM file - create a folder such as C:\Acronis to put this file in.

Launch EasyBCD and use this to Add New Entry, selecting WinPE in the lower panel and further selecting the 'Simple' WinPE .WIM file in your C:\Acronis folder then click on the (+) button to add the entry.  Note: set the name to something appropriate!

That's it!  When you boot into Windows you will see the new menu option and because the media picks up the device driver support from the Windows Recovery Environment, it will be able to see your NVMe drives etc.

Note: when you launch EasyBCD it will pop up a warning when it detects a UEFI system - this can be ignored!

Hi Steve,
thanks for your post - this is certainly helpful (I will try this privately) -

But what do my customers do? Copy a backup file to an external disc every day?

What do we have NAS and Secure Zone for?
So, from my point of view,  the whole thing is not really practical and also when installing at the customer's site (which I get ATI recommended) should take much more time than 15 minutes.

I think, here the manufacturer of the software must become active ...

Because this would be the only real reason to buy ATI 2021 ...

cheers

Rainer

Rainer, just staying initially with ASRM, what are you expecting your customers to do with this utility?  It is simply an offline Acronis environment that would require some knowledge to use for either Backup or Recovery, and certainly not one I would want a novice user to start playing with unless they had either experience or else clear documented instructions on what to do, when and why!

In terms of backup operations, then this should be being scheduled to run as needed using the tools available in the main Acronis Windows application, so if a daily backup is required, this should be done via those scheduling options.

Your NAS is the best choice for storing regular, scheduled backup images as it is distanced from the actual PC(s) doing the backup, so not exposed to any issues that could impact the whole PC and any connected internal or external drives!

The Acronis Secure Zone in all honesty is a left-over from an earlier age and neither secure or convenient in today's computing world!  It is a modified FAT32 partition with all the limitations of that FAT32 file system for file sizes.  The user has no real control over file handling and naming conventions etc.  Personally I stopped using ASZ many years ago after experiencing real issues with recovering data from the ASZ.  If you need a secure partition to store backup data, then create a new NTFS partition on your drive, and then if you have Windows 10 Pro, use BitLocker to encrypt that partition.

You are welcome to contact Acronis direct with your concerns about ATI 2021 but you will need to open a support ticket with them - there is minimal interaction with Acronis in these user forums.  You should also understand that support for ATI 2021 may be ending in the Autumn when / if Acronis release a successor product (as has been their want in previous years).

If you have a lot of customers that require a central management approach, then you should be looking at the Acronis Cyber Protect business product which has this.