Windows 10 Home and ATIH 2020, 21400
Well, I'm back with Acronis 2020 latest build and a new computer. Nice computer, too. i7 3.60 GHz, 16 GB RAM, SSD HDD 500 GB. It has no internal DVD drive so I bought and External one. It works nicely, but I can't boot from the Rescue disc with it. I went into the Setup but could not change the boot order as I have done on other PCs.
Those are the PC specs, here's the problem. Acronis makes very fast disk images around 2.5 minutes! But the downside is I cannot restore the Backups once they are made. I keep getting failures. I am sure everybody knows about this problem but me. I don't see any advantage to using Acronis (any version), if I can't recover the Backups. Yes, I made a new Rescue disc and tried that to no avail.
When I try to boot from the Rescue disc, Windows just ignores it and reboots the computer. If I launch the restore from within Acronis, it loads the program to restore the backup and after a few seconds fails. I click on CANCEL and Windows 10 reboots successfully.
Any ideas?
Tim 767
The Windows Recovery menu selection of Use a device should allow you to boot from your CD too.
Thank you, gentlemen, I will try both means since I do have a 4 GB USB (Flash Drive) that I can clear and create a Boot Media device with that. I appreciate your taking the time to help me with this because I really do like this new computer and don't want to go back to my previous PC, since it came with Win7 x64 preloaded.
Thank you, again,
Tim767
P.S.
I did get a AcronisSystemReport_Nov_11__2019_1_34_20_AM zip file when the major failure occurred. I tried to read that but, to me, it was a little confusing.
Tim767
I attempted both of your suggestions and they both worked the same way.
I will try to explain it clearly: Acronis gets confused when I boot from a DVD or a thumb drive. When you get Arcronis loaded, and select the Backup you wish to recover, I see that Acronis thinks the Backup is stored on my C: Drive and that the C: Drive is 1 TB WRONG the C: Drive is a 500GB Solid State Drive; I also see that Acronis thinks the Backup is to be restored to the D: drive. WRONG, WRONG on both counts. The Backup is stored on the D: drive (of course!) which is 1 TB. It is to be restored to the C: Drive which is 500 GB. I tried to change that but was not allowed to make any change. So I said, "Fine. Do it your way." When it finished in about 3-4 minutes! everything was fine. Acronis did not mess up my two hard drives!
The downside is that the process is unprofessional and downright hokey.
The worst problem is that nothing I have tried has worked for launching a recovery from withing Acronis; it is going to fail (with no damage to my files, so far) but it will fail. That is a real shame because I like the way Acronis 2020 on my System can do a complete Backup of the C: Drive in about 2 minutes! But if I want to recover that Backup I will have to go through a lot of steps to boot from my DVD or USB flash drive and then attempt to recover it. I am sure these problems are due to a negative reaction between Acronis and Windows 10 Home. And the fact that ASUS did not include any documentation with this otherwise very nice computer.
Thank you,
Tim767
Tim,
You need to understand that drive letters are assigned randomly by the environment in which a computer is booted. When booted into Installed Windows then drive letters appear as you expect. When booted into removable media drive letters change due to the assignment made by the boot media environment.
This is expected behavior.
Yes, Enchantech. I have seen this before on my previous computer. But I have never seen it so that the 2 drive letters were both as they should be -- except that they were reversed. The Windows Disk (the 500 GB Solid State) was D: and the D: drive (the 1 TB GPT disk) had the drive letter of C:. That was too much of a coincidence.
I have never seen that before on any previous computer I have owned.
But that does not explain why I am unable to recover a Backup when launched from Acronis 2020. That will always fail.
I have been using Acronis in one version or another since Acronis v. 10.
Thank you,
Tim767
Tim767...
It's no coincidence. The rescue media (not sure if we are talking about Linux, WinPE or WinRE here), assigns drive letters based on which partitions respond first. On my computer, my main C: drive is always E: Acronis isn't assigning the drive letters, it's the OS behind it (WinPE/WinRE is Windows based). It will behave differently on each computer depending on which drives respond the quickest, but will typically always assign the same letters (whatever they may be). And it starts with C, so in your case, if you have 2 drives, one is going to be C and the other is going to be D - in whatever order.
Moving past this though... what is actually failing? If it is not recovering when starting from Windows, this is likely due to a bios security setting on your new computer. When you start the recovery from Windows, it needs to reboot... it replaces Windows bootloader with the LINUX version of Acronis as the temporary boot option. However, if you bios has SECUREBOOT enabled, then the bios will not allow a third party boot and it will just ignore it.... luckily, in your case, after it is ignored, it replaces the bootloader and goes back to Windows - this is not always the case with some bios. Personally, I never recommend starting a restore from Windows because of this potential problem.
This forum may help you identify if secure boot is enabled on your motherboard. It can be different from vendor to vendor, or even from motherboard bios to motherboard bios from the same vendor, but this should be in the ball park since it's for ASUS and a relatively recent article:
https://www.technorms.com/45538/disable-enable-secure-boot-asus-motherboard-uefi-bios-utility
So... then it sounds like you are booting your rescue media and that booting is working What type of rescue media did you build? Did you build the "simple" method which should likely be WinRE? Just asking to be sure what we're dealing with, but I'm assuming this is the case.
And then you get to the point where you can select restore, navigate to the desired backup file... and then the backup destination (sounds like the D: drive in this case - pick whatever one is the correct size drive or has the correct partition names on the drive - don't look at the drive letter - again, this is a different OS than your main OS so it assigns drive letters differently in many cases.)
Then, did you attempt to restore, or is this where we are at?
**** WARNING**** Another bit of advice... if you're unsure... best not to compromise a working drive by "testing" restores to it directly, not from Windows, nor from rescue media.
I would recommend you grab an older drive (or a new one - something different), pull the original out, put the other one in its place and practice restoring to it. No harm, no foul if you have to do some trial and error to make sure you get it right with some practice. Worse case, you pull it out and put the original back in like nothing ever happened. Yeah, that might mean spending a little bit more on another drive if you don't have a spare, but better to be prepared for a couple of extra $$ if/when you have important data you need to recover down the road if something bad actually happens.
ATI recovery media has not as far as I can remember ever reflected the drive letters that you see when using the computer normally. That is one reason why I name each of my drives with a descriptive title.
ATI seems to assign drive letters in "lots" with separate grouping for those that are attached to the main onboard SATA controller, and separately for each other SATA controller, also for NVMe on board controller, and USB controllers.
Ian
I probably didn't explain the core problem as well as I should have.
If I launch Acronis 2020 (latest build) and then select a backup to recover right from windows 10, it will always fail. Then I click "CANCEL" and immediately the computer reboots to the Windows 10 desktop. I turned in a ticket several days ago and, except for acknowledging my ticket and telling me they are looking at the System Report I sent them, I have heard nothing more from them.
I am running out of time, here, either they find a solution or the computer goes back to the store. That would be a shame because the computer seems like it could be a nice one. After a few phone calls to The Geek Squad, other issues were resolved, but this computer is beginning to feel like a lemon to me.
I really appreciate your help though, guys, I just haven't seen one post here that someone else is having the same problem; I have not read that anyone has said, "I have the same problem."
Tim767
If I launch Acronis 2020 (latest build) and then select a backup to recover right from windows 10, it will always fail. Then I click "CANCEL" and immediately the computer reboots to the Windows 10 desktop.
Tim, if you attempt a recovery from within Windows 10 using the desktop ATI 2020 application, then this will restart the computer into a temporary Linux kernel OS where it is probable that that OS does not have the device drivers for your internal drives, especially if these are NVMe M.2 type.
Personally, I have not used this method of recovery for some years and would not recommend it unless you have an older, legacy boot computer with standard SATA or IDE type drives. The bootable WinPE rescue media is the best option for most modern computers when performing a recovery and also avoids any need for Acronis to modify Windows Boot Configuration settings.
Concur with Steve here. Create WinPE/RE Recovery Media using the Acronis Recovery Media Builder tool provided with the TI app and use it to boot your PC and run recovery.