Acronis is breaking my Windows installation after a full disk backup
System summary:
* Windows 7 x64
* 4x drives in a RAID 10 volume (Intel RAID on motherboard)
* 100 MB "system" partition
* C: Windows partition
* D: and E: data partitions
I boot to the Acronis DVD to perform a full disk backup to a NAS. First weird thing, the hard drive shows up multiple times in the selection window. The first entry is what I would expect showing the NTFS partitions with their correct labels. There are two additonal "disks" showing with the same partition structure but without valid labels.
I select the first disk and do a full backup, which completes successfully. I then reboot and get a "can't find BCD error". I boot into the recovery console and to fix the problem I have to:
* Mark the system partition as active in diskpart
* Reboot into recovery console again
* Run bootrec /rebuildbcd
Conclusion:
Acronis made some change to the drive configuration even though I only performed a backup operation. The system partition was no longer marked as active, and the drive IDs changed so that the BCD data no longer matched.
Note:
I experienced the same problem twice now. The first time I figured I did something wrong, but last night I did another full backup as a test and the exact same thing happened again. At least I can get my system booting again, but what is Acronis doing?
Aaron
If the recovery CD doesn't show your RAID as a single volume, you have a Linux driver issue.
You could pay for the Plus Pack and create a WinPE-based recovery CD. This one will see your RAID as it should.
We have seen other users where the backup operation "breaks" the RAID. Couldn't explain it.
I think the problem might be that the recovery CD doesn't have the correct drivers for your RAID.
I got a PM from someone at Acronis and submitted my detailed configuration to him, but this is just an onboard Intel RAID controller (ICH10R in X58 chipset). Shouldn't be anything unusual. Here is what Intel says I have:
Device Information
Name: Array_0000
Size: 1.8 TB
Number of volumes: 1
Volume member: Volume0
Number of disks: 4
Array disk: WD-WCASY3925282
Array disk: WD-WCATR3723679
Array disk: WD-WCASY5216108
Array disk: WD-WCASY3906789
Name: Volume0
Status: Normal
Type: RAID 10
Size: 932 GB
Parent array: Array_0000
Number of disks: 4
Array disk: WD-WCASY3925282
Array disk: WD-WCATR3723679
Array disk: WD-WCASY5216108
Array disk: WD-WCASY3906789
Here is what Acronis thinks I have (from their system report on the boot disk):
PS Speed IFace Hs-Bs-Tg Model
Num NT L9NO Size FSsize Free FS Type Label ABCHSV
---- ----- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------ --------------- ----------- ------
1- d(0) MBR 932G 1K RAID 0-0-0 iswraid01
-1 p(1) --CC 100M 100M 0b NTFS 07 NTFS, HPFS ........... A----v
-2 p(2) --DD 60G 60G 0b NTFS 07 NTFS, HPFS ........... -----v
-3 p(3) --EE 250G 250G 0b NTFS 07 NTFS, HPFS ........... -----v
-4 table 0F Extended LBA ------
-5 p(4) --LL 621G 621G 0b NTFS 07 NTFS, HPFS ........... -----v
1M free ------
2- d(0) MBR 466G 1K SATA 0-0-0 WDC WD5001AALS-00L3B2
-1 p(1) --FF 100M 100M NONE 07 NTFS, HPFS AEE--v
-2 p(2) --GG 60G 60G NONE 07 NTFS, HPFS -EE--v
-3 p(3) --HH 250G 250G NONE 07 NTFS, HPFS -EE--v
-4 table 0F Extended LBA ----S-
156G free ------
3- d(0) MBR 699G 1K SATA 1-0-0 WDC WD7501AALS-00E3A0
-1 p(1) --II 100M 100M NONE 07 NTFS, HPFS AEE--v
-2 p(2) --JJ 60G 60G NONE 07 NTFS, HPFS -EE--v
-3 p(3) --KK 250G 250G NONE 07 NTFS, HPFS -EE--v
-4 table 0F Extended LBA ----S-
389G free ------
4- d(?) UNSUPPORTED 466G 1K SATA 2-0-0 WDC WD5001AALS-00L3B2
5- d(?) UNSUPPORTED 466G 1K SATA 3-0-0 WDC WD5001AALS-00L3B2
It appears that it's seeing the RAID volume, as well as reading partitions off two of the disks in the RAID array. In one of the files it also shows that it detects "Volume0" as well as "Volume0-0" and "Volume0-1" which would see to support that. Maybe it doesn't know how to deal with RAID10?
Aaron
Very disappointed in this 2012 release..cant even install. hours with support. requested refund
Very disappointed in this 2012 release..cant even install. hours with support. requested refund
Just as an update in case anyone else experiences this, Acronis support has reproduced my issue and is working on a fix.