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I cannot get True Image to initiate a restore

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I need to replace a failing hard drive. I installed True Image 2013 and created a backup on USB. I created a boot disc using the software. When I replaced the hard drive and booted from the DVD Acronis does not initiate properly. It shows a menu and when I pick True Image I get a "loading, please wait" screen and nothing happens.

I chatted with a tech and he sent me an iso file that I burned onto CD using Nero to create a boot disc. This second disc is performing exactly the same way as the first one. I cannot get to the Acronis Welcome screen to initiate the restore.

This a brand new hard drive and a brand new DVD drive. Why do neither of the boot media made by Acronis work? I need to get this machine working, I am a sole operator. What can I try?

Right now I am installing Windows on the new drive so I can try installing True Image on it so I can at least verify my backup, and maybe do a restore from inside the software. If it tells me to make another boot disc I think I might scream.

Can anybody help?

--Chris Fox
Truro, South Australia

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Update on this:

The HP-supplied System Restore discs that I was using to put windows on my new drive failed with an error message. I cannot now boot the new drive with a True Image boot disc in the drive. Nor can I rerun the System Restore. The system keeps wanting to see BOOTMGR. Using Boot Order in BIOS or the system Startup menu has no effect. So Windows has put files on the new drive that prevent any type of boot that I know how to do.

The old drive will not boot with no disc in the DVD drive. It wants me to push F11 to start the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, but that does not work. When I boot the old drive with either boot disc in place and input 1, 2 or c at the first prompt, all I get is the 'Loading, please wait" screen. True Image will not start.

So now I can't use either hard drive, either the one that was working but suspect this afternoon nor the new replacement. This is a 3 month old $6000 machine, and it's useless. Thanks, Acronis. Thanks, Windows. Thanks, HP.

Chris,

What model is your HP PC?

What OS is on your PC?

Can you please go through exactly how you set TI 2013 up to make an image?

Do you recall activating the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, as it is not active by default?

What type of drives are in your HP, are they set up as basic disks, GPT etc and is the BIOS set to AHCI, are you running a RAID of any type?

It sounds as though Linux (which is the recovery environment OS) has aproblem loading or finding a driver for your machine. If AHCI is enabled, you could try changing the BIOS entry to legacy mode, this might then allow the CD to boot into the recovery environment from where you can deactivate the Acronis Startup Manager.

If you have access to either Acronis Disk Director or a Windows install CD you can restore the MBR to a standard one as the ASRM has altered it, but it is better to get TI to return the MBR to the state it was previously.

Booting from the recovery CD press the F11 button when you see the Acronis Loading....... message, this will get you to a dosbox where the word QUIET will be, delete this and wait for the boot to fail. The text on the screen should show where and what driver TI is having a problem with.

I'm unsure how both your disks have become unbootable, which is why it would be helpful if you could post as much informtation about how you went about making an image.

Thanks very much for your message.

It's an HP Z1 Workstation, Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. The hard drive in question and its replacement a Western Digital SATA. Basic disks so far as I know. No RAID. I have not done any fancy formatting. BIOS is J52 V01.04. I cannot see ACHI mentioned anywhere, I do not know what this means. I have booted into Legacy Boot Sources--ATAPI CD/DVD Drive to force the recovery disk boot.

I created the boot discs two ways--first using True Vision, after I had used True Vision to make a backup on a USB drive. Second, while I was chatting with the Acronis tech, he posted an ISO image. I used Nero to burn the image onto a second disc.

Booting from the recovery CD, at the Acronis Loading message, pressing F11 has not effect. I'm very unsure why both the boot disks are failing too!

Sorry for the delay before the reply, I live in Australia and I had started for bed when you wrote. It's now morning my time. I will be here all day, so I hope we can talk further.

I just found SATA Emulation - RAID + ACHI as a BIOS setup option. I have not used this.

As it happens, I live in the same country, so good morning!

I'll have to have a further think as to what might be going wrong.

Lay,

Since you face a driver issue preventing the Acronis recovery CD to load correctly, you should consider buying the Acronis Plus Pack and create a WinPE-based disk. This type of disk contains Windows drivers. Follow the Acronis help files to do that. It is relatively simple after you have installed the Plus Pack on top of Acronis, and downloaded the huge Windows AIK files.

To do that, you need a working computer.

If you don't have another computer handy and the old disk was booting correctly, try to repair the computer using the Windows installation DVD. It should be straightforward to get the old disk to boot, if the issues you were having with that disk are relatively minor (ie increasing number of bad blocks or some other data corruption issue). Let us know if this the path you need.

If you have another computer handy, install ATI on it, the Plus Pack, download the AIK. Remember that although your system is 64bit, the WinPE disk uses 32bit software. It can be prepared on a 64bit computer or a 32 bit computer. The benefit of WinPE is that you can inject drivers if you need to (but this is relatively rare).

Colin--

Excellent. Acronis is installed on the dead drive, but I am on my backup PC now. I will download and install Acronis on this machine with the Plus Pack. This PC is Vista 32 bit. I will follow your instructions carefully.

I can't get either the old drive or the new drive to boot correctly now. I used the System Restore discs provided with the Z1 to configure the new drive and get Windows up and running, but that failed! Beats me what went on. Now that new drive will not recognise anything, won't boot off an Acronis disk, nada.

Anyway, good morning to you. I will not bombard you with messages, but I will be working on this restore issue until I can get my new Z1 running I hope.

Colin, a question. My second machine that I will use to make the WinPE disk is Vista. The machine drive that I want to restore on will be Windows 7. Which AIK file do I use to follow the install steps in the help file?

The AIK for Vista is the same as W7 - WinPE3

That's not what the Microsoft documentation says, but I got that one, so here I go.

Lay Fox wrote:

That's not what the Microsoft documentation says.

More correctly, Vista had WinPE 2, but the W7 one of WinPE 3 works fine for Vista.

Colin--

No change, no luck. I followed the steps in the help and created the WinPE disk, but booting either hard drive old or new does not get True Image to start successfully.

The old drive (previously working, the one I used to make the restore image and first boot disk), says "Starting Acronis Loader...Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager..." and nothing happens whether or not I press F11. Dead end.

The new drive does not recognize Bootmgr on the WinPE disk. I cannot get to any screen or menu that will start a boot.

This is a Western Digital drive in an HP box. No fancy setup. Why is True Image having such difficulty starting and running?

I have gotten to a screen that reads "Starting Acronis True Image..." with a blinking cursor. Since the help file says that
startup may take considerable time, I will leave it alone and take a walk for about 20 minutes.

But I'm not too hopeful. Geez.

Can you boot the computer on the WinPE disk? Make sure your BIOS is set up to boot on the CD.
If yes, can you put the old disk in (the one with the F11 active) and use the WinPE disk to deactivate The Acronis Startup Recovery Manager on that disk?

To be clear, you should be able to boot on the WinPE disk without any other disk in the computer. Let's try to make this work first.

I have an HP tech here now. There is a possibility the boot drive is faulty (it has been replaced once), or that the motherboard is killing the hard drives.

Lay FOx,

BTW, is your system UEFI enabled? If yes, try to disable UEFI when you boot on the DVD...

Sorry for the delay, but here is an update on this situation. The HP tech and I think the base problem is a faulty system board which is not allowing proper boot from the hard drive. Acronis has reported a successful restore to the new hard drive. I will be receiving a replacement workstation, and will attempt to restore to that unit. I will report on this thread about that, although it might be some weeks before resolution because of overseas travel. I will also report to the service reps that have been in communication with me via chat and email.

Thanks for your help and comments.

--Lay Fox