Acronis Bootable Media 11639 - What was I thinking???

Hello Jim!

Thank you for finding time to share your concerns with us, we really appreciate it!

I'm glad to inform you that the issue is reported to be fixed, and this fix is available for all customers. All you need to do is to download the latest ISO from your account.

We have a KB article regarding this problem, so feel to check it for more details! Keep in mind that Acronis Knowledgebase is updated every day, so it contains the latest information regarding all known issues. We have updated Search as well, so now it is more reliable and easy to use. Checking KB may speed up the process of finding solution greatly.

Should you still experience problems, gather Acronis Linux Report and submit a support request - it will be forwarded to the Linux Experts and they will update the media. (Our ISO's are updated every time we find some malfunction of lack of drivers, and refreshed on the website every week)

Should you need anything else or have any further questions - feel free to contact us at your earliest convenience, we will be happy to help you!

Thank you!

P.S. I'm sorry for delay with the response, but unfortunately according to the Terms of Use we do not guarantee support on Forum, for immediate ongoing assistance from Acrons Side, please contact support directly.

Understand that Acronis only Moderates the forum and does not have a commitment for answering all questions posted on the forum.  If you are looking for certified Acronis Technical Support that you should submit a case by going to http://www.acronis.com/support/  and clicking on Start Here.  Otherwise use the forum with the understanding that it is a community effort.

Wow that was fun! Thank you for the lesson in futility! Your above link pointed to an article which said BR10 has no support for Broadcom drivers and in turn stated to get support for Broadcom drivers in BR10 you had to download the latest ISO from your account. It than refered you to yet another article on how to download the latest boot media from your account. Yahoo! I had a great time!

I downloaded the boot media (11639 dates 4/13/2010), burned it and booted it. Guess what? No support for Broadcom Drivers. Now I could see if I were using a Watusi motherboard built soley by a little old lady living on the island of Borneo but ... these Broadcom NICS are on Dell PowerEdge T310 Servers, Dell Vostro 230 Business Desktops and Intel DG41TX motherboard and the BR10 Boot Media doesn't recognize any of them.

So ... since nothing is going to get done about it until Acronis updates the Boot Media ISO let me rephrase the above questions:

1) How can I tell when the ISO has been updated with new drivers? As the article stated I download it from my account. In my account the Bootable Media is listed as 11639 and dated 4/13/2010. How can I tell when it was updated?

2) It use to be that you could support "chat" and the tech would send you a link to the updated ISO but my understanding is that is no longer the procedure correct? Downloand from account only correct?

3) How often do they update the ISOs and when should I check back?

Never mind. What was I thinking? I copied the image I was trying to restore to a USB hard drive and booted the 11639 ABM. The first thing it wouldn't let me do was overwrite the MBR or the existing partitions on the hard drive because I had it previously set up in a Raid 1 configuration so ... I had to crack open a brand new hard drive never before touched by human hands. Did you ever think of including some kind of partition/mbr erase utility in your software? Anyway the restore went off in to la la land 60 seconds in to it. Then a sat there and said "when what was I thinking?". How could I be so stupid?

BR10 is broke beyond repair. I knew that. I knew it to be an undisputable fact. It has been broke since the day it came out and hasn't got any better. What in the world could I have possibly be thinking? Was I on drugs? So the "work around"... put a 10 year old 3Com PCI NIC in the computer and fire up the Echo Series Boot Media with Universal Restore. What does that say about Acronis? A 10 year old NIC and a version of Acronis that they totally quit supporting. Some work around huh?

So I am going to make the same suggestion I did 6-8 months ago. Hey Acronis why don't you continue development on the Echo Series? It is the only thing you have that even remotely works. But what to I know? I am the idiot, the moron with an IQ of 2 that actually thought you could do something that works as advertised and tried BR10. My bad. It won't happen again...

That for the rapid response Acronis. Same as always. A couple simple questions and you have ducked, bobed and weaved around the answer. From what I gather (and it isn't from answers by Acronis!):

1) The Acronis Bootable Media is only available via download from your account correct?

2) When the Acronis Bootable Media is updated with new drivers it will be reflected in the download option on your account correct?

I look under my registered products and "Acronis Backup&Recovery Server for Windows Universal Restore ". Than I click on the "bootable" tab at the bottom. It shows me:

Product native bootable media
Build: #11639 Size: 63.71 MB
Date: April 13, 2010

So if an when Acronis ever decides to update the drivers the "Date: April 13, 2010" will be newer?

An accurate, timely response would be not only suprising but greatly appreciated ...

Jim-

Have you tried making a WinPE build bootable media? This cannot be provided by Acronis - they provide the plug-in. It provides better hardware support than the Linux based ISO from your account. It looks like it is possible to do this from what I gather from this excerpt from page 166 of the manual:

PE-based bootable media
Acronis Plug-in for WinPE can be added to WinPE distributions based on any of the following kernels:
 Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (PE 1.5)
 Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (PE 1.6)
 Windows Vista (PE 2.0)
 Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 (PE 2.1)
 Windows 7 (PE 3.0)

If you already have media with PE1.x distribution, unpack the media ISO to a local folder and start the Bootable Media Builder either from the management console, by selecting Tools > Create Bootable Media or, as a separate component. The wizard will guide you through the necessary operations. Please refer to Adding the Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 1.x (p. 172) for details.

To be able to create or modify PE 2.x or 3.0 images, install Bootable Media Builder on a machine where Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) is installed. The further operations are described in the Adding the Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 2.x or 3.0 (p. 172) section.

If you do not have a machine with WAIK, prepare as follows:
1. Download and install Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK).
Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista (PE 2.0):
http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C7D4BC6D-15F3-…
Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 (PE 2.1):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94bb6e34-d890-…
Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows 7 (PE 3.0):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=696DD665-9F76-…
2. [optional] Burn the WAIK to DVD or copy to a flash drive.
3. Install the Microsoft .NET Framework v.2.0 from this kit (NETFXx86 or NETFXx64, depending on your hardware.)
4. Install Microsoft Core XML (MSXML) 5.0 or 6.0 Parser from this kit.
5. Install Windows AIK from this kit.
6. Install Bootable Media Builder on the same machine.
It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the help documentation supplied with Windows AIK. To access the documentation, select Microsoft Windows AIK -> Documentation from the start menu.

Hi Gary. Yes. I use UBCD4WIN and you are correct in that you can 1) Add your own mass storage drivers and Lan drivers and 2) Run Acronis from it. The problem with that approach is that it doesn't support Universal Restore. It is my understanding that the only Boot CD that includes Universal Restore is the one supplied by Acronis or built by their software as long as you have the Universal Restore option installed along with it.

I would ask Acronis to confirm that but I will probably die of old age before hearing back from them. Thanks for the thought!

Well, for True Image Home 2010, Universal Restore is supported in a WinPE build (with the Plus Pack). I guess this isn't the same as for ABR10 Server that you are using. With TI Home, once UR is installed via the Plus Pack, any bootable CD build (ISOLINUX, Acronis Loader, BartPE, or WinPE) has UR. I have all four of these, as well as a MustangPE Builder WinPE build, that have UR. Seems strange that this would not be available on ABR10, but I'm not Acronis!

Hmmm. Thanks for the input. To be perfectly honest with you ABR10 has been such a total disaster I haven't really played with it much as far as WINPE goes. My comments above about no Universal Restore under WINPE were based soley on the Echo series. I will play! Thanks!

Jim-

I'm not sure if it will help, but I have a tutorial on the True Image forum about making a WinPE build using the Acronis ISO Builder that is part of the Plus Pack:

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/9449

Hi Gary. Getting the WINPE adding to work under UBCD4WIN was pretty easy. Then the never ending problems with BR10 started. I mapped a network drive (because BR10 didn't pick up my Domain) to my File Server. There are a million TIB files up there but BR10 wouldn't recognize any of them until in clicked on the "Show TIB Files" in lieu of "Show Archives".

Even when I did manage to get the TIB files displayed it would not let me do anything with them. I thought Archives and TIB files were the same but apparently not :) Then I tried creating a backup to my server and BR10 came back with an error about not having enough free disk space (I only have 500GB free:)).

This is kind of why I decided to stay away from BR10. I have better things to do with my life then spend it trying to do something Acronis can't. Get it to work. Thanks for the input but I think I, like everyone else, am just hanging tight to see if Acronis can actually recover from this horrid little disaster they have come out with. Right now the bookies show even odds ...

Hello all,

Thank you for your posts.

Gary, I really appreciate your continued assistance!

Jim Becher,

There are two ways you can obtain our latest bootable media. You can download it from your Acronis web-account or, you can contact our support directly and we will generate a unique link for you, so that you can download the latest media.

You can always check our News section, when a new build or an update of the existing build is released, we will post an announcement there.

To check if you have the latest media, you can do the following:

1. Boot from the bootable media, when the words - Starting Acronis Loader appear, press F11.

2. In the pop-up, remove the word quiet and press ok.

3. In the # prompt type the following command: cat /proc/version and press enter. You will be presented with a short message which will include a date. Obviously, the more recent the date, the more updated the media is.

In case of any hardware issues with our bootable media, we can create a custom bootable CD for you. In order to that, we will need some diagnostic information from that specific hardware. You can always contact our support with these logs and we will assist you.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thank you.