Survival Kit Creation/Test
Survival Kit Issue. I have ACPHO installed on a new Dell Inspiron 15 (NFTS SSD) laptop running Windows 11 with external Western Digital USB (NTFS) HDD (Windows identified as D:\). I have done successful Acronis Full Backups and other app backups to the external drive. I have been unable to create a bootable recovery media on that drive. When I chose “Create Survival Kit” on the external drive and the operation appeared normal, displayed the creation of a new 2MG partition (E:\) and ran to completion including a full backup. Windows Disk Manager confirms the additional partition on the HHD (Healthy EFT System Partition). So far all seems good, so I proceeded with a test per ACPHO documentation. The Dell laptops use F12 at startup to select a one-time alternate boot device and I selected the USB. The screen went black and after 30 seconds or so a white frame appeared with “x:\windows\system32>wpeint”. But nothing ran, no keys worked and neither did mouse click. Long press of the power button was needed to shut down. I had to repeat the F12 key sequence and select the internal drive to get Windows to boot normally. Ideas/solutions welcome.
Steve, thanks for your thoughts & suggestions. I used Media Builder to create a Simple bootable file on a DVD disk. Creating the disk ran normally and an Acronis notice appeared saying successful. When I booted from the disk it ran like expected without notices. But then I got a black screen as before. On the black screen is a white frame. In the top, white border it reads "x:\windows\system32\cmd.exe - startnet.cmd" (like a title). Below it, in the black field within the frame it reads "x:\windows\system32>wpeinit" and nothing happens even after five minutes. I am unable to do anything with that screen or operation other than a long press of power off. This is a 64 bit Windows 11 system but can't see how that matters. No joy.
Art, when you see the black command prompt window, it should show a further line after the one with wpeinit as shown below:
X:\windows\system32>wpeinit
X:\windows\system32>"X:\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\trueimage_starter.exe"
Can you try clicking your mouse on the black window then pressing the enter key to see if you get an option to try entering the second line shown above?
Are you adding any extra device drivers during the build process for the boot media?
If you are able to enter any commands in the black window, then you can use:
Wpeutil Shutdown
orWpeutil Reboot
Steve, thanks again for your thoughts and suggestions. I also used Acronis Media Builder to create a DVD with the Advanced option. Again, Acronis displayed a successful build and burn of the DVD. I tried rebooting from this one with the same result. (The alternate boot media is displayed, selected, and runs as expected – to a point. At that point the screen is black with a white frame about half the size of the physical screen. In the white border “x:\windows\system32\cmd.exe – startnet.cmd” (like a title) and there is an “X” in the upper-right corner (typical to close). In the black field within the white frame is displayed “x:\windows\system32>wpeinit”.) I waited 30 minutes and nothing happened. The keyboard does not function, the mouse & touchpad cursor can be seen but click/enter functions don’t work inside or outside the frame so I am unable to enter the commands you suggested. But this time I tried to click on that “X” in the upper-right of the white frame and it immediately closed, but the alternate boot didn’t continue. Instead, the machine went thru the normal boot sequence.
I’m trying to determine if the issue is on the Dell or Acronis side. I have a boot DVD from my old 2016 ATI version which I had successfully tested on my old laptop, so I tried that too. That had better results as it ran and presented three options on the screen. But when I chose to continue to boot it resulted in an error notice of a missing video function/driver.
I don’t know if things are not working because I am on Windows 11 or some other reason. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks
I am getting the identical behavior on a Lenovo Titanium laptop with Windows 11 Pro! The system starts to boot from the survival kit, I get an initial frame with these commands:
X:\windows\system32>wpeinit
X:\windows\system32>"X:\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\trueimage_starter.exe"
and then a partial frame like an elongate "U". The mouse works, but nothing else. I cannot type into the system with any effect. I have to perform a hard power ddown to shut down the system as it's in a hard internal loop.
Art, Harris, when you see the black command window with the wpeinit command, then it should be possible to use Ctrl+C to stop the startup.cmd batch script processing.
X:\windows\system32>wpeinit
X:\windows\system32>"X:\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\trueimage_starter.exe"
Terminate batch job (Y/N)? nX:\windows\system32>
You shouldn't terminate the batch job itself unless you want the system to reboot, otherwise you should be able to access the command prompt and use other commands at that point.
Steve, I made several boots with attempts to enter Ctrl+C with no effect. On my machine all keyboard keys and functions are dead - nothing happens. The mouse and touch pad cursor are seen and will travel across the screen but no entries are possible. Sometimes, but not always, there is a short line (one character width) like a cursor immediately below the only line that appears: x:\windows\system32>wpeinit. But there is no way to make an entry there. It's like the script has stalled and cannot be restarted.
I expect the boot to operate like my old ATI 16 version which would open an Acronis screen with options to recover a backup and allow selection of it. I don't even see command executions other than the wpeinit line.
After a dozen or more attempts I believe there is an issue with the Acronis code. Until there is an update I cannot rely on it. My fall-back is a Windows Recovery Disk to restore to factory settings, download and install Acronis, and recover my last full backup. Hopefully, I will never be confronted with the need.
Thanks again for your many responses.
Art Schmitt
Art, I can only comment that I have never encountered this particular scenario with any of my own rescue media but fully accept that you are seeing this!
The next suggestion here would be to forget the actual survival kit for the time being, and to try the other options for rescue media.
Since ATI 2018 there have been 3 different types of rescue media.
Simple which uses the Windows Recovery Environment for the WinPE files needed.
Advanced - Linux based, which uses a static ISO image provided by Acronis and would be the same as downloading the ISO from your Acronis Account. The builder tool can use this to create USB media.
Advanced - WinPE which requires that the Windows ADK & PE Kits components be installed - the kits are around 6GB in size so is not a normal option for most users but which provide more flexibility.
There is one further option for WinPE media, which is to use the MVP Custom PE Builder script - this is fully independent of the Acronis media builder tool / does not use that tool, and can be used with either the Windows Recovery Environment or the ADK / PE Kits.
My main option when creating rescue media or survival kit media is using the MVP tool. The tool has the added bonus of including a desktop type environment, web browser, file manager, PDF tool, screen capture etc.
Note: if you have ACPHO then there are some changes needed to allow the MVP tool to work due to the change in program folder locations / names.
See forum sticky topic: How to use the MVP Tool with Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office to create WinPE/RE Recovery Media