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Acronis TrueImage Bootable Media UEFI

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Hello,

I just tried to use the Acronis TI 2016 Bootable Media to clone the drive in a new laptop that is UEFI only, and no dice. I ended up having to install Windows manually from scratch because I don't have an M.2 slot in my old PC. The world has been moving to UEFI for nearly a decade - why don't you have a UEFI bootloader version of the Acronis Bootable Media yet? Are you at least working on one? Any idea when we could expect it? I upgraded from TrueImage 2014 Plus to TI 2016 to ensure I had a version fully compatible with Windows 10, and I can't even boot to Acronis. To say I'm disappointed is something of an understatement.

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Trevor,  currently, you will need to create bootable recovery media as WinPE instead of relying on the default Linux Bootable recovery media.  If you download the Windows 10.1 ADK in my signature first, then run the media builder and select WinPE, your recovery media will detect your PCIE NVME hard drive just fine. 

An expected update to Acronis True Image 2016 should occur this month, but we're still waiting to hear from Acronis and don't know when or what bug fixes/updates it will include at this time.  However, it should include drivers for these new hard drives in the default Linux media this time too.  Won't bee too much longer though - sometime this month (most likely). 

Thanks Bob. I hope you're right.

I'm really uninterested in creating a WinPE environment for this - I want a boot drive that works in whatever device I stick it in. I shouldn't have to install Acronis to a machine, build the PE image and then boot back into the preboot environment. What happens if I don't have Acronis installed, Windows won't boot, and I need a bit-perfect copy of the drive for backup and analysis purposes? Maybe I'm being difficult, but there's a reason the Bootable Media is popular - I easily use it more than the installed program, and it's the sole reason I ever bother upgrading - 2016 was a backward step from 2014 IMO.

Thanks again, I will keep an eye on developments in the hope that they bring UEFI to the bootable media version soon.

Cheers,

Trevor

Hi Trevor,

WinPE is completely separate from your local Winows - it is it's own bootable recovery environment, just like the default Linux one.  WinPE is also capable of loading on several different types of hardware - it uses the default drivers of the ADK version you create the WinPE with (Win10 has the best driver support currently so using the ADK 6.0 will give you the best WinPE driver support for the most types of hardware).

As a result, regarldess of the type of Acronis media used (default Linux or WinPE), both do exactly the same thing and are completely usable outside of Windows, or on a system that has no OS installed at all.  The plus side for WinPE is not only does one created with the Win 6.0 ADK (Win 10) have the most current driver support for newer hardware, but additional drivers can be added by the user down the road if need be (using ADK dism commands, or third party tools like DISMGUI).  

If you currently don't have recovery media that is working wiht your new hard drive, I would create WinPE for now - better to have something to recover with in the event your OS or drive goes Tango Uniforum.  If you have other systems as well, you should be able to use that same WinPE bootable recovery on them too  and can simply test by booting into it and making sure it does see the hard drive and/or NIC (if your backups are on a network share). 

Hope that helps some.  Either way, shouldnt' be too much longer until the next 2016 update comes out now if you still want to hold off, but hopefully you don't have anything happent to the system before then if you don't have working bootable media for that particiular system.

 

Do you know if the April release addressed the EFI bootable media issue? The other day I tried cloning using my WinPE image and an external USB 3.0 HDD dock and it just kept giving me 'unable to lock media' error. Connecting the drives to the SATA bus worked fine. I've used this external USB dock for cloning in the past using normal bootable media, so it obviously has something to do with the Windows drivers included in the WinPE edition. Looking forward to an EFI capable bootable media...

As long as you're booting from the recovery media built directly with Acronis (not from a .iso converted to a USB drive with a third party tool unless you have no option), the default Linux media works just fine on UEFI systems for cloning and imaging (I haven't had any issues).

The WinPE compatibility is more likely related to the version of ADK used to create it.  The latest Windows 10 ADK has much better default driver support than in the past and additional drivers can always be added using ADK offline image commands or tools like DISMGUI.  I'd try the default linux boot media with version 6569 and see if it finds your drives, and if it does, you should be good to go.

It's also important to make sure that you boot your Acronis media as your OS was installed though.

Verify how OS is currently installed

Then use your bios one time boot menu or boot override menu to specifically pick legacy mode or UEFI mode for your bootable media.

Example Dell bios with UEFI and legacy boot options using one time boot (F12 after reboot) 

 

Does the new June 2nd update fix this issue? (Bootable Media not working with EFI) I checked the change log and while NVMe drive support is fantastic, if EFI booting isn't supported it is still severely hampered...

The bootable media has worked with UEFI booting for a number of versions now.  Not sure what your issue is but the media works on all of my UEFI machines which are 5 machines total, this includes desktops and portables.

Hmm I'll have to do some testing. Thanks!

When you boot to the recovery media and you enter your bios to set boot priority to the boot media you might have 2 entries shown in the list.  This is dependent on if your bios is set to run both UEFI and Legacy CSM modes.  If you find this to be true on your system make sure you select the boot entry that displays UEFI in the media name or the media will not boot correctly.

If you are still unsuccessful then you might try disabling Secure Boot.  That shaould not be necessary but some have found that works.