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Backup and restore of Surface Pro 3 i7 to Surface Pro 3 i5

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Before I renew my subscription for Acronis True Image 2016, I want to confirm that I will be able to back up a Surface Pro 3 i7 and restore that image to a Surface Pro 3 i5. I have been unsuccessful in trying to to this. Do I need to download chipset or other drivers to do this? If so, where do I download them? I followed the steps in the documentation but have been unsuccessful. I have attached a word doc of steps I did.  

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Victor, this should work just fine.  What is happening when you attempt to restore the image - BSOD upon boot or something else?

1) The sufrace pro should already be set to boot recovery media in UEFI mode.  However, you should specifically use the one-time boot menu on the surface Pro to boot it in UEFI mode to be 100% sure since it can boot legacy mode with secure boot off as well.  Secure boot would need to be off anyway to boot in UEFI as well.

2) Assuming you are taking a full disk backup of the Pro 3 i7 model (with all paritions), when you boot to your offline media in UEFI mode and restore the full disk, don't select the MBR track 0 option, but do select everything else.  The MBR track 0 is the disk hardware ID and Acronis will recreate it automatically with the restore - when restoring an image to the same system, you should leave this, but when restoring to a different system, sometimes results are better if you do not.  When you don't though, some licensed software (like Office) may require you to re-register the license keys. 

3) Upon restore and your attempt to boot, does it BSOD or what happens then (make sure you've removed the USB drive as well first)?

4) If you get a BSOD, then there is a driver compatibility issue.  You would want to them run Universal Restore from the bootable recovery media, don't select any drivers to inject, and just let it generalize the drivers.  The system should hopefully boot and then you can run the latest Surface Pro driver and firmware installer from Microsoft to update all of the drivers pretty quickly.  You probably want to download this ahead of time, just in case you don't have a working NIC/wireless connection after generalizing the drivers.

 

When I boot up the target machine (i5) I do not get the BSOD. I get the Acronis Universal Restore Screen which indicates that I need to select an operating system and automatic driver search options. I cannot do anything at this point because the mouse does not work and I can not select or change anything. I have attached the steps I followed and a copy of this screen shot.

 

 

 

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374315-131491.docx 207.94 KB

Victor, please see the following posts related to Surface Pro systems and use of keyboard / mouse which show that you will need to use a USB hub to connect these devices, not rely on the MS cover devices.

Post: https://forum.acronis.com/forum/121353

Post: https://forum.acronis.com/forum/117948#comment-356276

Ditto to Steve.  I have to use a Usb hub with the surface pro so there are enough USB ports to attach the USB bootable media plus a keyboard/mouse (I use a logitech unifying device so only need 2 USB ports though).  The MS Surface drivers are pretty unique and you won't get touchscreen either so you need to use a keyboard and mouse.  There are no Linux drivers for the Surface Pro as it is a specifcally Windows/Microsofft machine and no Linux drivers exist for the unique Surface Pro hardware like the touchscreen and the surface magnetic keyboard. 

Thx all. Using the Surface Pro dock I am able to get a wireless keyboard and mouse to work when the Acronis Universal Restore screen comes up when I am rebooting with a USB drive on the target machine. However, on the Acronis Universal Restore screeen under operating system, I get "Cannot find operating system on the currrent machine"  and the "Select OS" button is grayed out. Under Automatic Driver Search I can add a folder so I know the screen is working properly. Also the OK button at the button is grayed out. What next? 

What version of UR are you using?  The latest avaialble is v6027 from your downloads which should show up as 11.5.40010 in control panel >>> programs and features.

Did you make sure to boot your media in UEFI mode as well?  By default the Surface Pro's are set to UEFI only, but CSM legacy mode can be enabled.  

Just curious, but you said you do not get a BSOD, but get a UR screen?  Why not remove the thumb drive and attempt to boot your restord image "as is" and see if it BSOD's or boots already?