Intel 750 Series

Am I correct that this is an PCIe 3.0 SSD?

Other forms of non-SATA SSD have been successfully used with Acronis 2016 (not sure if PCIe ones have been used). The manual dose not mention non-SATA SSDs. If the device is recognised by the "bios", particularly if it is recognised as bootable, then there is a good chance that it will work with ATI 2016 (I infer this from discussion in the manual of SSDs).

Ian

Yes but it is also nVME.

Acronis does work on AHCI pcie ssd's such as the Samsung M.2 XP941 or the SM951 I have tried and succeeded with both.

Back to nVME the Intel is the only one that is "out" although there is a lot of buzz regarding the nVME version of the SM951 I don't believe RamCity and other vendors actually have it for sale. The difference between AHCI and nVME is latency - much lower latency with nVME.

I have tried with Acronis 2015 and it did create a backup, but it could not restore that backup. It could not clone this drive either. I was hoping the 2016 version came with this support which is why the initial question.

Acronis 2016 does not support dynamic disks, which may be the problem. It is also possible that non-dynamic disks are identified as dynamic disks. Issues can also arise where GPT rather than MBR is used. These issues are discussed in the thread on problems with try-and-decide: https://forum.acronis.com/forum/97308

Not sure if this advances things or not.

Ian

Appreciate your help.

Both the XP941 and the AHCI version of SM951 are GPT. This is a format that we will move to and away from MBR partitions over the years. These will for sure work with Acronis TI 2015 with the correct motherboards, and therefore will probably work with the 2016 version.

They seem to be focusing on the Try and Decide issues rather than what the full product can do, but in that sense, at least in my case it does present an issue of going off on a tangent.

For my part I'm just trying to figure out what program will be the first to offer backup, restore and clone functionality for nVME drives (which I believe will also be the way forward for SSD's). I have used Acronis products for so many years now I can't even remember what the first version I used was, and now sadly, I find it will not function with my rig. At least that's what I believe the case to be. In all fairness though I haven't come across any programs yet that will function with this rig for the above tasks.

When you are on the bleeding edge of the technology available it is always difficult while you wait for the rest of the industry to catch up. I think you will find that disk level utilities such as Acronis will take a awhile to catch up. Your best option is to trial such apps. Not the best scenario but probably all you have at the moment.

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/contact-us.html

Use the link above to contact Acronis support directly. Select presales question in the drop down menu and the chat and email options will become available.

I doubt it will be supported anytime soon considering that solid state hybrid drives are not supported in the rescue media and Acronis is way behind its competitors in GPT support(which I believe is the root of the TnD issues). It seems to me that Acronis has been focusing most of their resources on their cloud subscription service.

https://kb.acronis.com/content/45886

I would think that you could get it to work by injecting the drivers for the drive into the WinPE version of the rescue media, but you should get a more definitive answer by contacting an Acronis support specialist.

I can successfully backup and restore files from/to my Intel 750 PCIe-drive using file and folders backup in TI2016. I have not tried cloning.

Roger

I believe I can backup as well - but I can not restore to the Intel 750. Have you actually restored to that drive and booted from it? Please dig up an old drive somewhere and see if you can clone to it.

CarlosM wrote:

Have you actually restored to that drive and booted from it? Please dig up an old drive somewhere and see if you can clone to it.

No, i don´t use my 750 PCIe drive as a boot drive. (I use the HP Z Turbo card as a boot drive.)

That is based on something like the sm951 nvme correct? Can you use the various functions (clone, restore) on it?

CarlosM wrote:

That is based on something like the sm951 nvme correct? Can you use the various functions (clone, restore) on it?

Yes, i can restore files to it (HP Z Turbo and Intel 750 1.2GB) when i use files and folder backups.

I never clone the OS drive since a re-install of the OS plus the applications i use are more convinient/faster for me so i have not tried to clone any of my PCIe drives.

Received this response:

From: customerservice@acronis.com
Sent: 2015-10-03 10:30:03
To: eric (@blah-blah.blah)
Subject: [02560011] Software Does Not Work - Cannot detect my NVME drive [ ref:_00D30Zcb._50050hWHrU:ref ]

Hello Eric,
Thank you for your patience.

We would like to you that Acronis will not support NVME drives.

Feel free to get back to us should you have any further questions. We are available 24*7.

The case number for your future reference is (XXXXXXXX).

I look forward to your response.
--
Best regards,
Rohith S
Support Engineer
Acronis Customer Central

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I haven't responded yet...

Would any of you care to respond on this thread while I wrap my head around this?
I think this not a good thing (at all). I am quite disappointed and kind of feel ripped off in a way as I bought the latest version expecting them to take care of me and the growing number of other registered customers who already have NVME for some time now (going on a year).

I cannot reliably run my daily backups and other business using this software as of now so it just seems they have taken my money for a product that WILL NOT deliver for me. What a sham right? As it stands, it sounds like I got burned for the $50.00 paid directly to Acronis thinking they were the best... Very disappointed with this response from Acronis.

If you're listening Acronis, I am hoping you would reconsider and tell everyone on this thread that this will be fixed in 2016. If not, please, I request a refund, some other concession, or other recourse; please Acronis...

-Eric

Aaaaagh! I actually saw a post during web searches saying that the WinPE boot media of Acronis 2015 (and I assumed 2016) supported NVMe drives, so I just upgraded my True Image 2014 license to True Image 2016 two hours ago. I am here to confirm that the WinPE media generated by True Image 2016 does not detect my 400GB Intel 750 Series PCIe NVMe SSD drive, so I am unable to clone it. I just submitted a support ticket about it...

I have zero idea how I'm going to clone this drive now.

NOTE: I am using the 750 as my boot drive. I NEED to be able to clone it.

Josh,

What version of the Microsoft ADK do you have installed? You should be using the Windows 10 ADK available here https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/dn913721.aspx . At the bottom of the page is link to download the ADK for Windows 10.

Here's how to check if WinPE can see your drive:

Boot the Acronis WinPE media. A command window opens followed by the TI GUI. Leave the TI GUI open and click on the command window. Enter the following two lines:

cd \Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\A43
A43

The A43 file manager will open. See if you can see your 750 drive listed. It will probably not be called letter C in WinPE, so expand all the drive letters listed. If WinPE does not see the drive it means a driver needs to be added to the WinPE. If WinPE does see the drive, that means the problem is with the Acronis drivers and there is nothing you can do.

Mustang wrote:

Josh,

What version of the Microsoft ADK do you have installed? You should be using the Windows 10 ADK available here https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/dn913721.aspx . At the bottom of the page is link to download the ADK for Windows 10.

Hmm, interesting! The way I created the media was by choosing the "WinPE with Acronis Plugins" option in True Image 2016. When I first clicked that option it said I had to get the ADK and the plugings download, and it presented download links to both, which I clicked. I installed both of the downloads, and then the WinPE option inside of True Image 2016 worked for me.

I am pretty sure that it downloaded the Windows 8 version of the ADK. (Again, I just followed the links that True Image 2016 provided.) I will try again using the Windows 10 ADK. Thanks for the tip!

Josh,

What you may be able to do is what I did, and do a Windows System Image. I am on Windows 10. Went to Control Panel - > System & Security -> Create a System Image.

Windows WILL detect the NVME drive with a Windows Repair Boot Disc (DVD) which you can create here as well.

You can then restore the image stored onto DVD, Blue-Ray or External USB Drive.

It creates a backup directory which needs to be placed on the root of any storage device and contains many files and some sub-folders. No password, encryption, or enhanced compression... but works for the moment.

Not as efficient as a single or split backup file in TrueImage; This is very inconvenient, still not happy...

Mustang wrote:

What version of the Microsoft ADK do you have installed? You should be using the Windows 10 ADK available here https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/dn913721.aspx . At the bottom of the page is link to download the ADK for Windows 10...

I'm glad you brought that up. I just uninstalled the ADK version that True Image 2016 initially linked me to (which indeed seems to be Windows 8 based), and installed the Windows 10 version and re-created the WinPE/Acronis media. Lo and behold, my Intel NVMe drive now appears as a valid source drive, and I was able to clone it to an external drive over USB 3. Whereas my other internal drives were listed in True Image as "SATA" and the externals listed as "USB", the NVMe drive was just listed as either "unknown" or that column was blank (can't remember which)... but I was able to copy it, and that's all I care about.

Eric F. from Santa Clarita wrote:

What you may be able to do is what I did, and do a Windows System Image. I am on Windows 10. Went to Control Panel - > System & Security -> Create a System Image.

Windows WILL detect the NVME drive with a Windows Repair Boot Disc (DVD) which you can create here as well...

I am still on Windows 7, and it was actually my several failed attempts at using Windows 7's system image and file backup tools that initially drove me to Acronis several years ago. Nice to know the Windows 10 built-in tools are a viable option, though.

I also discovered another backup utility last night that was able to clone my NVMe drive from within a running Windows session, so now I have at least two options.

Thanks, all!

Josh,

Thanks for posting your results. It's good to know it works.

As info the latest NVMe drivers from Intel are listed below:

Intel NVMe drivers:

added: 32/64bit Intel NVMe Windows Drivers v1.3.0.1007 WHQL
added: Intel NVMe Drivers Installer Set v1.3.0.1007 WHQL

These drivers are dated 07/07/2015.

I got the NVME drive (Samsung SM951) to recognise using the Acronis WINPE Boot Envirnment (yay!); However, I ran into a Bitlocker issue that many will still be dealing with.  I apologise if this isn't the right thread any more...  I can delete this post right after if necessary.  I am desperate for help to finish this, and haven't heard anything on the Bitlocker thread that I posted on already:

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/55683#comment-306762

... and you guys seem to know whats up and how to do things.  We got some good people on this thread and a lot of other users are going to run into this right after solving the NVME issue.

OK so...

When running manage-bde /Unlock H: -recoverypassword XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX from the Acronis WinPE Environment, I get the error code (0x80040154) "Class Not Defined".

I had to change the script commands i found (that add necessary modules for BitLocker) to drive letter to c: (was e: for some reason in the examples) to get the following commands to work:

rd c:\winpe_x86 /s

call copype x86 c:\winpe_x86 Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:"c:\WinPE_x86\media\sources\boot.wim" /index:1 /MountDir:"c:\WinPE_x86\mount"

Dism /Add-Package /Image:"c:\WinPE_x86\mount" /PackagePath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\x86\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-WMI.cab"

Dism /Add-Package /Image:"c:\WinPE_x86\mount" /PackagePath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\x86\WinPE_OCs\en-us\WinPE-WMI_en-us.cab"

Dism /Add-Package /Image:"c:\WinPE_x86\mount" /PackagePath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\x86\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-SecureStartup.cab"

Dism /Add-Package /Image:"c:\WinPE_x86\mount" /PackagePath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\x86\WinPE_OCs\en-us\WinPE-SecureStartup_en-us.cab"

Dism /Unmount-Image /MountDir:"c:\WinPE_x86\mount" /commit

It all appears to work, no errors.  I created a new WINPE boot disk thorugh Acronis (.iso) and booted from the disc but it didn't work.

I noticed that there are a bunch of directories in c:\winpe_x86\ that match the ones on my Original WinPE Acronis Boot Media, so I tried copying the files/directories onto/over the Acronis PE Media located on DVD-RW Drive D: and then selected 'Burn Image'. It said that matching files would be overwritten (its RW), I said OK and it finished OK. I booted from the revised disc but it didn't work. Got the error again.

So I then try rebuilding a new disc again in TrueImage -> Tools -> Create Bootable PE Media / Acronis Plugin.

The .iso file generated matched the old original one in size, so the procedure using C:\winpe_x86\ to add the modules didn't affect how Acronis builds the PE media.  Figured it wouldn't, but tried anyway just to see what would happen (my first quick attempt to fix the problem).  At this point, I am thinking it is most likely that the .iso must be manually generated, and to forget about using the Acronis PE Media Builder Tool altogether. 

So now what I did next was delete the contents of the c:\winpe_x86 directory and subdirectories (RD /s command) and replace them with the contents of the original Acronis WinPE Media Disc that I created through the TrueImage 2016 GUI.  I then ran the script commands again (except for the 'call' command), and to my surprise, they ran successfully on all commands.  I then dismounted the image, which saved it, and lastly ran the iso maker command:

oscdimg -n -bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_x86\Media c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso which generated an "updated?" .iso file.

At least I know these were definately the Acronis Files from the WinPE Boot DVD, and theoretically should have been updated using the script commands, right?

I then Burned the .iso file successfully, but unfortunately still got the error inside the WinPE Acronis environment...

What am I doing wrong?

8 |

Paul 'Mustang' Larini posted this on the other thread and it worked:

If you are using TI 2016, you must make a 64 bit WinPE. You will need to change all x86 to amd64 in the above script.

1. Make the Acronis WinPE on a USB drive. (If you're dealing with a DVD, you need to use an ISO program to extract boot.wim from the souces folder in the iso file.)

2. Copy boot.wim from the sources folder of the USB drive to C:\Temp.

3. Go to C:\Program Files x86)\Windows Kits\8 or 8.1 or 10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\en-us and rename winpe.wim to winpe.orig.wim.

4. Copy boot.wim from C:\Temp to the folder in step 3. above and rename it to winpe.wim.

5. Now follow the script above using C: instead of E: and amd64 instead of x86.

6. Copy boot.wim from C:\winpe_amd64\media sources to the sources folder of the USB drive. Boot the USB drive and unlock your drive with manage-bde.exe. (If you're dealing with a DVD, use your oscdimg command to create a new iso.)

7. Go back to C:\Program Files x86)\Windows Kits\8 or 8.1 or 10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\en-us and rename winpe.wim to winpe.acronis.wim. Now rename winpe.orig.wim to winpe.wim.

__________________

Paul Larini

MustangPE & Plugins

Hi,

thank you. Do you have the original link? What is "the above script"

Hi,

thank you. Do you have the original link? What is "the above script"?

I used this:

rd c:\winpe_amd64 /s /q
call copype amd64 c:\winpe_amd64
Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:"C:\winpe_amd64\media\sources\boot.wim" /index:1 /MountDir:"C:\winpe_amd64\mount"
Dism /Add-Package /Image:"C:\winpe_amd64\mount" /PackagePath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-WMI.cab"
Dism /Add-Package /Image:"C:\winpe_amd64\mount" /PackagePath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\en-us\WinPE-WMI_en-us.cab"
Dism /Add-Package /Image:"C:\winpe_amd64\mount" /PackagePath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-SecureStartup.cab"
Dism /Add-Package /Image:"C:\winpe_amd64\mount" /PackagePath:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\en-us\WinPE-SecureStartup_en-us.cab"
Dism /Unmount-Image /MountDir:"C:\winpe_amd64\mount" /commit

oscdimg -n -bC:\winpe_amd64\fwfiles\etfsboot.com C:\winpe_amd64\Media c:\winpe_amd64\winpe_amd64.iso

... then burned the ISO and booted from that and all was well.  8 ]