MBR Error 3, MBR Error 1 Press any key to boot from floppy
After I installed the Acronis True Image 2016 on my notebook and used some of the functions, dont remeber what I did. I got a blue screen. After switching off and on the computer I got the message
MBR Error 3
MBR Error 1
Press any key to boot from floppy...
Who can help? It seems, that Acronis True Image Backup and Recovery is a very dangerous program. It crashed my complete harddisk and it seems it is not possible to recover. Please stay away from this sofware or you have a very high risk to lose all your data!
Also other user report similar problems:


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This is all useless! Since I have an hard disk encryption, our IT specialist exlained to me that parts of the encryption in the bootsector / MBR of the harddisk are also destroyed. It is impossible to de-crypt it. The combination of the enryption and the Acronis MBR Fault 3/1 are very dangerous. Your Acronis application crashed my complete system and it cannot be repaired.
Everybody out there should stay away from Acronis Software!
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Burkhard, actually, you crashed it (I'm sorry to say). This is documented. An encrypted drive cannot be copied with software - if it could there would be no reason for encryption. When a drive is encrypted with bitlocker or somethign else, you can only take an image of it while it is booted into Windows (then it is decrypted). Restoring that image woudl restore an unencrypted image as well and bilocker or similar encryption would need to be re-applied.
The only time you might have a chance of fully backing up an encrypted hard drive with software is if you selection the option to perform a sector-by-sector backup - which backs up the entire drive, bit-by-bit so it doesn't care about the encryption, it's just 1's and 0's at that point. You would then need to restore sector-by-sector to the same size drive (in most cases - although it may work going to a larger drive, but definitely not smaller).
https://kb.acronis.com/content/56619
https://kb.acronis.com/content/1734
To back up the system encrypted with BitLocker you will need to create an image from Windows
BitLocker will encrypt the data along with the file system structures, rendering the data unusable unless the right key is entered during the boot process, thus protecting valuable data.
Taking a backup with Acronis
In order to take a successful backup (image) of a BitLocker encrypted system, please use the Acronis software in Windows. Do not attempt to use the bootable media, since it will not recognize the partition, and it will initiate a sector by sector copy, which will bring issues after restoring it.
The data read during the backup from Windows will be unencrypted, since Windows will decrypt all the data on the fly.
Restoring the data
If you want to restore the entire system (bare metal restore), please boot from the media and restore all the data. Everything will work fine, with the pecularity that the data will be unencrypted. If you want to have it encrypted, please turn on BitLocker once you boot the restored system.
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Hello Burkhard. I just joined your club ... Acronis just destroyed by work disk drive. And it cannot be repared..
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So ... if this is a known, and unrecoverable, issue. Why did Acronis not stop before it crashed my Boot Record!!!
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Microsoft wrote:So ... if this is a known, and unrecoverable, issue. Why did Acronis not stop before it crashed my Boot Record!!!
If you have some specific issue or question to ask, then provide details. If you just want to rant, don't bother: this is a user-to-user forum, so likely no one from Acronis will see your post.
As for the OPs issue, if you have the same: it would be helpful if users would check the manual or even search the forum before using in specific cases such as encrypted drives. A small amount of reading would have prevented such problem.
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The short jest of the issue is you selected an option to start a clone and it started to do that. If I tell windows to delete a file, it does that too - instantly. What happens after that is really dependent upon how your system is configured in the bios, whether encryption is enabled, etc. I am not taking a jab here, but if you make a change to your computer (any change - even a simple Windows update can kill your OS if things go wrong), without having a safety net in place (backups), you're taking a risk.
For many, they can start the clone process from Windows without issue, but there are a number of situations that can cause an issue - primarily things like encrypted disks (which can't be modified before they are booted and decrypted), bios security that prevents 3rd party bootloaders (secure boot or needing to configure CSM\legacy on some motherboards), or driver incompatibility with a pre-boot environment.
This is an unfortunate situation to be in for sure - but could have been avoided with a little due diligence to ask first or at least make some backup preparations first - rescue media is exactly that and it is the safe way to clone or do a a full disk resetore. At this point, there's no sense passing blame or judgement though.
Now that you're in this boat, you will need to try and repair the bootloader.
For starters, detach all external drives and the clone drive so that only the original drive is in the orignal location. Then attempt a safeboot startup (F8 in most cases) if your system has this option. On some systems, you have to let the system fail to boot at least twice in a row before startup repair is available. Other systems like Dell, usually let you just press F8 after a cold boot to get to safeboot options. That might be enough, as... if you can get to the Windows login from safemode, then login, and then reboot - hopefully it boots normally. This may help if you have trouble getting to safemode: http://www.howtogeek.com/107511/how-to-boot-into-safe-mode-on-windows-8-the-easy-way/
If you can't boot in safemode, or get to safemode, you will need a Windows installer disk or recovery disk. If you don't have one, you can use another computer to create it (if you don't have one, that's another - should have already been made items because your OS wilil have problems at some point in time, it's not if, but when). http://www.howtogeek.com/186775/how-to-download-windows-7-8-and-8.1-installation-media-legally/
Boot to it and then go to advanced options and try a startup repair. After the repair, even if it says it failed (run it a second time too) , completely shutdown, unplug all external drives, boot to the bios and make sure your original disk is the only one attached (not the clone one) and verify it is still listed as the first boot prioirty. Hopefully it boots. If not, then go back to the advanced menu and try the boot repair commands for Windows. These steps are outlined in this helpful link and apply to Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/32523/how-to-manually-repair-windows-7-boot-loader-problems/
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