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Acronis 2017 bootable cd does not see any hard drives

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I attempted to use my copy of Aconis 2016 with my new Lenovo M6 (IBM) server to restore hard disk image (tib files).  But the restores didn't seem to be writing the information correctly to the disk.  Because on reboot of the server, i was getting no operating system found.  I assumed that this might be a driver issue so I pulled down the 2017 bootable image.   But when I boot with the 2017 cd, i get no hard disk drives found.  So I am at a loss here,  the 2016 bootable cd could see that hard disks but 2017 can't????   I am not sure how new software could not find the same hard disk drives as your previous version.

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Can you see the disks in the bios?  If you're gettng no OS found - it may indicate that the drives have disconnected or failed at some hardware level.  

If you go back and put in the 2016 media does it still see the internal drives now too - just to make sure.

What type of bootable media are you using - LInux default in both cases or is  one WinPE and the other not?  

If your server is using any type of RAID, you would need WinPE and you might also need to inject the proper RAID controller drivers in it as well.  A lot of the driver support for WinPE depends on what version of the Windows ADK you have installed when you create the WinPE as well and even then, RAID controller drivers usually still need to be injected afterwards.  

What caused the server to have no bootable OS?  Is the RAID broken?  Has a drive failed?  Did the controller fail?  

Have you ever been able to successfully restore a backup of this server?  What is the OS?  Please keep in mind that Acronis True Image Home products are not supported with Windows Server OS.

We can only guess to the original cause of the issue and what the issue is with no real details to go on.  The default Linux 2017 recovery media is essentially the same as 2016 and still sees all of the different types of drives I have used with it (eMMC flash, SATA drives and NVME PCIE drives).  It also works with RAID, but only with WinPE (I use the Windows 10 ADK for the best driver compatibility) and even then, you still ahve to inject IRST or specific controller drivers as those are not inlcluded in Windows ADK by default. 

 

 

 

The disks are a virtual volume RAID1 setup.  The bios has no problems seeing the disks and the virtual volume.  I can put the 2016 bootable CD in the system and it sees the virtual volume without issue.  I also just installed CentOS and Ubuntu on the same server with the same RAID1 setup without issue.  I initialized the virtual volume between each test make sure there was nothing on the volumes.

The disk setup is funcitoning as expected.  

I have been using Acronis for 5 years to load empty systems with a predefined tib file.  The systems have all been RAID1 setups.

The tib file is a backup of a ubuntu 12.04 system which is my default setup.  Once loaded, i configure the systems as needed.

I am assuming both 2016 and 2017 are having driver issues.  But if they are the same as you say, why am I having different errors depending on the version?

My process has worked for IBM M1 thorugh M5 X-series servers.  In the past, I just had to purchase or upgrade to the next Acronis version and it would work if had similar issues.

Can I use winPE to restore a tib file to an empty system?  I have never used it.

 

 

I concur with Bobbo here in that the boot media lacks the RAID driver support needed to recognize the drives.  I presume your RAID is a software RAID, what controller are the drives attached to, Intel, or some other maker?

Your best bet is to create WinPE boot media and inject the drivers for the RAID.  There are links in Bobbos post at the bottom  (09, 10, 11) which can be used to assist you creating a WinPE media and inject the necessary drivers.  Refer to the documentation for instructions on how to create the media. using the Acronis Media Builder Tool.  You should use the latest Win 10 ADK for this I would think and I believe that link (09) in Bobbo's post will get you that.

I really can't say - usually, new versions of the Acronis default Linux bootable recovery media are based on the same or newer version of Linux which basically has the same functionality, but newer driver support.  I've never had an issue with newer media not detecting older hardware.  However, the newer versions of Acronis 2016/2017 are also both UEFI and MBR bootable and you should try to boot the recovery media to match the way the bios is configured and/or the OS is installed if your bios supports both UEFI and Legacy (CSM) modes.  The RAID controllers on systems are the devices that usually cause the most issues with default Linux media, but also for even Windows ADK.

WinPE functions just like the Linux default media when booted up. However, it is based on Windows ADK (a smaller/temporary version of Windows that boots to the same environment each time).  Behind the Acronis Gui (wich can be minimized) you have a dos command prompt where you dan some other things in "Windows" like change directories on the disks, run a portable app, etc - if you're not shy with basic CMD functionality.  The nice things about Windows PE vs the default Linux media are:

1) It can be created by the user using newer versions of Windows ADK that bring better out of the box driver support (for instantance, you can install Windows 10 ADK on a Windows 7-10 machine and get the newer/better Windows 10 driver support built in)

2) If even the latest Windows ADK drivers don't pick up your hardware (again, this is usually raid controllers - in particular the Intel IRST driver), you can modify the WinPE (assuming you are using a USB flash drive instead of an ISO since you need to modif files in the created media) to inject drivers... usually, the only drivers that need to be injected are IRST, a custom raid controller, and/or some newer Intel NICs.

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To create WinPE, you just download and install the ADK from Microsoft (I'd recommend the Windows 10 ADK in my signature if you're using Acronis 2016/2017).  Download the first 3 items when it asks what you want (3.4Gb).  Once installed, build your Acronis bootable media using the rescue media builder in the Acronis application, but tell it to create WinPE adn it will do the rest.  Then boot that media and see if it works better.  

As you're using RAID though, you'll have to go back in and inject the IRST drivers or your custom HP controller drivers as well.  You can do that using DISMGUI.

Once you have your USB flash drive made with Acronis, grab DISMGUI.  This is a GUI tool that runs Windows ADK commands for you to simplify the driver injection process.  Launch it using right click and "run as administrator".  On the first tab "Mount control" under WIM file, you navigate to the USB flash drive >>> sources >>> boot.wim.

Under "Mount location" You then point it to a temporary location (an empty folder that you should create first) that will be used to "mount" the boot.wim file.  Click on "Mount Wim"... should see success.

Now move to the second tab in dismgui which is "driver management" point it to where your RAID controller drivers are.  You should download and extract them to a folder first (here is the link for IRST) (here is a link for HP provided WinPE 10 driver packs) (here is a link for HP provided driver packs for earlier versions of Windows 10 and all other versions of Windows)  and then point dismgui to the proper x86 or x64 folder that you extracted.

Click the button "add drivers"

When you see succes, go back to the 1st tab again.  

Click on "Dismount Wim"

You'll be prompted if you want to commit the changes or not - say YES to save the changes.  The boot.wim will not be updated with the drivers and you're done.  

Darryl, when you say 'The tib file is a backup of a ubuntu 12.04 system' - which version of ATIH created this backup image file, and what type of system was this taken from, i.e. is it the same hardware as you are trying to restore the backup image to?

My understanding of Linux backup images is that ATIH restores this using sector-by-sector, so do the disk sizes match between that of the source system and that of the new destination system?  If the destination disk size is smaller than the source then ATIH wouldn't show it as a viable destination for selection when sector-by-sector is involved.

Good point Steve, if the drives are visible but are greyed so as to be not selectable than drive size may be the issue.  If the drives do not appear at all then that condition indicates missing drivers.

I have my winPE version with Acronis 2017.  I wanted to check on one item.  The tib I am trying to restore was built with Acronis 2015.  There should be no issues with restoring this image using Acronis 2017, correct?

Darryl, ATIH 2017 should be fine with restoring an image from ATIH 2015 according to KB document: 1689: Backup Archive Compatibility Across Different Product Versions which shows the versions Acronis have tested with.