Help with creating cloning bootable media
I'm trying to clone my OS from a 256GB SSD to 512GB, all in the same system so this should be doable. It doesn't work using the Windows based cloning tool, just asks to restart then doesn't actually continue the cloning process after rebooting. I know the issue there can be realated to the BIOS secure boot feature.
So how do I make the bootable Acronis media on USB which will assist me with doing the cloning... using the Rescue Media Builder? The Help doesn't actually say this will give me access to the cloning tools... TBH Acronis have really dropped the ball on cloning support...
Things can go badly wrong when cloning - see this post.
Ok they might as well call their software True Backup and remove the Image utility if that whole feature is pretty much a fail.
You will need to create recovery media. The Linux recovery media is OK for simple systems; however many band name computers are set up in a way that the Linux recovery media will not work due to absence of necessary drivers. In that case you need WinPE version - the easiest way to create it is to use the MVP Tool - CUSTOM ATI WINPE BUILDER.
I'm not sure what you're referring to RE Linux recovery media, that's not mentioned anywhere in 2017. Do you mean the Acronis Bootable Rescue Media?
I can understand why you are confused.
There are two tyspes of (bootable) recovery media. If you go into Tools, and select Rescue Media Builder, you are given two choices, the Top one creates a Linux Recover media (same as the iso you can download from Acronis www site) and the second it windows based media, using WinPE builder. The latter is used by the MPV tool to create a customisable recovery media.
The two have differnet strengths and waknesses. Linux media does not have drivers for raid configurations (many PCs now require raid drivers even though there is no raid array - they supposedly give better performance for SSDs, and are need for PCIe based SSDs. Off the shelf, WinPE recovery media does not contain the Intel raid drivers either (Microsoft does not include them in WinPE), and the MVP tool is designed to simplify the process of adding drivers so that the recovery media can see these SSDs. To confuse thing even more, the Intel Raid drivers are now Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) drivers.
Ian
The two have differnet strengths and waknesses. Linux media does not have drivers for raid configurations (many PCs now require raid drivers even though there is no raid array - they supposedly give better performance for SSDs, and are need for PCIe based SSDs. Off the shelf, WinPE recovery media does not contain the Intel raid drivers either (Microsoft does not include them in WinPE), and the MVP tool is designed to simplify the process of adding drivers so that the recovery media can see these SSDs. To confuse thing even more, the Intel Raid drivers are now Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IRST) drivers.
Thanks for your reply - so the MVP tool is only needed if the Rescue Media Builder can't see the SSDs? Assuming it can and it does Restore to the new drive ok, then everything will be copied exactly including drivers that were on the old drive, so the SSD performance would be same as before, correct?
MVP tool doesn't initialize, just says "Can't find KitsRoot".
You couldn't use the standard Acronis Rescue medium?
Nevermind - I had to install the ADK for Windows 7 and then the MVP tool worked. I've now got a bootable ISO on an external USB drive, along with a Backup of my OS drive which I will Restore onto the new bigger drive. Here goes nothing lol.
Glad you got that much sorted. Now for the real action.
Ian
Ok WTF.
I gave my external drive [which has the ISO] boot priority in the BIOS, then Acronis Loader started as expected on bootup. It immediately says "Starting the Operation" "Cloning". ??? I freaked out and cancelled it. Why the hell does it not give any Restore options and just start cloning something which it doesn't even give reference to? Not even any options to choose sources or destinations?
And as a result of that BS I now have a new random "Sysyem Reserved" partition which wasn't there before, 70MB free of 99.9MB on the new hard drive. Is it safe to delete that volume in Disk Management?
I suspect you started the clone from Windows at some point - just a guess, but it couldn't start and now that the recovery media is booted, it is picking up. Never seen or heard of this, but that's my guess.
In all the years I've used Acronis (and I use it a lot in an IT shop at work and at home), it has never started running on its own just from booting rescue media. Rescue media is a pre-built OS that starts from scratch every time you boot it up - even in WinPE, you can delete files, move them around, add new ones to the WinPE (X: drive) and the next time you boot it up, it will be back to square 1, like nothing ever happened since it is a static file that is loaded into memory "new" with each boot.
To the earlier not about rootskit - yes, to build WinPE you must have Windows ADK installed first - that is a requirment for creating WinPE - you need DISM and the default winpe.wim files within it as the base to build rescue media. What version of ADK did you download and install - FYI, you can run Windows 10 ADK in Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. The more current ADK, the better (in most cases) as it will have newer, better drivers for hardware like PCIE NVME hard drives. The benefit of the MVP tool is
1) it can build 32 or 64 bit winpe - default Acronis WinPE only allows 64-bit. If you have a UEFI system that is 32 bit, then you need the MVP tool. If you have a 64-bit bios, not necessary, but...
2) MVP tool has an easy option to inject additional drivers for better compatibilty - primarily for newer OEM systems with PCIE NVME hard drives that have a SATA mode of RAID in the bios. RAID requires IRST (Intel Rapid Storage Technology) RAID drivers which are not available in the default Linux rescue media, nor does the default Acronis WinPE media builder allow driver injection. The MVP tool already includes these drivers by default and all you have to do is say "yes" to inject custom drivers and it will already add them for you. You can add your own custom drivers as well, but for 99.9% of people, there should be no need.
So...
A) What ADK did you use
B) Did you boot rescue media in UEFI or legacy mode - this is key for any recovery - it needs to match how the orignal OS was installeed
C) Nothign should run "automatically" with rescue media - it requires user interaction. I suspect you actually started from Windows and it booted into it's own Linux parition and then started to do it's thing - that is the only thing that makes sense. Shudownt your PC completely. Unplug AC power, press the power button a few times to dissipate current. Plug in your USB recovery drive. Plug in AC power. Turn on your PC. Press F12 or whatever you need to, to get to your one time boot menu. Pick your USB flash drive - pick the right instance of it (UEFI or legacy) to match your OS install that is in the image. Then do your recovery.
Feel free to record what you do with a cell phone or take cell pics (step by step) and post so we can see what you're doing. Don't start ANY RECOVERY or ANY CLONE from WINDOWS - EVER!!!! Always start with your rescue media.
A) What ADK did you use
I used the one for Windows 7 / 8. The Windows 10 ADK says it can only work on Windows 10 on the Microsoft website, so I guess they are partially misleading lol.
B) Did you boot rescue media in UEFI or legacy mode - this is key for any recovery - it needs to match how the orignal OS was installeed
I don't know as I wasn't ever prompted for a UEFI or Legacy option. The rescue media and Acronis booted from my external USB drive automatically once I had set it as the primary boot device in the BIOS.
C) Nothign should run "automatically" with rescue media - it requires user interaction.
Twice earlier I attempted to run cloning from within Windows (as outlined in my original post), but it didn't initiate on bootup, so you may be right in that it is only now picking up on that and attempting to run the clone automatically. So it may do that once more before it gives me a menu, I will find out this afternoon when I try again.
Pick your USB flash drive - pick the right instance of it (UEFI or legacy) to match your OS install that is in the image. Then do your recovery.
I just now checked the Asus Z-97A USB3.1, manual says it has a UEFI AMI BIOS. I actually selected 64 bit when making the ISO, as I thought it was referring to my OS which is 64 bit... I don't think this is made clear enough. I will need to redo the ISO with the MVP tool choosing 32 bit?
Thanks for your info so far.
Ok, yeah the media will boot whatever method the bios picks up first. Could you pist a cell pick of the partitions available in the tub? If there is an efi partition you need to boot in efi mode. The key is how the os was originally installed as some bios, even a uefi bios may still allow a legacy install.
stick to the 64 bit recovery media. There are only a handful of completely 32 bit uefi systems... usually cheap tablets or 2 in ones.
Uefi boiting will only ever allow what your bios uefi is set to. In your case it should be 64 bit if you successfully booted in uefi mode. Did you have an acronis menu with a black screen and 3 sos like options or was your menu a GUI... before the actual rescue environment?
Uefi boiting will only ever allow what your bios uefi is set to. In your case it should be 64 bit if you successfully booted in uefi mode. Did you have an acronis menu with a black screen and 3 sos like options or was your menu a GUI... before the actual rescue environment?
I did not have any options or menu before cloning automatically started on boot-up. From memory it was first a black screen saying acronis loading or something to that effect, then a blue GUI with starting operation - cloning disk, with a cancel option.
link to a pic of the current partitions, http://imgur.com/Vxnufl8.png
disk 0 is the new disk which should be empty (can i just delete that E: partition?). disk 1 is 256GB secondary SSD, disk 2 is the 256GB OS drive. I had to google how to find out what boot environment it was, found the following line in setupact.log:
Callback_BootEnvironmentDetect: Detected boot environment: BIOS
So does that mean I do not need to boot in EFI mode? (not that I've been given the option yet lol).
Your pic shows the original OS was legacy. PCIE nvme requires uefi to be bootable. I don't think a clone will work here because cloning legacy results in legacy, which won't be bootable on a PCIE NVME drive. You should probably take a full disk backup. Then boot uefi recovery and restore the image which should attempt to migrate from legacy to uefi. Please be aware that PCIE drives, in order to be bootable, must be uefi/GPT. This is a Windows requirement. As you're cloning a legacy OS the result is a legacy OS and PCIE NVME won't be bootable.
Your pic shows the original OS was legacy. PCIE nvme requires uefi to be bootable. I don't think a clone will work here because cloning legacy results in legacy, which won't be bootable on a PCIE NVME drive. You should probably take a full disk backup. Then boot uefi recovery and restore the image which should attempt to migrate from legacy to uefi.
Yeah - I mentioned a few posts up that I had made a Backup of the OS drive to my external USB drive, and through this whole process I was trying to do a Restore, not a clone. But it started cloning automatically from when I was trying that prior. Btw my drives are sata not pcie.
I will delete that random partition on E, and try booting from USB again to see if it gives me any options this time. I assume it will actually let me choose which drive to Restore to lol.
I was able to boot onto USB and get Acronis to start the restore procedure. So what do these errors mean?
http://i.imgur.com/7TfVxYG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/QxZeiZF.jpg
Also I notcied after the Restore there was an optoin in Bios boot priority to boot into the new drive with a "boot manager". Why would there be this boot manager option - shouldn't the bios just see it as a normal bootable drive?
Arconz, your first image shows a potential disk error with disk 4 in sector 0 - you would need to determine which particular drive this is. Acronis numbers drives starting from 1, but when you look in Windows Disk Management, Windows starts numbering from 0, so in Windows this would show as disk 3 (still the 4th drive).
How exactly are you doing this restore? From the fact that you are seeing snapshot errors in these images, it would suggest that this is being done from within the Windows Acronis application and not by using the bootable Rescue Media? Snapshot is not used when booting the Rescue Media as this is a Windows function.
The normal reason for why you would see 'Windows Boot Manager' as an option in the BIOS is that this is how UEFI determines the boot device with the latest versions of Windows and this should be selected rather than selecting the physical drive.
Ok. Steve is right. There looks to be a disk error on at least one of those drives. From Windows, running an elevated command prompt with
chkdsk /f /r
may help if the error is not in one of the hidden or unmounted partitions.
i don't know why I thought you were switching to pcie nvme. I guess I assumed you were based on earlier comments from IAN that I didn't read well. Very sorry about that.
If you are going SATA ssd to SATA ssd, uefi is not needed (assuming the original OS was legacy mbr now, but please try to confirm). In fact, if the original OS was legacy, which I'm assuming it is/was, then you want to restore in legacy too. It looks like you did a uefi restore based on my earlier note for pcie nvme and the showing of Windows boot manager in the bios. When uefi booting, you must pick that one and not the ssd itself. Regardless, if we're trying to restore from legacy, let's stick with legacy to minimize scope creep. Use your bios one time boot menu to pick your flash drive to boot it in legacy mode and restore, but make sure you run chkdsk with both switches on the original drive first.
After the restore, shutdown the computer completely. Remove original drive. Move new drive to same connector the original was on. Don't attach old drive. Boot to bios and verify boot order and make sure new drive is set with first priority.
Boot drive and see how it goes with only the new drive attached.
Sorry for the headache and confusion. Please verify the original IS drive is legacy/mbr or uefi/GPT though.
Arconz, your first image shows a potential disk error with disk 4 in sector 0 - you would need to determine which particular drive this is. Acronis numbers drives starting from 1, but when you look in Windows Disk Management, Windows starts numbering from 0, so in Windows this would show as disk 3 (still the 4th drive).
How exactly are you doing this restore? From the fact that you are seeing snapshot errors in these images, it would suggest that this is being done from within the Windows Acronis application and not by using the bootable Rescue Media? Snapshot is not used when booting the Rescue Media as this is a Windows function.
It is being done with the bootable media, pics were taken with my phone :) I will try a chkdsk now on the external drive... which will probably take a while as it is 4TB lol.
If you are going SATA ssd to SATA ssd, uefi is not needed (assuming the original OS was legacy mbr now, but please try to confirm).
Yep as mentioned earlier, the detected boot environment was BIOS (legacy). The chkdsk is currently verifying free space... got a long way to go :D
In fact, if the original OS was legacy, which I'm assuming it is/was, then you want to restore in legacy too. It looks like you did a uefi restore based on my earlier note for pcie nvme and the showing of Windows boot manager in the bios.
After yesterday's attempted Restore, in disk manager I now have 3 partitions on the new disk, 100MB EFI, 100MB (legacy?), and 238GB or whatever data, + unallocated space. Problem is I'm not entirely sure where the UEFI restore option is being enacted... i.e. can my ISO file (created with the MVP tool) still be used to do a legacy restore? Did I just choose the incorrect boot device when doing the Restore...? Also does it matter how you burn the ISO to the flash stick? i.e. what disk format is used? There were options so that is something I could redo if necessary.
The efi partition confirms it restored in uefi mode.
your bios will pick one or the other automatcally depending on the firmware and how it's configured.
The best way to pick a specific method is to use a one time boot menu. Dell is typically f12. Hp can be each, del or f1. It varies from manufacturer and bios firmware. You'll clearly see an option for uefi or legacy boot of your USB in this one time menu. Pick the one that dies not say uefi in the USB name.
you can burn the ISO to USB as much as you want. If you're using a third party tool though, if suggest you don't. Please do a full format if the usb drive as fat32 (not just a quick one). Then run the MVP tool and have it build the usb for you.
just FYI... the winpe and functionality of Acronis are provided by Acronis. The MVP tool uses those same tools to get Acronis installed. The tool is adding the extra functionality like web browser, etc. creating the ISO, boot.wim and USB are all using ADK embedded dism commands so there's no magic there either. We just adjust are using those tools to simplify the process for adding drivers so that users don't have to create it the old fashioned way and have to figure out how to inject them later. You're more than welcome to use whatever your most comfortable with. I just want to point out that we don't modify or enhance Acronis in winpe, just how it's built so we can take full advantage of the file Acronis provided for us already.
your main drive is 4tb? Have you considered separating your OS from your data? With a groomed OS on a smaller ssd, you could backup and restore in minutes instead of hours or days. Just a thought for down the road.
you can burn the ISO to USB as much as you want. If you're using a third party tool though, if suggest you don't. Please do a full format if the usb drive as fat32 (not just a quick one). Then run the MVP tool and have it build the usb for you.
I used Rufus to burn the ISO onto a 512MB flash stick, selecting NTFS when formatting. This made it bootable, but should I redo as you said? Does the MVP tool properly burn the ISO and not just make an ISO file?
your main drive is 4tb? Have you considered separating your OS from your data? With a groomed OS on a smaller ssd, you could backup and restore in minutes instead of hours or days. Just a thought for down the road.
No, the 4TB drive is an external USB 3.1 drive (not the bootable flash stick lol), which holds the backup tibs. So the 4TB provides the source for the Restores. Internally I have 2 x 256GB SSD drives - one OS (legacy) and one data. I just installed a new 512GB SSD which I want to make the new OS, as the 256 is getting too full. Once a Restore to the 512GB is successful, the old C will be wiped and become a second data drive.
If your usb drive is properly formatted (full format and not a quick /q format), the MVP tool should properly create a bootable USB flash drive for you.
It uses Windows ADK DISM commands to format the flash drive - which are native to Windows and ADK:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825109.aspx
BUT... since tools like Rufus can leave hidden "leftovers" on flash drives that Windows can't read (Windows can only read the first partition of a USB flash drive - whereas third party tools or OSes like LInux can make and read multiple paritions on a USB flash drive) you should do the full format first to make sure the possibility of Rufus leftovers are wiped out.
I have stopped using Rufus because it seems to be limited in only being able to create NTFS usb flash drives. My computer, because it has a modern bios, will only boot RUFUS created flash drives in UEFI mode because of the NTFS formatting - this may be why you ended up with a default UEFI boot as well.
your first image shows a potential disk error with disk 4 in sector 0
Scans completed of all disks, no bad sectors, some index & free space corrections as below for the OS drive (used to make the Backup tib). Could this be what caused the disk error message? I'm guessing I should now redo a Backup?
-------
CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
Cleaning up instance tags for file 0x11c71.
Cleaning up instance tags for file 0x6ce1b.
657152 file records processed. File verification completed.
1534 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 2 EA records processed. 50 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
816582 index entries processed. Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
657152 file SDs/SIDs processed. Cleaning up 1711 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1711 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1711 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
79716 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
36933952 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
657136 files processed. File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
8786672 free clusters processed. Free space verification is complete.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.
249954303 KB total disk space.
213763044 KB in 557288 files.
275088 KB in 79717 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
769479 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
35146692 KB available on disk.
----------
Arconz, if CHKDSK has found and corrected errors on a drive, even in free space but affecting the MFT (Master File Table) bitmap, then I would want to make a new backup of that drive.
In fact, if the original OS was legacy, which I'm assuming it is/was, then you want to restore in legacy too.
Just to clarify - as I am now reburning the ISO with the MVP tool, I should still use the 64 bit option and not 32 bit [for my legacy OS]?
Arconz, the 64-bit versus 32-bit relates to the CPU capability more than whether you have Legacy or UEFI.
If you have a 32-bit CPU system, then the 64-bit media simply will not work, whereas the 32-bit media can work on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems, but should not be used to restore / recover a system where 32-bit would not be supported, i.e. 64-bit EFI system with GPT.
Legacy systems can be either 32-bit or 64-bit - I am running one myself with a Dell Studio laptop that was originally running Windows Vista 32-bit OS, but where I installed Windows 10 64-bit OS on in a dual-boot scenario, so it is able to boot to either OS.
Arconz, the 64-bit versus 32-bit relates to the CPU capability more than whether you have Legacy or UEFI.
If you have a 32-bit CPU system, then the 64-bit media simply will not work, whereas the 32-bit media can work on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems, but should not be used to restore / recover a system where 32-bit would not be supported, i.e. 64-bit EFI system with GPT.
ok thanks for clarification 64 bit it is.
One last question - how do I get rid of the 100MB EFI partition on my new disk from that earlier failed Restore? The volume can't be removed in Disk Manager? If I do a legacy Restore to that disk will it be automatically wiped out or will it stay there?
The 100MB EFI partition will be automatically deleted if you choose to do a Disk restore to the drive.
See attached tutorial document on page 4 (for Steps 7 & 8) where a warning is given that your destination disk has existing data or partitions and asking you to 'Click OK to confirm deletion of all the partitions on the destination hard disk drive.'
Ok I've reburned the USB (32GB 3.0 flash stick) using the MVP tool and can't boot onto it. There is no option in the BIOS to boot to it in legacy mode, only a UEFI entry. The "Boot Overide" (click and boot) section lists both default "3.0 flash disk" and "UEFI 3.0 flash disk", but choosing the former just loads Windows off the OS drive.
How do I boot in Legacy mode onto USB? Is it being denied because of UEFI Secure Boot? That can't be disabled, perhaps if I delete all the security keys in the BIOS but I'm not sure if that is safe?
You need to choose 32 bit media when you create the MVP Tool. That will allow you to boot using Legacy mode. The 32 bit media will only boot in Legacy mode.
acronz - curious to know if using the 32-bit media will help you here as Mustang suggested.
In my own experience, if secure boot is enabled, then UEFI is enforced as secure boot is a UEFI feature. That would mean if your system is 64-bit and forcing UEFI, then the 32-bit UEFI media wouldn't work either unless it does allow it to boot in legacy mode, which, for me, has not worked.
I believe you would have to delete the bios security keys, save the bios and reboot, then go back into the bios, disable secure boot, save and reboot and then should have the ability to legacy boot.
It should be just fine to do this if you want to. I have secure boot disabled on all of my systems. For me, the ability to backup and restore takes precedence for me than the possibility of someone getting into my house and taking my PC, which could happen, never has. On top of that, I backup and restore a lot and having that capability trumps secure boot for me. Secure boot is designed to prevent 3rd party bootloaders from launching - in an effort to stop 3rd party boot tools that can change your password and things like that. However, it doesn't stop anyone from pulling your drive and accessing it from another system or external connection and you can still find "bootable" WinPE tools that can function with secure boot enabled.
My question would be.... how did you get a legacy OS installed with secure boot enabled in the first place? Haven't seen any screenshots, but if you could take a screenshot of disk manager with the working 256Gb drive that would help confirm if your installed OS is really legacy or UEFI. That and "system information" should nail it down. I know you stated it is a legacy system, but I question whether or not things were really legacy to begin with or not based on having UEFI enabled in the bios and secure boot with active keys enabled too. Did that get turned on recently or always been on?
acronz - curious to know if using the 32-bit media will help you here as Mustang suggested.
It didn't. It provides a UEFI & legacy option just like 64 bit, and just like 64 bit the legacy selection is ignored and the OS boots.
My question would be.... how did you get a legacy OS installed with secure boot enabled in the first place? Haven't seen any screenshots
yeah you have :) http://imgur.com/Vxnufl8.png
I don't know why my System Information screen looks different to yours: http://i.imgur.com/juwsCKG.png
There's also this in actsetup.log: http://i.imgur.com/12stZx7.png
and this in bcdedit, the path would say winload.ufi if it was ufi, not exe: http://i.imgur.com/diQnrM2.png
I didn't do the install myself, was done by the retailer. Didn't know about UEFI & Legacy before making this thread lol.
Did that get turned on recently or always been on?
Its always been on. The UEFI Bios does mention legacy and uefi support for storage devices, so my GUESS is it allows legacy Windows booting but nothing else for software it doesn't recognize, i.e. Acronis. Indeed it has a Secure Boot menu option to change from "Windows UEFI" to "Other OS", but changing it has no effect. I think it might only take effect if the security keys are unloaded... I haven't been able to find out much on that so that's another guess lol.
OK, thanks for the screenshots - it does appear to be legacy/mbr/bios. My screenshot is of a UEFI system which shows the extra EFI parition.
Yup - secure boot prevents 3rd party bootloaders so I think that's your issue. You should be able to disable the bios secure boot keys and then disable secure boot and that should fix that so you can do the restore the way you need to. If you really want, once things are fully restored and working, you can turn secure boot back on and it will create keys for the new drive automatically. Personally, I think secure boot causes more headaches than good. Sure, it prevents somene from popping in a Linux boot disk to change your Windows password, but it doesn't prevent them from just taking your entire computer and booting it or taking the drive and accessing it from an external drive bay or in another system.
I also noted that your new drive has a system reserved parition on it. You should probably use diskpart to "clean" the new drive, then initialize it as MBR and parition it new. Won't hurt, but may help. Just make sure you clean the correct disk :)
Diskpart Clean instructions from Seagate
I'd reboot once after that and log back into Windows, just to make sure things boot finet (make sure that Windows isn't somehow using the system reserve parition from the new drive now - shouldn't be, but just to be sure before you move on)
Hopefully, you can then boot the rescue media in legacy mode and complete the restore. After the restore, and before ever attempting to boot the OS, power off the system and detach the original drive. Move the restored drive to the exact same SATA connector that the original used to be on. Boot to the bios and make sure the new drive is the first boot priority and try to boot without the old drive being attached. Hopefully you're good to go now.
I also noted that your new drive has a system reserved parition on it. You should probably use diskpart to "clean" the new drive, then initialize it as MBR and parition it new. Won't hurt, but may help. Just make sure you clean the correct disk :)
Sorry that pic was from earlier before I attempted that failed Restore. After I did that [incorrectly] in EFI mode it made a whole bunch of crap, I now only have left a 100MB EFI partition + unallocated space. I can't delete the EFI partition but Steve said above that a Restore to that new drive will wipe out any partitions anyway.
One weird thing I'm noticing... my external USB 3.1 drive (WD MyBook 4TB) which stores my backup tibs... keeps powering down after a while. I've unchecked power down permission in all the USB root hubs in device manager, but it still does it lol. If this is somthing the bios is doing... that could explain a read error when doing a Restore, will check that...
Disabled secure boot successfully, still doesn't work. Booting from USB just throws up "MBR error, boot from floppy".
Either the MVP tool doesn't support Legacy booting with my hardware, or there is a problem with this model of Asus motherboard that simply won't allow Legacy booting off USB. At this point I might just complain to the retailer for suppplying it and/or doing a legacy install, maybe get a free copy of Windows 10 out of it lol.
The MVP Tool will support Legacy boot on your Asus Z97-A motherboard. Enter the Advanced Mode of the BIOS and go to the Boot Menu. Set CSM to Enabled. Set Secure Boot to Other OS's. That should do it.
The MVP Tool will support Legacy boot on your Asus Z97-A motherboard. Enter the Advanced Mode of the BIOS and go to the Boot Menu. Set CSM to Enabled. Set Secure Boot to Other OS's. That should do it.
No it doesn't - only onto SATA not onto USB, which sugests a problem with the mobo design, the MVP tool, or the particular image that was burned.
Set to Other OS, I have tried CSM Enabled and Auto, as well as Legacy USB support Enabled and Auto, all with Secure Boot disabled. Same error: "MBR error, press any key to boot from floppy".
It's just ADK dism commands to build the winpe, no magic or special sauce in this regards.
Try the default rescue media builder with the winpe option and see if it works. If not, did you do a full format of the flash drive as suggested earlier? Having used Rufus before, you need to fully format the drive and not just a quick format to undo what Rufus did to the hidden system volume. I can't boot legacy on a Rufus formatted (or previously formatted drive either).
I think the problem is with your USB drive. The motherboard does support USB Legacy boot. Try a different USB drive and do a "FULL" FAT32 format before building the MVP Tool.
I think the problem is with your USB drive. The motherboard does support USB Legacy boot. Try a different USB drive and do a "FULL" FAT32 format before building the MVP Tool.
I've tried a full FAT32 format on two different USB sticks, a 32GB USB3.1 and a 16GB USB2 stick. Same result.
As a test how do I make a different [legacy] bootable drive not related to Acronis? If that also doesn't work that means the problem won't be with Acronis/MVP tool.
Go to the Windows start menu/Windows Kits/Deployment and Imaging Tool and right click and Run as Administrator. Enter the following lines to make a generic 32 bit WinPE:
copype x86 C:\winpe_x86
MakeWinPEMedia /UFD C:\winpe_x86 F:
Where F: is the drive letter of your FAT32 USB drive.
Method 2:
Control Panel/Recovery. Select make a recovery disk and follow the instructions.
Use the default media builder and choose winpe as the build method.
otherwise, you'll need to use another application that builds winpe rescue media for booting. There are a lot of free products or trial products. You can install the free version of lazesoft and build rescue media with it as a test.
There isn't a pc I haven't been able to boot the media on yet though. If you want, take an image if your drive and pm me. I can test your image on my machine. If it boots on mine we know the build isn't the problem. If it doesn't boot on mine then it's something with the image on that drive.
Go to the Windows start menu/Windows Kits/Deployment and Imaging Tool and right click and Run as Administrator. Enter the following lines to make a generic 32 bit WinPE:
copype x86 C:\winpe_x86
MakeWinPEMedia /UFD C:\winpe_x86 F:
Where F: is the drive letter of your FAT32 USB drive.
Method 2:
Control Panel/Recovery. Select make a recovery disk and follow the instructions.
Same Problem! :D So its not related to Acronis. IMO it has to be the Asus Bios just not being able to do what it says. Remember I have successfully booted from USB in EFI mode but never Legacy. I don't think its the ports or the sticks, just the Bios.
Btw I used Method 1. Method 2 doesn't work on my Win 7 as it asks for a CD/DVD drive to make the media (which I don't have).
What version of the BIOS are you using. The latest version for a Z97-A is 2801. Try reflashing if you are using an earlier version. Just go through all the BIOS screens in the Advanced mode before you flash and make some notes so you can can set it up properly after the flash.
What version of the BIOS are you using. The latest version for a Z97-A is 2801. Try reflashing if you are using an earlier version. Just go through all the BIOS screens in the Advanced mode before you flash and make some notes so you can can set it up properly after the flash.
Yep I am using 2801. Before that I had tried all this on the retailer's supplied version (2401 from memory).
If you want, take an image if your drive and pm me. I can test your image on my machine. If it boots on mine we know the build isn't the problem. If it doesn't boot on mine then it's something with the image on that drive.
I'll try this just to check there isn't a problem with the Windows ADK. Sorry for the dumb question but how do I take an image of the USB drive..? I tried using imageUSB program but it makes a 14GB file i.e. the whole drive?
In my Gigabyte board, I cannot pick Windows8/10 and must leave the OS type as "other" to legacy boot. When I have picked windows 8/10 in teh bios and then tried to revert back to "other", this is where I had to reflash the bios (with the exact same firmware version) because that was the only way it would really return to the default settings with "other". Maybe you're having a similar issue - I blame UEFI here as it seems to want to hold onto settings, even if you revert to default. Now that you've disable secure boot, I think a reflash may actually help you out.
Beyond that though, if that doesn't do the trick, you can try formatting your flash drive with RMPREP. I have one UEFI system that refuses to boot in legacy mode without a Grub4dos chainloader - it only happens with USB drives of the non-removable type (non flash drives) though, but RMPREP and Gub4Dos fixed that issue on that one system.
http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/grub4dos
Basically format flash drive with Rmprep and add the grub4dos entry with it. Then, build an ISO with the MVP winpe tool instead of trying to build directly to the USB drive. Use 7zip to extract the entire content of the .iso to the root of the flash drive. After that, you might find that you can boot in legacy mode now (assuming that something in the bios settings is still not specifically preventing legacy booting).
Use Acronis to take a full disk backup of your flash drive. If the drive isn't "dirty" it should only image the used space. If it is "dirty" it will revert to sector by sector though and you'll end up with a larger .tib backup.
If Acronis does revert to sector-by-sector, then you may have to try using diskpart /clean before re-initializing the drive again with disk manager, or might even need to use a 3rd party tool like Minitool Parition Wizard. Rufus, although I used to praise it, caused a lot of boot trouble for me when wanting to boot legacy and is where I started learning to do a full format of the flash drive if it had been paritioned with Rufus or ISO-2-USB or anything like that in the past.
Have you tried booting the USB 2.0 drive from a USB 2.0 port? The 4 USB ports on the back panel outlined in blue are the 3.0/2.0 ports. The other two ports (not outlined in blue) are the 2.0/1.1 ports. Try the 2.0 USB drive in one of the ports not outlined in blue. Try it with both 32 and 64 bit WinPE.
Other than the above, I would try another brand of USB drive. The USB drive must show a "Removeable" in Windows Disl Management.