Laptop Screen is frozen after USB-rescue reboot
Dear Friends,
I have installed True Image 2017 Home on my Laptop recently and before proceeding to long, I wanted to check the recovery function, so I have made some images and I have also created a Rescue-DVD as well as a Rescue-USB-Stick.
When I wanted to restore one of the images to my laptop I was faced with the following situation. Both rescue media will boot my laptop, so that I can see the Restore screen. However, the laptop does neither react to any key activity, nor does he accept my touch pad or any mouse connected via USB or Blue Tooth. To jump from button to button via the tab key is also not possible.
The cursor stands right in the center of my screen. Whatever I try, the system is frozen.
I am new to the software as well as to the forum, so I have checked first, if I could find some advice.None of the post seem to fully cover my problem. So, is there anyone out there, who can geive me some advice?
Best regards - Ileach
Hi everybody,
many thanks so far. It seems bit strange. After the advice to use CTRL-M I restarted the computer with the USB2-rescue stick (which was working yesterday up to the point of a frozen cursor in the centerof the screen), but today the screen remained black with the lines:
loading please wait...
no raid disksI shut down the computer and restarted it with a rescue-CD. It came up with the screen, all the options are visible but the cursor is frozen, the keyboard and the touchpad don't work. CTRL-M does not help either.
I donot storetothe cloud but to the HDD which is built in addition to the SSD. I choose the option of a full back up.
I have bought a license for one PC which (should not) have to be renewed after a year.
Unfortunately Ihave to leave now for about an hour or so, But upon my return, I will check some details (like the built, etc.) and I will add these date to the discussion, hope it will help.
Ileach, it is important to boot the Acronis Rescue Media (CD or USB) in the same way as your Wndows OS uses, see webpage: Check if your PC uses UEFI or BIOS
Next, which version of the Rescue Media are you using? The standard media is based on a Linux kernel and if you have a UEFI system with Secure Boot enabled, you may need to disable Secure Boot.
Acronis can also create Windows PE Rescue Media which in turn requires the Windows ADK for the PE component - this type of media will normally work fine with Secure Boot systems and is akin to booting from a Windows install media. The Acronis Rescue Media Builder tool will direct your to the Microsoft site to download the ADK if you choose to create the WinPE Rescue Media.
Hi Steve,
well I have checked the UEFI settings. Windows is usually booting in secure mode, butit doesn't make a difference. Regardless the chosen option and regardless the choice normal boot or fast fast boot. Everything leeds to the same result.
But I have found out, that during the boot process, once the screen is black and shows "loading please wait..." I will be able to move the cursor, even after the background colour changes from black to blue, this is possible for lessthan a second. Once the GUI is fully built, the cursor freezes. Nothing is possible then. I have to switch off the laptop using the power switch.
I have made two screen shots of windows and Acronis, but I am doubtful as these will help, as WIN10 is up todate and I bought Acronis last week...
Nevertheless I am hopeful that you or one of the MVP volunteers might give me the crucial hint...
Ileach, if you have Windows Fast Boot enabled and just do a normal Shutdown before trying to boot from the Rescue Media, then you are not actually shutdown but are in a Hybrid Sleep state aka Hibernation state.
If you don't want to disable Fast Boot, do a Restart instead of doing a shutdown as this will force Windows to shutdown fully and then restart again without going into the hybrid state.
As you have Secure Boot, make sure you are selecting the UEFI USB or CD device on Boot if there are more than one choice for these devices being offered.
Hi Steve,
well I have restarted the computer between the various steps, as I have used our german option "neu starten" - I think that I now have tried all possible combinations of secure boot / normal boot / fast boot - the result is always the same. Could it be a question of the UEFI-BIOS frimware? I do have a "American Megatrends Inc. Version 2.17.1254"...
I think that I need totake my timenext week end to check the solution based on a WIN PE bootable medium.
Ileach,
Just to be sure to eliminate this problem being related to Windows Fast Start feature please perform a shutdown of your machine as follows:
Open a admin command prompt, (right click on start button, select Administrator Command Prompt).
Once open type the following shutdown /s
After computer fully shutsdown press the start button to cold boot to the Rescue Media on your computer.
This shutdown will take a bit of time as the above command kills all processes that might still be in a hybrid sleep state on your machine.
Once booted to the Rescue media see if the problem persists.
Good Evening Echantech,
just a quick answer. I have tried your proposal three time. Twice (1st and 3rd attempt) the boot process stopped with a black screen saying:
Loading please wait...
no raid disks
and then I had to hard switch the laptop off
The second cold boot showed the same message, less than a second, then the Acronis screen was displayed, but the screen was frozen.
I may try the WinPE option next sunday, I won't find time to do it before then.
Thanks anyway...
If you are using RAID, you will need to use WinPE. The drivers for most RAID controllers (even Intel ones) are not found in the Default Linux media, nor are they in the generic Windows ADK. If you build the rescue media using WinPE and use the MVP PE builder tool, it will inject the Intel IRST RAID drivers automatically and you should be able to see drives, unless you have a a custom 3rd party RAID controller like LSI, which may require you to download those and extract them first, copy the drivers into the MVP driver folder (x86 for 32-bit PE or x64 for 64-bit PE) and the tool will do the rest.
Dear MVP volunteers,
finally, I have successfully running True Image 2017 and checked it as well. It does its job now. So thank you very much for the support through this forum as well as the knowledge base. The MVP Volunteers support is great. You‘re doing a good job.
Nevertheless, critisism must be allowed. Acronis calls True Image 2017 „#1 Backup Software“ - this is true as far as backing up a partition is concerned, it definitely is not true regarding restoration of the system partition through a rescue medium (in my case I have tried a USB stick as well as a CD/DVD).
For license based, paid software it is far too complicated to create a bootable rescue media. I cannot call myself a computer nerd, but I would name it „quite experienced“. But thinking of my wife or daughters, they would be completely lost – and so will be thousands of others. Not everybody is determined to investige lots of hours to get to the point.
In parallel to my attempts to get True Image 2017 running, I have tested Clonezilla – it is Linux based as True Image is, but this does not need to take deviations to create a bootable media, inject it with drivers. It‘s just an exe-File of 5 MB you have to start and create a bootable Linux-based USB medium.
To cut a long story short: I have two solutions now and both are working, so I am quite happy. But I certainly cannot recommend to buy True Image 2017, I am sorry.
Ileach, please use the in app Feedback tool within ATIH 2017 in the Help section to pass on your feedback and comments directly to Acronis - you raise very valid points about the ease of use of recovery media, especially for less confident users without much experience in such matters.
Glad to hear that you have two working solutions - it is always good to have more than one method for recovery.