Recovery dies while "Preparing"
The latest Windows update killed my WiFi. Fortunately I have Acronis backups. Unfortunately I can't get Recovery to work.
I fire up the program and follow all the steps. It restarts and the program starts to function in what I would call boot mode. It says it is preparing, hangs there for a while and then just dies. The computer reboots into the same situation it was before. I tried running the program as administrator and that didn't work.
I also tried booting with F11, which puts me into the Acronis boot program. That didn't work either. I got everything set up but couldn't press "finish."


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Robert, from your description you are attempting to perform the Recovery from within Windows instead of by using the Acronis Rescue Media to boot your PC.
Doing this from within Windows and/or using the F11 ASRM prompt on boot both use a small Linux based environment to launch ATI and which may not have support for the disk drive you are wanting to recover to.
The best recommendation, assuming that Windows on this PC is still operational apart from the Wi-Fi issue, is to create the 'Simple' version of the Acronis Rescue Media, identify the BIOS boot mode that Windows uses, then boot the rescue media in the same boot mode to do the Recovery.
KB 60820: Acronis True Image 2018: how to create bootable media
KB 60091: Acronis True Image 2018: how Simple bootable media creation mode works
Ian, for information, F11 is enabled by Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM) and is not directly related to using the Acronis Secure Zone (ASZ).
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See webpage: How to get back online after a Windows 10 update breaks your internet access - which may help resolve the original update issue here!
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I have no idea what F11 actually does although it appears to allow one to restore a system while it isn't running. I've done that on Macs so I know that some files can't be restored while the OS is running. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get this to work.
This morning I downloaded the WiFi driver from Dell. When I checked it against the current driver I was told it was up-to-date. Hmm, up-to-date but not working. I deleted and re-installed it. Problem solved.
However, I'm still at a loss as to the best way to do a full recovery should that really be necessary. The above suggestions are in CIPU, Clear If Previously Understood.
My problem is I do regular back-ups but I almost never need to restore anything. This causes a problem when I do. Grabbing an old file is one thing. Doing a complete restore is another. The Acronis interface seems straightforward and workable except I couldn't get it to work.
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Robert, this is a case where you need to create and test the Acronis rescue media on your PC so that you understand how this can be used in the event of any future problems arising.
First though, you need to identify the BIOS mode used by the OS - type the command: msinfo32 in a windows command prompt or Powershell window, then look at the right panel of the report it produces for BIOS mode - this will show as UEFI for most modern PC's else will show as either Legacy or show the make / model of your OS disk drive for older PC's.
Having the F11 for the Acronis Loader at boot may work for some users but I would not recommend relying on it because if you suffer a disk failure, then F11 will disappear along with the failed disk, hence using Acronis rescue media (which can recover in a bare-metal scenario after installing a new / replacement drive).
The KB documents I posted previously should help you to understand how to create rescue media, how to boot this in the correct BIOS mode, and how to perform a Recovery. Please try following the steps given at least up to the point where you would be asked to 'Proceed' with the recovery operation.
When doing the restore of your backup, this needs to be done as a Disk & Partition restore and at the top Disk selection level.
Please see forum topic: [How to] recover an entire disk backup - and in particular the attached PDF document which shows a step-by-step tutorial for doing this type of recovery / restore.
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