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Acronis Universal Restore problem

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Hi guys - I am running Acronis True Image 2019 Build 17750.

I have a need to upgrade my Win 10 64 bit Dell Optiplex PC to a better spec 'cos it just isn't fast enough (are they ever) but really wanted to keep the 1TB SSD I have on my current rig and ideally drop it into the newer Dell Optiplex replacement (but this one has a better mo-bo and processor). I have lots of files and programmes it would be a pain to replace otherwise.

I figured that using Acronis Universal Restore may help me achieve that.

The issue is, when I download the Acronis Universal Boot Media Builder on my current machine, I keep hitting install issues stating a DLL is missing ??

 

I have downloaded three times, restarted the machine, turned off my AV - but still the same message ( screen shot attached)

 

Any ideas please ? 

 

TIA Charlie :-)

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Hi Charlie,

First, I'm not sure you'd need UR at all if using Windows 10 - it is really good with driver support and rarely needs UR.  I actually would recommend not using UR with Windows 10, unless absolutely necessary.

01) Backup the new system completely so you have a recovery point - just in case and keep it in a safe place.

02) Backup the old / existing system completely (full disk) too - just in case and keep it in a safe place

***  If you did step 1 and 2, you could try to recover the original OS to a new/different disk without ever touching either of the main disks - something to practice on without potentially messing up your chances of at least getting back to where things are right now with the 2 different disks and different OS installs on them.  But if you don't have  a spare disk, at least you can restore them in case you need to reset back to defaults with these backups.

03) Did the new machine come with the exact same OS (Win 10 Pro  or Win 10 home)?  And has the new machine activated the license with MS at least once?  This will be key if trying to activate an OEM license from the old machine on the new one.  If one is Home and one is Pro, the old OS will not activate on the new hardware.  If one is Win7 and One is Win10, the old OS will not activate on the new hardware...  UNLESS you have a retail license of the OS you are using and can migrate it... you cannot migrate OEM licenses. 

04) How was the old OS installed - UEFI/GPT or Legacy/MBR?  How about the new one?  If they are the same, this makes things easier.  If they are different (for instance, the old machine was a legacy install and the new system is a UEFI install), it would be easiest if you can configure the bios for legacy booting.  Otherwise, you can convert legacy to UEFI with Acronis, but this adds an extra layer of complexity, although it is doable.  You cannot go backwards from a UEFI/GPT OS to legacy though (well, you can, but it will never boot).

05) The new bios is going to be key for bootability.  You need to make sure things like secure boot are disabled, legacy boot may need to be enabled (even if we are shooting for a UEFI OS to boot here).  If you swap in the old drive with the old OS on it, check the bios boot priority to make sure it lists the new disk as the 1st boot option - remove the original disk completely so it isn't even a factor that can cause an issue.

If the bios is correct (secure boot off, the correct legacy or UEFI mode, the correct boot order with the new disk installed, etc) you might find that Windows 10 will just boot up, even though things.

----------------

As for resolving your UR install issue?  Just in case you want to try it... I'd clear out %temp%, download the latest version from your account and since it is a .msi installer, I would open an admin command prompt (right click and "run as administrator" and navigate to the .msi.  Then launch it from command prompt to ensure the highest admin access during install.  Just because you're logged in with an admin account, does not mean you have full admin access. 

 

Awesome, thanks, that all sounds logical. I guess I wanted the reassurance to give what you suggest a shot. 

For info, both systems have Win 10 Pro 64 bit installed, both versions have been activated. Both are upgrades from Win 7 pro/activated versions and are the current Win 10 versions. Even the PC's are similar, one just being a newer version. 

I already have a full PC backup of my old setup on a spare USB SSD, and even a complete disk clone of my existing system on yet another spare SSD. Belt and braces always ... having been burned before when hard drives failed, that's why I have 3 SSD's all effectively with the same info on them. 

I shifted over to Acronis for the 2018 version to get the whole setup working more efficiently.It has made life easier. 

I did consider "dropping in" my spare system drive on the new system and seeing what happened anyway, having almost nothing to lose if it didn't work...but I am genuinely that busy with work, I did not want to waste the time on what could have been a pointless venture. 

My concerns came from previous experiences of adding old disks to alien systems..although that was back in the Windows XP days.

I also thank you for the work round to get the install to work, even though I will give the disk swap a go instead, I do hate it when stuff doesn't work. I like to know why it didnt.

CR :-)

CR,

Sounds like you're in good shape with lots of options. Especially since  both are Win 10 PRO and already activated.

Yeah, if they were installed the same way too (legacy and legacy of UEFI and UEFI) then there shouldn't be much to worry about in the bios either.

Not unless the old system was SATA mode AHCI (SSD) and the new one is RAID (possibly if it came with a PCIe NVMe drive instead of a SATA drive).

I have a feeling if you disconnect the current drive and pop in your clone from the other system, it's likely to just boot up.

You might just need to check the bios boot order and ensure it shows up as the first boot priority.

If you find the time to test it out, curious to know how it goes. 

OK, so to update things, largely for the benefit of others as I am now sorted:

 

I could not get the U.R. to create, even emptying the %system% folder and downloading the file again - it must be an issue with my PC though, cos it ran fine on my laptop...but I didn't need it anyway as already suggested. 

On my new machine I dropped in my cloned hard drive but had a few issues getting the new PC to boot from my SSD at first. The BIOS could not see it - that was because I was a doofus and had not edited the BIOS boot sequence from UEFI to Legacy ... ahem

(I only work in IT, so clearly I don't know what I am doing).

Once I had corrected that, and then removed the supposedly cloned disk that had a format problem unknown to me that was also stopping it booting,I installed my known good system SSD from my working PC - and it all booted first time.

No issue so far with licences, It all turned out to be oh-so-simple in the end. (removing the idiot human factor of course)

I am currently re-cloning the apparent dodgy hard drive from the new PC (formerly my old hard drive in there now - keep up) :) so I have insurance for any future mishaps. 

Gotta give a big up to Acronis for having the tec. to allow all this to happen - and to the helpful feedback on here too. Thanks 

 

Great feedback and am glad that just swapping the drives proved to be simple! This is one of the biggest advantages of Windows 10, especially when compared to how Win 7/XP would behave in the same situation. If only it was one touch for everyone 😆. 

But as you found, bios tweaks can be one particular hurdle and this gets a lot of people even with other types of backup software across the board. Glad it was just a simple tweak in this case.

Hopefully, the new clone goes well and boots as expected when you test it too!

One note on clones... If you do an "online" clone from within Windows using 2018/2109, it's generally painless. HOWEVER...

There are instances where starting a clone in Windows can require a reboot... Which has led some people down the rabbit hole. So, if you do online clones, it works best when the destination disk is a newly formatted drive. Otherwise, If Acronis detects an existing OS on the destination (i.e. a previous clone), you'll likely end up in reboot land in order to proceed and we should try to avoid allowing the product to reboot into the Linux preboot environment at the expense of modifying the windows bootloader... Especially since bios settings can be a road block (secureboot enabled, legacy vs uefi mode, lack of drivers for some configurations such as Intel Optane or IRST, bitlocker, etc.).

So, a clean destination is optimal. Otherwise, just starting with rescue media can be a safer option on some systems, so we avoid any potential bootloader changes that might not be as forgiving on some computers compared to others.

I have been burnt before when my company laptop hard drive died on me...so on my own PC (which I also use for work) I use Acronis to run a weekly backup to a spare SSD.

I also periodically clone the whole thing to yet another SSD so I have double redundancy. I really should have known I would have an issue when I did my last clone though, as it never finished with a completed message...I just could not be bothered to run it again assuming it was OK - lesson learned

I ran another just now and it has completed so I am back to a fully working system, recent backup and also cloned drive.

I am not a huge fan of cloud backups and cloud based storage. I've had personal experience of server hosting sites in New York, Australia etc crashing and making website or parts of websites unavailable. My company runs our own servers in a secure room, so if we have any issue we can investigate and remedy instantly. Yeah I know the cloud is the way forwards... but maybe I will migrate in another couple of years or so 

 

 

Good stuff on the status of backups.

Im not giving up my local backups for cloud anytime soon either. I do take cloud backups so I have an off-site alternative in the event of total failure from a local option (fire burns it all down or something), but the speed, accessibility and reliability of local backups still make them my go to.