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Acronis does not recognize C drive

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Windows 10, recently updated.

I have an Acronis boot disk for backups and have been using it for several years.  Now it does not recognize my C drive.

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Bryan, what version of Acronis is installed on the boot media you are using?

I see the thee lettered drives there, but it's the labels that seem weird on Disk One. Also, is D: (TERRABYTE) a separate drive or a partition on the C: drive?

Where is Disk 2?

Is this repeatable?

What does Disk Management show?

 

 

Bryan,

It looks to me like Windows 10 update may have converted your Disk 1 from an MBR/Legacy booted disk to that of a UEFI booted disk.  Disk 1 shows 3 partitions, a 500MB Primary Active partition, a 464.8GB Primary partition which is likely C:, and a 529MB partition which is likely a Recovery partition. 

Can you use Windows Run box to access MSINFO by typing msinfo.exe and pressing Enter?  Once this command opens the MSINFO window look for Boot Mode in the list and post back what that shows.

Hello,

I visited MSINFO by searching for and running mcsino32.exe.  I did not recognize anything that looks like Boot Mode.  Item: components -> CD-ROM does not have it.

The three top categories are: Hardware Resources, Components, and Software environment.

I will upload an image from Disk Management.  There were four physical drives installed/connected.  

C drive is the boot drive.  its a Samsung 500 Gig SSD

D drive is my data drive, not a partition, Samsung 500 Gig SSD

E drive is a 500 Gig platter drive.  I want to back up to that drive and keep it off line.

G drive is my Sony blu ray drive with the Aconis boot disk.

I boot from that drive to do the backup.  Up until recently I was able to do a full backup of the C drive.  As can be seen, it is now showing the 500 Gigs of the C drive / boot drive.

Hmm, after posting this, I will put the C drive in another slot and see what happens.  This computer has a four drive SATA adapter where all four can be inserted and removed from the front of the computer.

Edit:  After several hours of messing around and moving SATA cables, I now conclude:

1.  Acronis does not like drive 0

2.  Acronis usually does not like the SSDs that I use.

And/But  Something more seems flakey.  After booting Acronis with my C and D drives installed, and two drives for backup, and seeing three drives, excluding drive 0, boot back to windows.  The computer says no bootable drive.

Remove all but the C drive and it boots.  Then I can re-install the D drive and it boots.

The motherboard is an MSI gaming motherboard.  Ram is 32 Gig.

Acronis is: Acronis True Image Home 2011

Are there any known problems with SSD, Samsung 500 Gig?

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Bryan, in the first System Summary panel that opens when running MSINFO32, the BIOS mode is shown on the right side part way down the page.  It will show either UEFI or Legacy / disk make/name.

If your version of Acronis is as you state, ATI 2011, then sorry but at 10 years + age, I am a little surprised it works as well as described!  It does not have any support or knowledge of UEFI / GPT systems as predates the introduction of these.

If your main OS drive has an EFI System partition, then you have a UEFI boot system (sorry but couldn't tell this from your disk management image).

Bryan,

Looking at your Disk Management screenshot I see in fact that your Disk 0 OS drive first partition is marked as Healthy, System, Active.  The fact that this partition is marked Active indicates the disk is of an MBR/Legacy boot format.  UEFI/GPT disks do not use the Active flag.

Based on your description: "Hmm, after posting this, I will put the C drive in another slot and see what happens.  This computer has a four drive SATA adapter where all four can be inserted and removed from the front of the computer."

This suggests that your PC uses a 4 bay drive adapter cage which you use for your installed disks.  Disk Management shows that all installed disks are attached to independent SATA connectors on your motherboard as is standard for such adapters.

Given the above it is my opinion that your problem is a bad SATA data cable used for Disk 0.  Replace that cable with aq known good or preferable new cable to test if that clears up the issue.  If the problem persists I would then suspect the interface connector between the adapter cage and the physical disk itself which would require replacement of the adapter to remedy.

 

 

FYI, the MVP Assistant System Configuration page identifies the BIOS mode as well as providing more detail about each disk and partition.

 

Steve Smith

BIOS Mode is Legacy

I should find out if this mother board supports UEFI.  How important might that be?

You note Acronis is 10 years old.  Had not thought of that, but good point.  I visited the Acronis site and did not recognize anything for off line backups.  Everything there, and pretty much all backup software, wants to use the cloud and want to schedule backups.  I don’t want either one.  I back up to a hard drive and keep the backups in a safe.  If I get ransomware, just restore the backup(s) and I am done.

Ehchantech,

You are exactly right, a four bay drive.  Four SATA cables from motherboard to each drive.  It boots and runs just fine.  Why might Acronis have a problem with disk 0, but not Windows?  I don’t know, but will move cables around and check that.

The motherboard is an MSI gaming item, but I don’t do much games.  Maybe time for an upgrade.  I have a nice video card, 32 gig memory, and 1000 watt power supply.  AMD 8350 eight core CPU at 4 Ghz.  If Dell sells motherboards, they make it hard to find.  Suggestions for a new motherboard?

Bryan,

I have another suggestion.  I think you should assign a name your C: volume such as Win-10.  This way when you boot using boot disk each drive will be displayed by name.  Relying on drive letters is not good as they can change when using a boot disk.

After assigning a name to the C: volume boot the PC using the Acronis boot disk and verify that the Windows drive is still missing. I think that your screenshot showing hard drives shows Disk 1 having 3 partitions and is in fact your C: drive that Disk Management shows as Drive 0. 

You may have a faulty I/O panel on your drive adapter and that is causing this behavior.  Assigning a name to your Windows disk will help in troubleshooting this issue.

As for motherboards, I would work with what you have and just replace the adapter cage if needed. 

Enchanatech,

The dvd/blu-ray player has been getting a bit flakey about putting the disk in.  After my last post, after opening the drive, there was a small spring rolling around.  Small means about 1/4 inch long with 10 turns. Had to use a big magnifying glass to see that.  With tremors in my hands, I am not getting that back where it belongs.  A 30 minute drive to Best Buy and back and the only blue ray in stock was a latter model of the same drive, minus $117.

The motherboard has six SATA ports so I skipped the first two and moved to 2,3,4, and 5.  Regardless of how the drives are arranged, Acronis only sees three of them.  It cannot see my data drive.  On the boot drive, Acronis calls the boot drive C and D.  And it calls the first drive 1, not 2 as expected.  It shows the hard drive in port 5, but does not call it 5.

Good thought on changing the name of the boot drive.  But it won't let me.  I went to control panel -> Computer Management -> Disk Management

Oops, change that. Figured it out.  Will try some more with Acronis.

 

Bryan,

You may find different but again my suspicion is either flaky cables, a bad I/O board on the back of your 4 bay adapter where your cables plug in, or now that you found an issue with your DVD, that drive may have caused some issue in Windows.

What I am going to suggest is a real pain but worth the effort to attempt to regain normalcy.  Follow these steps:

  • With PC shutdown, disconnect all drives, internal and external including optical
  • Start PC and allow it to show No boot device found
  • Hold down power button until PC shutdown then, connect your Windows C: drive only.  Now start the PC.
  • After Windows boots check Disk Management and make note of Disk assignment number and letter.
  • Next shutdown PC again then, connect the next data drive and then boot the PC.  Check and make note of Disk Management assignments.
  • Repeat above for all disks connecting the optical drive last.

This procedure should clear all previous assignments for disks in the PC bios and Windows.  I would think this would cure the C and D behavior you see in Acronis which I think is a condition of your bios.  It may be necessary to return your bios to the default settings to get things back in order.  In my 40 years of build PC's this has been necessary many times.

Quick comment on drive numbering!

Windows starts numbering drives from 0

Acronis starts numbering drives from 1.

Re: Windows starts numbering drives from 0

Acronis starts numbering drives from 1.

Or Really!!!!  I will try Enchantech's comments but will keep this in mind to see if it makes sense.

Edit

This MSI gaming mother board has six sata connections.  For testing, six cables were installed and left in position on the mother board.  The drive ends of the cables were moved around for testing.  Confidence is high that all six are functional cables.

Windows: it always calls the boot drive, drive 0.  All six slots.  Windows can access my data drive and both backup drives.  Boot drive and data drive are Samsung SSD drives.  The two backup drives are platter drives.

Acronis: For four out of six cables/slots, acronis calls the boot drive drive 1.  Twice it called it drive 2.  Yes, all six sata positions were tested.  It will not recognize the data drive in any position.  When the two backup drives are connected, it recognized them.

I suspect the motherboard is renaming the drives.  On boot the configurations were accessed and there is no user method of making the change.

Tonight I will boot it and see if Winzip will zip the entire data drive to a backup drive.  That may take most of the night.

Is there any way to force Acronis to recognize the data drive?