Acronis MBR Error 13 - system unbootable
While trying to make a clone of an encrypted disks I started the process within Windows and went through the wizard. At the completion of the Wizard the program indicated that a reboot was necessary before doing the clone. My thinking was that there was pending changes from Windows Update and that it needed to be completed before it would allow me to clone the drive. All the other clone utilities I have used in the past worked fine within windows.
Wrong. Windows reboots and tries to boot into the Acronis WinPE envrionment. And fails. It briefly flashes the message MBR Error 13, and then goes into the Windows Recovery wizard. The recovery wizard can't do anything because it doens't have the encryption drivers so it can't see the Windows partition.
So, how do I stop it from trying to boot into the Acronis image software and restore my MBR to the one that recognizes the encryption? The Bootrec /FixMbr steps listed in the recovery KB are not going to work, I need to revert back to the boot environment before Acronis Changed it, not create a new one. I assume that Acronis would store any changes it made so it can revert them back, the question is how to flip that flag back.


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Not that it helps now... but I would send feedback suggesting that a Clone operation not even be allowed from Windows if disk encyryption is active. Seems like it would make sense to build this in as a failsafe to prevent someone from getting themselves into this type of situation.
A clone is handy when it works, but there is no safety-net without a a backup and the clone documentation recommends a backup before cloning as a precaution. Even then, Backups of encrypted drives can only be done from within windows while the disk is unlocked
With encrypted drives: 1) Backup must be taken while system is booted into the OS and unlockeed
2) Clones are not supported at all because a clone needs to be taken after the system has rebooted... hence when the drive is locked/encrypted. Sector-by-sector backup may be able to work on an encrypted drive, but I wouldn't count on it as the only option.
The only way I see walking away from this is if you have a good backup from before the clone attempt. Alternatively, if you can boot into the Windows recovery environment (Windows installation disk) and attempt to decrypt the drive completely from there, you might then be able to run startup repair and fix the bootloader after that.
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