Acronis True Image 2014 with Crucial M500 makes Windows 8.1 act abnormal

I recently reinstalled TI 2014 and the system started working erratic again. Does anyone have any idea what might cause this. TI 2014 is totally unusable for me at the moment and all my backups are made with it. Please help.

Sounds like a conflict between TI and some other application(s) you have installed. Some known culprits are Roxio Disc Creator and Zonealarm.

I installed Acronis TI 2014 on a perfectly working stable system - the specs are below. I have reinstalled Acronis 2014 twice now for confirmation of the issue. The issue is that when I attempt to view any video file from any program (except occasionally QuickTime) the video image is entirely black or green. This is applicable in DivX, Windows Media Player 12, Windows Media Center, Cyberlink Power DVD13 Pro and IE 11 when I go to YouTube for example.

I uninstalled the AMD drivers for the Video card and tested the system with the Microsoft drivers, with no change.
I reinstalled the previous versions of AMD drivers and there was no change.
I reinstalled the newest current drivers, and there was also no change.

I then uninstalled Acronis TI 2014 completely without using System Restore and upon rebooting, the video players (all) worked correctly.

Then I searched the forums looking for some assistance and I found out that I was not alone when it comes to issues with Acronis TI 2014. I need not repeat what many have already stated.

Chassis: Desktop
Mainboard: Intel DX58SO2
Total Memory: 48GB DIMM DDR3
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz (4C 8T 3GHz/3.33GHz, 2.13GHz IMC, 4x 256kB L2, 8MB L3)
Socket/Slot: FC LGA1366
Storage Devices
INTEL SSDSC2CW240A3 (240GB, SA:224GB (C:)
INTEL SSDSC2CW120A3 (120GB, SA:112GB (D:)

Video Adapter: (Crossfire) AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series (640 SM5.0 1GHz, 2GB DDR5 4.6GHz 128-bit, PCIe 2.00 x16)
Video Adapter: (Crossfire) AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series (640 SM5.0 1GHz, 2GB DDR5 4.6GHz 128-bit, PCIe 2.00 x16)

Yes, it seems that ATI and some video adapters and drivers do not play nice together.

Are the video drivers ones provided by Windows 8.1 or from AMD?

Sorry for the late reaction.

My system has been running for a few weeks now without any problems (and very, very fast btw ;-) so the conclusion must be that the TI installation is causing it.

Yes, could be a confilict indeed. At the time of installation not much was installed on the system though. Of course all the Microsoft Stuff is active (FireWall, Defender, etc.). Next I needed to recover a backup but we all know how that went. How to uncover which application, service, driver, etc. is causing this is going to prove pretty difficult and at least very time consuming.

Since the new Windows 8.1 installation a lot of programs have been installed. I've attached an image of the 'Programs & Features' overview.

I had similar issues caused by ATI's context menu option. Disabling this solved all related problems.

Sorry should have been a new topic

hi,

I have the same problem now too !!

Since two years I used a "Crucial m4 256 GB SSD" with Acronis True Image Home,
no problems.

Today I bought a "Crucial m500 240GB SSD" and cloned my old "m4" to the "m500".

After a few minutes, windows does not work, cant close any windows or programms,
or cant restart windows, it hangs "Restarting Windows".

So first I un-installed my Antivirus programm... did not help, then I googled for
"m500 problems" I get this thread here, so I uninstalled Acronis True Image... and there
it goes Windows works perfect again.

my system:

- Windows 8.1 Pro /w MediaCenter
- 8GB DDR3
- Intel i7 2600k
- Asus P8P67

so I downloaded the latest version auf Acronis again, and tried to install it,
but while installation process Windows did "freeze" again, I can move the mouse
but cant close any progamms or could restart windows... so hard reset, and removed
acronis again...

any solutions ?

Hi Paul,

No, TI is dead in the water for me. I've not reinstalled it. We have to get support from Acronis for this to be solved. I've been using my system a lot since I uninstalled and it has been stable always.

Regards
Paul

For those still following this thread, had another post from another user of an m500 crucial drive and Win 8.1 that solved his instability issue by updating his storage drivers to the latest Intel RST drivers. The version number is 12.9.0.1001. If you are interested in trying this you can find the download at this link:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=23538

I was sure I had installed the Intel RST Drivers last month...

But I installed them now, and it seems to work with Acronis True Image 2014 ...

no errors or bugs yet

hope this was the solution

thx !

I have the same problem on a new AMD build that includes a Crucial M500. With TI installed, Windows 8.1 is unstable and soon freezes. With TI uninstalled, the system works fine. I am convinced from all I've read that TI/Crucial M500 incompatibility is the issue.

Of course, the Intel RST Driver fix won't work for me. Does anybody know a fix for an AMD system?

AMD A10-5800K
ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+
G.SKILL DDR3-2133 2x4GB
Crucial M500 SSD
Western Digital HDD
Corsair CX430M
Windows 8.1 64 bit

You should first make sure that your SSD has the latest firmware installed also, make certain that your AMD storage and chipset drivers are the latest available. Additionally, make sure your bios is updated to the latest version. Other than that there is not much else to do. The problem is with the storage drivers used with the M500 drive. Those drivers are OS or storage vendor specific.

I can confirm that the suggestion to install the latest Intel drivers has worked for me. No more instability.

@Enchantech:

Thanks, but firmware, drivers, bios were all updated as of my first post. Like Paul, the only solution I have for now is to do without TI on this build and another AMD build very similar to it, also with a Crucial M500. Too bad, because both were purposely set up with second internal drives for incremental TI imaging.

It would be great if Acronis looked into this, but I don't expect they will.

I do not expect Acronis to look into it either as it is device driver support that is at fault here and not related to the TI app itself. TI uses the native installed drivers on a device to access a drive, if those drivers have issue then that is a problem of the device, not the application.

@Enchantech: Point taken.

Problem fixed. Crucial M500 must be running firmware version MU05.

At the time of my first post Crucial's utility had reported firmware on the drive was current and would not update it, so I had moved on to other troubleshooting. Days later I checked info on the drive with HD Tune. It showed firmware version MU03, which I knew was not the most current. I updated to MU05 manually (iso>DVD>boot) and the Windows instability problem disappeared on both computers with the M500 drives.

Well glad your back on track.

@Enchantech: Thanks and cheers.

@Paul Sinnema: I have had the exact same problem with Windows 8.1, Acronis TI2014/2015 and Crucial M500 480GB. The only thing I changed on my PC was swapping out Intel 330 120GB for a Crucial M500. Uninstalling TI solved the problem for me. Unfortunately, installing the latest Intel driver did not fix anything for me. I guess I have to switch to some other backup solutions :(

Hello,
I have the same problem with Windows 8.1 and Acronis True Image 2015. With ATI installed, Windows 8.1 is unstable and soon freezes. I have to restart the System by powerbutton. Without ATI the system is running without any problems.
MSI 785GM-E51
AMD Phenom X6
Crucial M550 256 GB Firmware MU02
Windows and all drivers are updated.

Your Crucial M500 Firmware version you say is MU02! That version is out of date you should check the Crucial support site to obtain the latest version. As of this thread which is quite old the latest firmware version was MU05. While on the support site make sure you read the "how to" for a firmware update on the drive.

Hi Enchantech,
It's a Crucial M550, last firmware is MU02! I just checked it on the Crucial support site.

I would contact Crucial Support and make certain that the MU02 firmware is the latest for the drive. If that checks out then you have some other issue. Are you running Norton Internet Security Suite by chance? Have seen a thread or two here about that causing conflict with TI.

Hi,
there are some other threads about conflicts with Crucial SSD an ATI. I'm in contact with the ATI support, I hope they find the problem. I'm not running Norton.

You are correct there have been issues reported about conflicts with TI and some Crucial drives. At last report they are being investigated.

I am absolutely certain that Acronis True Image (obviously in various vintages) is the culprit. My evidence: In November 2014, I purchased two Crucial M550 512 Gb drives to replace the HDD's in two very different PC's: 1) Fujitsu Esprimo Q1510 small form factor PC (Core i3, 4 Gb RAM), 2) Dell XPS L501 laptop (Core i5, 8 Gb RAM) - both running Windows 8.1 x64 Upgrade 1 with all the latest updates and patches. For both PC's I have used Crucial's SSD guide on the website to find a suitable SSD to replace the original HDD and in both instances the M550 have been among the recommended upgrades. Nevertheless I have experienced the exact same problems as reported by Paul Sinnema at the beginning of this thread.

It was a pure coincidence that I stumbled across this thread and uninstalled True Image - on the Dell from an existing Win 8.1 installation and on the Fujitsu from a brand new and fresh installation. In both instances it did the trick: Both PC's are now running smoothly on their Crucial M550, firmware 02.

It is all the more surprising that True Image was the cause of all the problems as Acronis seems to be among Crucial's close partners: Crucial is delivering True Image 2014 as one of their software offerings for cloning HDD's to SSD's. And yet they haven't bothered to test M550 on systems with True Image 2013, 2014, or 2015 installed.

I am going to post these experiences on Crucial's user forum as well, as I have used countless hours trying to make my two new SSD's Work. All in vain, until I discovered this simple solution.

For those reading this thread:

Crucial M500 series SSD uses firmware MU05 as the latest revision.

Crucial M550 series SSD uses firmware MU02 as the latest revision.

The above confirmed on the Crucial support site 01/29/2015.

If you are using Intel IRST drivers for your disk controllers make certain that those drivers are the latest available as this has worked for some users.

If you have an AMD based machine there have been no solutions to this problem that I am aware of to date. The only possible solution that I have read about is to make certain that the chipset drivers of those boards are current.

If you are experiencing like issues you should investigate if your machine is set to run in AHCI mode or IDE mode in your bios and make certain at that point that you are using the appropriate drivers for that mode.

I just posted the following in the Crucial SSD forum:

********

I was about to purchase a 240 G Crucial SSD but on the Acronis TI forum, there are a lot of messages about problems with this drive and Acronis. Has this been resolved?

I had no trouble converting my old Dell, running Vista, HDD with a 128 G Crucial SSD using Acronis TI 2013. Rather than trying to clone it- I made a full backup, then after booting with the Acronis media, did a full restore, and it worked perfectly.

On my latest Dell, running W8.1 64bit with a 256 G Samsung SSD, after doing some MS updates crashed the system- I managed to do a full restore from an Acronis TI 2015 backup. Before I update the system to W10, I thought that, not being 100% confident in either the upgrade process or Acronis to restore the system if needed, I've decided to buy another SSD drive and install that before retrying the MS updates and moving to W10- and probably one from Crucial, only to now hear about the problem with some Crucial SSDs and some versions of Acronis with some versions of Windows. Does anyone have a grip on this problem- as to exactly what combination of factors results in a problem? Has it been fixed? I could of course buy a different brand of SSD, but I was very satisfied with the previous SSD purchase from Crucial so I'd buy my next one if I think it'll work OK with Acronis.

Joe

**********

I've read most of the messages on this problem. It seems that  most people were cloning the drives rather than doing what I've done in the past- make a full backup, then do a restore from that. Might this be relevant? I wouldn't think so, but I'm no hardware geek. I suppose I can just give up on Crucial and buy something else- probably look for another Samsung- an identical SSD if I can find one, which I should think would work OK from an Acronis restore.

So, has anybody had problems with ATI and other brands of SSD drives?

Joe