Acronis USB Key created fails to boot, freezes on Loading Please Wait
I have Acronis Tue Image 2015 latest build 6525 for Windows 8.1. Backups work fine but creating and trying to boot from recovery USB media fails every single time showing the Acronis logo after booting from USB key and then freezes on the "Loading Please Wait" for 30+ mins.
My laptop is an Aorus X7 Pro V3 running Intel i7 and has 2xUSB2 and 3xUSB3 ports and UEFI boot support.
I have gone into Acronis True Image 2015, Tools, Rescue Media Builder and chosen ACRONIS BOOTABLE RESCUE MEDIA, let it finish, restart my laptop, it starts to boot off the bootable USB 2 key that Acronis created it brings up the ACRONIS UEFI Loader I select 1 for True Image 2015, it then clears screen and says ACRONIS LOADING, PLEASE WAIT and doesn’t go any further even after 30 mins (it’s hung).
I have also installed Windows 8.1 ADK from Microsoft and ACRONIS UNIVERSAL RESTORE, I’ve gone into Tools, Rescue Media Builder and chosen WINPE-BASED MEDIA WITH ACRONIS PLUG-IN and that fails to boot from the USB drive entirely so doesn’t get as far as the first recovery media option.
So the first option ACORNIS BOOTABLE RESCUE MEDIA at least boots but then freezes where as the second option WINPE-BASED MEDA fails to even boot.
My BIOS is an American Megatrends X7V3 (BIOS FW Ver = FD06). BOOT Option Priorities are UEFI: USB MassStorage followed by Windows Boot Manager (INTEL), as I said the first recovery mode boots just fine but then freezes. Same thing happens if I try to burn the ISO to a CD and boot from it.
If I go into BIOS under Security tab it does say SYSTEM MODE=USER and SECURE BOOT=ACTIVE but I can't change the SECURE BOOT. Do I need to select DELETE ALL SECURE BOOT VARIABLES to be able to boot off a USB/CD? If so, will that render my current install of Windows bootable as useless? Of will it just allow me to unlock the BIOS to boot from any device including the internal hard disk with Windows installed already? What I'm trying to do is get to the stage where I can just test out the Acronis Boot Recovery USB/CD and not actually perform a full restore at this stage.
I’ve waded through the PDF manual which doesn’t troubleshoot this kind of thing and looked at countless forum posts. Even created a Support Chat ticket and Support couldn’t help me out.
How do I resolve this?! Or do I need to request a refund on the product as it’s not working properly?
I did try contacting Aorus the manufacturer of the laptop but have had no response yet. It seems I can only delete the Secure Boot keys and not actually disable Secure Boot.
I should in theory be able to create a rescue media builder using WINPE-BASED MEIA WITH ACRONIS PLUG-IN but that fails to boot wither if I choose a WIM or ISO file to USB key unless I am doing something wrong.
I do not think you are doing anything wrong. Secure boot needs to be disabled in order to bypass the security of the UEFI. Manufacturers have the ability to set the Secure Boot keys and configure UEFI in any manner they choose so it is essential that you get first hand information from them in disabling and re-enabling that feature. It is common that the deletion of Secure Boot Keys to enable disabling the Secure Boot feature is not a problem as the keys are regenerated upon enabling the feature once again but as I say each manufacturer can set these things in any manner so is best to get the correct procedure from them before proceeding.
Thanks for the update. I did hear on Security Now podcast episode 500 back in March that a new breed of UEFI BIOS PC's will be coming for Windows 10 and they won't be able to disable the secure boot, in the current world state the only devices that UEFI can't be disabled on are Windows RT devices (and Windows phones). I think I may have one of these new breed of laptops unfortunately as it's a new laptop with a Gigabyte motherboard.
I did think about deleting the ALL SECURE BOOT VARIABLES (keys) but didn't want to attempt that yet until I've heard back from Aorus (manufacturer) just in case that left my Windows 8.1 non-bootable ruined state. I think it will most likely boot but just provide a Windows watermark bottom right of desktop saying UEFI isn't securely enabled from what other sources have suggested but not 100% sure as this is the first time I'm looking to do it.
After lots of hassle I have managed to now boot a USB key via WINPE-BASED MEDIA WITH ACRONIS PLUG-IN but it's taken me about 6 hours and that will now boot and I can see my Acronis backup to restore from, so I'm hoping that would be good enough without the need to disable Secure Boot. Hopefully if I were to do a restore from my existing backup as it's still Windows 8.1 it wouldn't have a problem with Secure Boot still being enabled.
So if anyone else in the future hit this same problem, what I've been trying to do was create a USB key with FAT32 and selecting to create ACRONIS BOOTABLE RESCUE MEDIA (1st option) and it failed to fully boot probably because of Secure Boot being enabled.
I've then been playing with the second option (WINPE-BASED MEDIA WITH ACRONIS PLUG-IN) and tried both the ISO image to CD and that fails to boot the CD with a USB CD drive attached. I've also tried creating the ISO on the USB key and the WIM (Windows Image File) on the USB key, both fail to boot. Finally worked out that if I create an ISO to my desktop, open the ISO file, then copy the contents onto the USB key, now boot with that USB key, it works. Didn't see that in any of the instructions for Acronis anywhere, or if they were in the PDF manual maybe I overlooked that. That at least got me to be able to book with the WINPE version. Thought it's worth mentioning for anyone new at this stuff because doing this for the first time it wasn't that apparent to me that you had to create an ISO / Image, then extract it and copy it onto the USB key :)
I'm also going to wait to see what Aorus come back with regarding disabling the Secure Boot, hopefully it's possible and it's easy.
Dave: I'm currently experiencing the exact same issue you described in your posts above. When I attempt to boot my PC from a rescue USB my system goes as far as the "Loading, please wait" and then nothing further. Of course I had tried all the basic troubleshooting by trying different USB sticks and also USB ports, but all to no avail. Tested USB sticks on different laptop and all works fine. I even tried a Win7 bootable USB stick (I had made it for a different project) to see if it was a PC booting issue, but the PC booted up exactly as it should have. So not necessarily an Acronis issue, and not necessarily my PC issue, but definitely a conflict between the 2 of them.
After reading your post how you worked around the issue I have to ask if you managed to improve on that method at all. I ask this as although I could follow in your footsteps it would be somewhat new ground for me. I researched the whole Windows AIK (which to be honest I'd never heard of before)which I understand I would need to install to be able to progress to creating an ISO. All doable, but as I said new ground for me. As you've resolved the issue for yourself I'm presuming you didn't spend anymore time on it, but thought it worth at least asking if you came up with a less cumbersome resolution.
And kudos to you for investing your time and creativity to the issue - 6 hours for you would probably equate to 6 days for me!
Hi Sean, good to see we're both in good company with the same problem. So good news is I fixed it! I created a bootable ISO image initially and here are the instructions...
If you don't have an internal CD drive, plug in an USB CD burning drive
Go into Acronis Backup go to Tools > RESCUE MEDIA BUILDER and create an ISO image, select your CD/DVD Burner and burn a CD. Booting from the CD fixed the problem, however it will hang just like the USB did, but for me I thankfully discovered it after I went away, made a coffee and came back and it worked. I tried it again and timed it and to boot from CD recovery it takes a whopping 5m 30s to boot! Crazy eh? Must be loading a ton of stuff.
So after that I went back to using the USB boot, you need to make sure the BIOS will boot from USB as the first device. You can do this in the BIOS or do this in Windows
Now to restart in UEFI
1. In Windows 8.1 go to bottom right, click SETTINGS then CHANGE PC SETTINGS
2. Click UPDATE AND RECOVERY
3. Click RECOVERY
4. Under ADVANCED START-UP click RESTART NOW
5. Choose USE A DEVICE
6. Choose first option which should say UEFI: USB MASSSTORAGE DEVICE
7. Should boot from USB key and not C: drive
Now again boot from your USB key and wait for at least 1 min, maybe try up to 5 mins depends if you're using USB2 or USB3, I was using USB3 as it's faster, but again it will boot.
Basically Acronis Backup Recovery looks like nothing is working but it is actually loading a lot in the background just not updating the screen until it's finally finished. I guess they don't tell you that!
In both situations I made sure that the ONLY USB device plugged in was either the CD Drive or the USB Key (depending on which I booted from), no mice, webcams, nothing. Not even the drive you want to restore your backup from. Then once you manage to finally get into Acronis Recovery plug in your USB drive your backup is on, then it will detect it.
Also when you create your USB key if your computer came with Windows 8 installed it will likely have a UEFI BIOS, so you need to use the WINPE option to create your ISO CD / USB Key, the other method will not work. If your system is an older system and doesn't have Secure Boot in the BIOS enabled or it's disabled you may be able to use the other option.
Hope this helps.
And the man of the hour is...Dave! Followed your instructions and am happy to report that this DeathStar is now fully operational. (Well, apart from that whole exposed thermal exhaust port issue, but that's for another day.) Your steps were very clear and it all worked a treat with nothing out of the ordinary to report back. I'm running Win 7 Pro with UEFI BIOS so I used the WINPE option and it all went very smoothly. So many thanks indeed for doing the hard yards on this, and even moreso for sharing your knowledge. Very much appreciated.
Nice, glad it really helped you fix the problem Sean! I think all in all I probably spent a week between the original 6 hours trying to work out how to get it to work and then hitting other problems doing a full system restore through Acronis. One thing I found which you may hit into now and then was I was doing a complete partition (drive) backup with one full and then incremental backups. I restored one image then I found for some reason I couldn't then restart with a USB key, eventually managed to bypass this by using the ISO CD Rom image I created so definitely create one and test it can boot if you have a CD drive because that will be your ultimate backup.
Another problem I found (I've done about 4 restores) is that one time although Windows started fine I tried to see because of the not being able to boot from USB UEFI a KB article from Microsoft and other sites that suggest that Windows maybe corrupted, I tried to boot into the recovery mode and it failed to see Windows and asked me to insert a Windows CD which I don't have because it's an OEM install so I could 'fix' Windows. Strangely I did another restore a few days later back to a slightly earlier backup and that worked fine and I can get into recovery mode, so several lessons learned here....
1. Ensure you have a backup CD Rom boot of Acronis just in case, I now have 2x USB keys with Acronis and 2x CD's just in case
2. Ensure you have multiple backups. I'm actually doing a full backup then incremental for about 10 days then archiving these into another folder on the hard drive, and have backups spanning two hard drives.
Hopefully I will never need to restore again BUT I had some weird stuff happening with some NVIDIA drivers that seemed to be messing up some games on my gaming laptop and they kept freezing/glitching and dropping frame rate massively. However, Windows 10 is just around corner as a free update to Windows 7 upwards users, so make sure you do a full backup before you even contemplate upgrading to Windows 10 as a back out just in case! Windows 10 does have a roll back to previous OS (if you have enough space to store both old and new OS's) but again better to be safe than sorry.