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Basic guidance needed

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I had my WD hard drive crash a while back. They sent a replacement to the repair shop. I gave them my Maxtor with the ATI image on it and what I thought was an ATI resuce disc. However, they said when they tried to use it, it lacked USB support. They wound up restoring my data by copying onto another hard drive and doing other things I cannot remember. I need to find out how/what went wrong so that I might create another resuce disc that works. I would put it on a CD. I would like to have a CD but also could I put the resuce disc and my backup images on the Maxtor. What I really need is the latest edition of "ATI for Really Big Dummies" Is there a book I could get instead of the Help file to walk me through the process? TYIA!

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There aren't any options for configuring USB support, etc. when you create a TI boot disc. The drivers are built in, so it depends on the actual hardware used for the restore. There's also an "ISO Linux" boot image that you can download, and this image uses different drivers. (Check your account for download links.) Sometimes one boot disc will work better than the other.

That said, because USB support is still "iffy," I keep both a PS2 mouse and keyboard around just for these situations. If I find I can't use my USB keyboard and/or mouse, I simply shut down the system, hook up the PS2 device(s), and away I go. Even if your machine doesn't have the physical connectors for PS2 devices, this "repair shop" should have been able to find a workaround. Frankly I question just how much the techs at your repair shop know.

It's not so much an "ATI for Really Big Dummies" that you and your repair shop need, it's a better knowledge of hardware and how drivers and software work with it. Further, in time there will be better support for USB input devices.

Good luck.

You can also download a 'safe' version which uses BIOS calls rather than Linux drivers, which might work.

You will find this in your account on the Free Plugins tab.

Once downloaded and installed, remake the rescue CD which will now have the extra option on the menu. Test it on your system to make sure it works for you, and hopefully it'll work on another machine as well. The alternative is to either make a BartPE or a WindowsPE boot disk. As these will use Windows drivers, they are the most likely to work in all situations.

I find myself in need of restoring the image again. Some malware attacked my system and I think I goofef up restoring a registry, so everything is fubar. Now based on what's above, what are the steps I should take? I have a MyBackup.tib file. The Maxtor has only a usb connection. I have a PS2 keyboard and port on the unit. HOw would I get started? Do I have to give a lot of directions or does it just need one command? This would be to my new hard dirve, of course. Thanks in advance for the information.

Hi Gregory,

Try enabling USB for DOS (the "Enabled" option) in your computer's BIOS. This setting, hopefully, will allow the Acronis Recovery CD to access the USB hard disk. Also in BIOS, set "non-Plug&Play OS installed." This setting will tell the BIOS to control and enumerate all Plug&Play devices so that they are accessible even by DOS during bootup. Finally, set "Assign IRQ for VGA" so that (hopefully) you won't see any blank screen when booting with the Acronis Recovery CD.

Finally, be sure to write down each BIOS setting's original setting so that you can put them back to the way they were after completing your restore. Why? Sometimes changing specific BIOS settings can cause Windows not to boot. A good example is turning off RAID support in BIOS. Doing so, if Windows has RAID drivers installed, can cause a BSOD during boot and infinite reboots while trying to boot into Windows. Changing this BIOS setting back to its previous value instantly resolves this issue which really is a RAID driver issue.

Hello Gregory,

I will definitely help you and resolve the issue you have experienced.

1. Most likely, the version of bootable CD you've used doesn't detected USB adapter or detected it incorrectly. I've sent you a link to ISOLINUX CD that twokatmew mentioned via PM. It is based on an alternate bootloader and includes a different set of hardware drivers, so it should help you.

However, please note that you're using an outdated version of Acronis True Image Home and I can recommend you to update your software to have the most recent hardware and OS support and new features.

2. Basically, the restoration procedure is quite simple. You need to boot off using Acronis Rescue Media, start Restore Wizard, select the archive you want to restore and finally select the destination.

Thank you.