Disk Recovery fixed in Acronis TIH 2013?
In A T I H 2012, we have a problem with Disk Recovery.
We have two Latitude E5430, the hard drives are identical, one have windows 8, the other windows 7.
I took an image from the windows 8 machine, and selected complete disk backup.
When I started the windows 7 machine up in Acronis, I selected 'Create New Disk' on windows 7 disk with MBR, but not creating partitions (so the whole disk contains only unallocated space).
Selected Recovery and then the image, but for every partition that is supposed to be recovered, I have to select destination partition (which is unallocated). And when I came to the last partition (primary active partition C: , NTFS which contains the OS), Acronis claims that there is not enough space left.
Even if there is 290.6 GB available, and the last partition only contains ca. 290.4 GB.
Is this made better in 2013 version? Because we are musing about purchasing 2013 version.
Since we have so many PC's and recover image so often, we want it to be as simple as this:
Select image to recover, select destination drive, and Acronis automatically makes a partition on destination drive, without we having to manually select destination partition for every partition from image.
Feel free to move this post to Acronis Older Versions, if you feel that it fits better there.
Thanks In Advance!
- Andrew
Yes, that is correct! A disk that was Windows 7 on. The only difference between these two computers, is that the one I'm trying to recover the windows 8 image to, had Windows 7 when delivered to us, just to test if we wanted to be using windows 7 or 8 on the other 77 identical Latitude E5430 PC's we are going to purchase from Dell.
But Acronis won't let me select the unallocated space left on the windows 7 PC disk as destination for the OS partition, even if the unallocated space left on the disk has more space left then needed for the partition.
See attached jpeg.
Do both machines use MBR for disk partition layouts? It is very possible that the Windows 8 system is using GPT instead of MBR. Have you tried to create a GPT disk using the "add a new disk" tool in Acronis bootable media, on the target drive in the Windows 7 system, and then perform the same steps?
Hmm, I tried to choose 'Add new disk' with 'GPT', then the recovery allowed me to select the unallocated space on destination hard drive, but failed with error 'Recovery Operation Failed' 3 seconds after starting to recover OS partition.
What does the log show?
Have you tried to create a sector-by-sector mode (un-allocated space does not need to be included) backup image, and use it to do the restore?
Log says it's empty, even if i check the log right after getting 'Recovery Operation Failed' error.
Just tried backup sector by sector, and the backup finished.
But when i tried to recover the image to the disk, same problem here, Acronis won't let me choose to recover OS partition to the unallocated space left on destination disk after I selected 'Add New Disk' with MBR.
However, if i do select GPT (Only to test how that would work out), the recovery completes, and PC reboots, but then of course it get's error message 'Invalid Partition Table!'.
Also, backup/recover sector by sector would take too long time for us, if we were going to do this every time we would need to backup/recover image for the 77 Dell Latitude E5430.
First, let's be clear on what the original (Windows 8 system) disk is. Is it an MBR disk, or is it a GPT disk? This is critical to know in advance, as it has to be restored to the same type of partition structure (MBR vs. GPT). Attempting to use the wrong partition structure on the target drive will result in a non-working system.
The invalid partition table error could result from incorrect use of MBR vs. GPT, having the wrong partition marked as "active" on the target disk, or restoring the partitions in the wrong order to the target disk.
There are a couple of approaches I would suggest.
When doing the restores (to the correct type of partition structure), try and restore each partition individually while booted to the Rescue Media. Do not exit the Rescue Media after each partition restore, but start again with Recover My Disks, and select the next partition on the disk for restore. Continue to do this for all the partitions. If it is an MBR disk, after the restores of the partitions, restore the MBR/track 0 and the disk signature (Disk ID) as a last step. If it is a GPT disk, the MBR/track 0 and disk signature (Disk ID) restores are not necessary or recommended. Be sure to open Windows Disk Management on the Windows 8 system, and note the partition order and the "active" partition. You would want to make the target disk look identical to the source disk (Partition order and "active" status of the correct partition)
The second option, would be to sign up for the 2013 trial, and register the 2013 trial serial number. Once the 2013 trial serial number is registered, you will then have the ability to download the bootable Rescue Media ISO that can be used to create a CD/DVD of the 2013 trial Rescue Media. You could use the 2013 trial Rescue Media to do the restores, to see if your results are any different. You do not need to install the 2013 trial to use the 2013 trial Rescue Media. You can not use the 2013 trial Rescue Media to perform backup or clones, but the restore function works without limitations.
The sector-by-sector approach was just for testing, and is normally not needed.
Be sure to check the BIOS/UEFI firmware settings/versions and be sure the settings/versions on the target system match the settings on the Windows 8 source system.
The source disk is Windows 8 with GPT.
Both got boot partition marked as active. Hmm, I didn't know that about not restoring if GPT, but there was no option either to do so.
When I try to recover partition for partition individually, it recovers completely fine, until I get to the C:\ NTFS partition (OS partition), even if i try to recover it first of all partitions, i get the error ' Recovery Operation Failure' 3seconds into the process.
I might be trying out the 2013 trial later, but do you think that it will make much difference? Is there a major difference between 2012 and 2013 when it comes to handling windows 8 images?
I did reset both PC's BIOS/UEFI to default. And I double checked that every setting matched
Edit: This time i got a log in Acronis, see file attachment below.
Why is it that i get error 'Index corrupted' when recovering image to ex. Windows 7 destination disk, when I checked the box for turn off computer when image is finished backed up from Windows 8 source disk?
The error message you are seeing is because for some reason Acronis thinks the "C" partition backup image (even if part of the full disk image) has a problem.
On the Windows 8 system that the backup image is being created from, please run Windows chkdsk from an administrative command prompt using the /r switch to check for and fix, file system errors, and perform a surface scan (chkdsk C: /r). If Windows finds and corrects any errors, create a new full disk image of the Windows 8 system and attempt the restore again.
2012 and 2013 are very similar in appearance, but "under the hood" so to speak, there have been many changes to the program. Some helpful, some not so helpful. 2013 is the only version that is supported running on Windows 8.
Using 2012 bootable Rescue Media to image the Windows 8 system should work fine as long as the 2012 Rescue Media can "see" all the hard disks in your systems correctly. Restoring from 2013 or 2012 Rescue Media should also work okay. I don't think there are many differences between the two versions of the Rescue Media, but even slight changes can bring differing results. That is why I also suggested the 2013 Trial Rescue Media ISO as an option for testing purposes.
Hmm, chkdsk /r get's stuck(not frozen,just won't go further) at 27%, seems like it's a known problem in Windows 8.
Going to look for a soloution for that problem first then.
OK, after waiting for 2hours the PC continued with the chkdsk, and finished on 100%, without finding any problems.
Started up the PC, took a sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown, and then took image of whole windows 8 disk, recovered all paritions at same time, "Invalid partition table!"
Recovered partition for partition individually, "Invalid Partition Table!"
Ok, so default BIOS settings was not the same on both machines, on ex. win7 machine, uefi boot was not enabled. I used the 'clone partitions to disk' in tool and utillities. So now we got the win8 image onto the ex. win7 disk, but as both machines now start up, we get error 'Windows could not finish the configuration....'.
I'm going to do a search for a soloution for that problem as well, and see if it boots up. Probably the sysprep that messed it up.