Impossible to restore a TI 2015 image to a Lenovo Tablet 2 (win8) - $200 to anybody who can do this!
This is a long story but basically I can have two of these (one 3 years old and one unused) and need to clone the first to the second. Both have legal win8.
I have found only two ways: (1) backup and restore with the "windows 7 backup" feature in Control Panel (yes it is called that even on a win8 machine) and (2) do the same with Trueimage.
I can make TI backups with TI 2010 onwards and get the 32GB .tib file. I can also make the "win7" backups...
The problem is that this tablet will not boot from any external media!
I have disabled the UEFI BIOS in the BIOS options, which should solve the most obvious reason, but still nothing boots. It just boots into the OS. Sometimes it says "computer needs repair" and then boots into the OS.
TI 2015 got closer than most. I got a dark screen, with a little "loading UEFI something" text and it looked like it was restoring from the USB HD (connected via a powered USB hub of course). The screen was all blank but that is a known TI bug (it is apparently sending video to a remote monitor :)). I left it for 2 WEEKS and then rebooted it, only to find it did nothing.
The last option is to physically remove the HD from it, install it in a normal computer, and restore the TI backup onto that. I don't know whether the HD (SSD) is SATA, however. It may use a special connector.
I have spent many days on this and am happy to give 200 bucks or 200 euros to anybody who can restore this image on it. I am in the UK and would just send it airmail - it is worthless as it is.
You can find my contact details at peter2000.co.uk
Peter,
Have you tried WinPE rescue media? You can use any computer to create the WinPE media.
My recommendation is to enable UEFI and then see if the WinPE media will boot.
I do have a UEFI BIOS. It is the Lenovo Tablet 2 win8.0 tablet. UEFI cannot be enabled or disabled. But in the BIOS settings (of both machines) I have Secure Boot *disabled*.
I installed TI 2015 Trial on the target machine and created the normal boot CD (which doesn't boot). I then tried to create the WinPE boot CD and that process failed (I don't recall the exact error - would it by any chance need a DVD?).
I have spent a number of days on this already... if a winPE boot CD can be produced on any machine, could someone send me the CD image (ISO) via dropbox, for example?
Ideally I am looking for a bit of software which can clone one SSD to the other, over a network, without needing to boot the target machine from any boot media. I know this is obviously possible, but I don't think such a product exists.
I have now restored the target machine to factory state so I can start fresh. But now I can't get into the BIOS... pressing F12 repeatedly on a USB keyboard used to work but not anymore. Very frustrating!
If this wasn't a mission-critical application where I need to run a satellite phone (USB, windows XP 7 or 8 drivers only) I would chuck the Tablet 2 away and use a current Android tablet...
Peter, sorry to hear that this issue is continuing. Unfortunately the license terms prevent us from being able to share the Acronis bootable rescue media as .ISO as we are just users here too.
You could take this directly to Acronis Support and see what they can do to help you as a recovery issue though I would guess that they would want you to purchase a one-off support agreement as below at $20 (I believe).
4. Priority Pay Per Incident Support
- Related to the technical issues with the product
- Priced per incident
- Valid for 1 incident only
- 24x7
- Provided via e-mail, chat, phone
Response time:
- 1 business day
- immediate via chat
- immediate via phone
Ideally I am looking for a bit of software which can clone one SSD to the other, over a network, without needing to boot the target machine from any boot media. I know this is obviously possible, but I don't think such a product exists.
I am not aware of any solution that would offer the above method - you would definitely need to boot the target tablet from either the network or boot media in order to overwrite the internal drive with the clone data.
PXE Boot is the nearest I can think of but this would still require the tablet to be capable of booting from a PXE Server in order to restore a backup image from either an external or network drive.
I would suggest that ATIH 2017 would be the best product to use to get this clone done but you would need to purchase the full product to get all the needed functionality, though you could test the Trial version of the product and try creating the WinPE Rescue Media. See KB document: 2768: Trial Version Limitations of Acronis Products
Out of interest, where abouts are you in the UK?
In addition to not providing licensed Acronis software, Microsoft also does not allow the distribution of pre-built WinPE either and that is why Acronis is using open source Linux as the default, but has the capability to allow users to create winPE. Other backup programs (or any tools that use WinPE) also require that WinPE media be created locally. The full EULA for the WinPE is part of the ADK install and will reside in the following folder once installed:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Docs\Eula\en-us (note that "10" may be something else if you have an earlier ADK version installed)
This is the summary online though...
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/commercialize/manufacture/desktop/winpe-intro
Limitations
Windows PE is not a general-purpose operating system. It may not be used for any purpose other than deployment and recovery. It should not be used as a thin client or an embedded operating system. There are other Microsoft products, such as Windows Embedded CE, which may be used for these purposes.
To prevent its use as a production operating system, Windows PE automatically stops running the shell and restarts after 72 hours of continuous use. This period is not configurable.
When Windows PE reboots, all changes are lost, including changes to drivers, drive letters, and the Windows PE registry. To make lasting changes, see WinPE: Mount and Customize.
The default Windows PE installation uses the FAT32 file format, which poses its own limitations, including a maximum 4GB file size and maximum 32GB drive size. To learn more, see WinPE: Use a single USB key for WinPE and a WIM file (.wim).
Windows PE does not support any of the following:
- File server or Terminal Server use.
- Joining to a network domain.
- Connecting to an IPv4 network from Windows PE on an IPv6 network.
- Remote Desktop.
- .MSI installation files.
- Booting from a path that contains non-English characters.
- Running 64-bit apps on the 32-bit version of Windows PE.
- Adding bundled app packages through DISM (.appxbundle packages).
Note In general, use the latest version of WinPE to deploy Windows. If you are using customized WinPE for Windows 10 images, you may prefer to continue using your existing Windows PE image and run the latest version of DISM from a network location. To learn more, see Copy DISM to Another Computer.
I am near Brighton, Steve.
The attempt to create winPE media failed, with a useless message of some sort. I guess I could try reinstalling another TI trial (2017?) to see if it helps. The machine was restored from the recovery partition so anything TI left behind to prevent a trial working for another 30 days should have been removed too.
The SSD I have is something like 60GB (not sure, due to the recovery partition size varying between models according to what was preinstalled; this one has the full Office) which being over 32GB may have prevented winPE.
One day, last resort, I might prize open the case of the target machine and try a direct restory of the .tib onto the SSD, in another machine. Does anyone know what the SSD in the Tablet 2 looks like, from the SATA point of view? But if it isn't a normal SATA... are there adaptors?
BTW I also tried booting a fully tested (on multiple machines) installation DVD of winXP SP3. That didn't do anything at all.
Peter, I have sent you a private message.
Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 – 3679-25G with Atom x86 CPU, UEFI BIOS and GPT partitioned internal drive.
No recent ATIH 2014, 2016 or 2017 Rescue Media is recognised as boot media for this tablet regardless of being the standard Linux or Windows PE flavours of media, or whether created on 64-bit or 32-bit systems.
I tested this using a Targus USB 2.0 docking station connected to the tablet, with USB keyboard and mouse, and multiple different USB sticks all created by the Acronis Bootable Rescue Media Builder application. The test results are shown below:
Test: Tried to boot from ATIH 2017 Linux rescue media on USB stick.
Result: Shown UEFI boot menu and selected Acronis True Image but was left with a black / blank display with no further activity for an extended period.
Test: Tried to boot from ATIH 2017 WinPE rescue media on USB stick.
Result: USB boot device not recognised and tablet restarted back into Windows 8.
Note: Above media created on Windows 10 64-bit system.
Test: Tried to boot from ATIH 2017 WinPE boot CD.
Result: Same as above, CD not recognised as a boot device / media.
Test: Tried to boot from ATIH 2017 Linux & WinPE media on USB sticks created on 32-bit Atom CPU system (Samsung Netbook NC10).
Result: USB boot device not recognised and tablet restarted back into Windows 8.
Test: Tried to boot from ATIH 2014 Linux rescue media on USB stick.
Result: USB boot device not recognised and tablet restarted back into Windows 8.
Test: Tried to boot from 32-bit Macrium Reflect WinPE boot media on USB stick.
Result: Booted first time into Macrium Reflect rescue media application.
It very much looks like the Acronis Rescue Media does not cater for 32-bit CPU systems using UEFI boot / GPT disks.
ATIH 2014 Acronis System Report zip file attached created from installed application on restored tablet.
Note: I was able to restore a 32GB ATIH 2014 backup image to a spare 60GB laptop drive, then make a Macrium image of the 60GB drive and restore the Windows 8 and Recovery partitions to the tablet using Macrium rescue media, then boot successfully into the restored Windows 8 tablet OS.
Peter, I would strongly recommend opening a support ticket with Acronis for this issue, with reference to this forum thread and the fact that this issue is very much present in the latest ATIH 2017 build 5554 rescue media. You can also use the ATIH 2014 Feedback tool in the application to submit the same problem report, referencing this thread, and including an Acronis System Report. (see private email sent to you separately).
Note: PM sent to Gaidar, General Manager Acronis True Image about this issue.
Thank you Steve. Brilliant work.
I would have never discovered that...
What is more bizzare is that, as mentioned previously, I have 2 slightly different boot usb flash sticks, both created from the "windows 7 backup" function, which used to boot the older T2 (I tested them both) but now neither does. Neither relates to Trueimage obviously, but it's an interesting data point. One of these I created myself; the other was sent to me by another T2 owner from elsewhere in Europe. If I create yet another one, that doesn't boot either (as noted before).
So it looks like some intervening windoze update changed the T2's boot behaviour and prevented even media created by its own backup feature from booting. It must have happened at least a year ago because I stopped updating the tablet (mission critical, etc).
Peter, on the tablet I tested I was unable to get to the BIOS options via the documented method shown in the user guide, i.e. to press Power and Volume up while the Lenovo logo is shown at boot, or to press the F12 key to select the boot device.
I had to access the BIOS settings via the Windows 8 Charms bar, going into PC settings, then General to get to Advanced Startup which allowed to restart and select to boot from the USB stick or via the Trouble shooting option, to change the UEFI BIOS settings . I have changed the boot device order to automatically boot from a bootable USB stick if detected on power on, hence you can test your other USB sticks on this device by just inserting and powering on.
If anyone wants to provide hardware, I'd test it. I know it is bootable (pending some strange bios limitation of the system).
I have no issues booting Acronis 2016 v6559 or newer versions of 2016 (haven't tried 2017, but the drivers are the same) on several other ATOM based tablets with 32-bit processors and/or 32-bit neutered bios.
Some of the systems I've booted and imaged and restored with include:
Acer Aspire Switch 10
Fry's Vulcan
Winbook 8"
Some notes of issues I had with these tablets:
- Secure boot must be disabled
- You must also delete any of the default TPM certificates in the bios before secure boot is fully disabled
- The ones that only have a micro usb port are the worst - they often disregard plugged in USB flash drives.
- Because you can't pull a battery and fastboot may be enabled (plus these tablets with small emmc hard drives are using wimboot instead of a nomral OS), you must completely power down first with no hibernation or fastboot, or the bios may not detect a plugged in drive properly (shutdown /s /t 5 works well from the OS). Wait at least 10 seconds once it's disabled and then boot into the recovery media using the onetime boot menu (the tablets are often volume down plus windows button or volume down plus power button - varies on some systems).
What would get me with the linux bootable media is if the system is using RAID somehow since the default linux media has no RAID controller. I believe that Acronis True Image WinPE is 64-bit only (even if built on a 32-bit machine so that is why having the SATA mode set in RAID would be a problem. The only work-a-round I'd see here is using Mustang's PE builder which can build 32-bit winpe with Acronis).
I have no idea why Acronis took away 32-bit winpe by default - makes no sense to me. I can't imagine these newer tablets are using RAID mode with eMMC flash hard drives though (although perhaps they are)
I found my T2 has no apparent functionality via micro USB - only for charging.
Only the full size USB connector works as USB.
In fact (like many other users') my micro USB connector broke, because it is soldered to a thin piece of the PCB. I opened up the tablet (this is my older T2) and while trying to attach wires to the four terminations I found that one of the two data lines is permanently wired to ground! So obviously it isn't a working USB port. Samsung implemented the usual (non Apple) charging scheme for up to 2A (do a google on TPS2511 for details). But I was unable to make a connection to this termination because it was inside a multilayer PCB and even with a x40 microscope I failed. So that tablet has charging limited to 0.5A, which is just enough to run it "for ever" at a low brightness setting. Annoying...
But now thanks to Steve's great effort I will have a spare.
The documented means to get into the BIOS used to work (except for the volume UP or DOWN variation)... that is another mystery, which won't matter now.
I have used Trueimage since v8 and have found it the best tool. It has however failed with a 100% certainty on any system involving RAID (and all backups were useless because a RAID system stores the data slightly shifted on the HD so you can't restore the .tib file to a single HD) and it failed with every "modern" SATA controller. It always backs up (which runs via the OS drivers of course) but the boot media does not recognise the controller. I have thus far always managed to work around the booting by downloading the trial of whatever the latest version is (Acronis seem to support each SATA controller after 2-3 years) and creating a boot CD from that, then restoring with that boot CD which obviously wipes the trial version but that doesn't matter. Until this Lenovo tablet... which nothing would boot. And I never got any RAID system to boot from any version of Trueimage. I always used pricey controllers; usually Adaptec.
Nowadays I build simple single-drive SATA systems, using "old" motherboards like the GA-X58A-UD5 which is the latest fastest MB for which there are winXP drivers, and they make great win7-64/winXP dual boot systems. And Acronis v10 boots it fine.
Just to clarify, the boot media that I created was made on at least 3 different systems and worked on all except for the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2.
I tested the ATIH 2017 Linux media on my Samsung NC10 Netbook (Atom 32-bit) having recreated it again on that system and it gave an error on boot as shown in the attached screen shot. To resolve this I uninstalled ATIH 2017 which had been upgraded from the Beta and previously from an earlier version. Ran the Cleanup Tool and made a whole new clean install of ATIH 2017 build 5554, then recreated the boot media on USB stick.
With the clean install / new boot media, the NC10 booted correctly into ATIH 2017 and I was able to connect via my wireless adapter (built-in) to my Synology NAS and do a backup of my Windows 7 partition. So this media does work on this 32-bit Atom CPU system, though the WinPE media created on the same system definitely does not work, despite getting me to download the Windows ADK which includes 32-bit PE support. When booted, it starts OK but without showing any text to indicate what is happening, then the display changes to a full screen of narrow vertical bars with the cursor in the top left corner.
Thanks for the extra details. Steve, I'm curious, but what does your Acronis WinPE built on your 32-bit system show in the EFI folder? Is it bootx64.efi or bootia32.efi?
H:\EFI\Boot
As far as I remember, Acronis True Image only builds 64-bit winpe since 2015 and newer, even though they started putting the 32-bit PE files back in the application in the last couple of builds of 2016 (C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\WinPE\WinPE.zip\Files32). This is something that Mustang and I have both asked to bring back for awhile now. Snap deploy and backup 11.7/12 support both natively though.
Mustangbuilder can build 32-bit winpe though using the supplied 32-bit PE components from Acronis. Would be curious if you built the 32-bit winpe with mustang builder if it would boot correctly on this system or not - I think it would.
Rob, you are correct about the EFI\Boot folder in that it only holds the 64-bit winpe code with no sign of the 32-bit, so I would need to have a go at using the Mustang builder for that option.
Thanks for confirming. No idea why the option to build 32-bit winpe was removed in the media builder. You can build 32-bit UR PE and we can do this with Snap Deploy and Backup 11.7/12 too, so doesn't make too much sense to me.
We really need both... normally, I would say that 32-bit would be just fine, even on a UEFI 64-bit system so that would be the ideal version to have available. However, manufacturers are locking down the bios on tablets and new ultrabooks with less ability to enable legacy/csm support and/or to use cross platform tools (32-bit on 64-bit). On my ASUS T200 64-but UEFI only system, it will only boot 64-bit OS in UEFI mode and just ignores 32-bit entirely. Plus, there's no option on this system to boot legacy/CSM either so can't go that route either. If the default Linux media wasn't working for me, I would be out of luck too and I've had to use Snap Deploy media in the past until the drivers for 2016 1659 got updated. None of these True IMage Home options address 32-bit systems coming set with a RAID SATA mode though. For those, we have to resort to MustangePE or other 3rd party PE tools like WinPESE (which I love, but way outside the scope of the Acronis forums). Macrium and other rescue media builders offer both 32-bit and 64-bit WinPE builders and that's all they use so they are a bit more advanced in this area. I hope Acronis develops the WinPE media builder in Acronis more to make this more competitive in this area.
FWIW... I don't understand this "security".
One of the oldest sayings in computer security is that there is NO (ZERO) security without physical security so if anybody can "borrow" the machine while you are not looking, you can forget all security (because a keylogger etc etc can be installed in an instant, especially under windows).
And the SSD can be removed - apparently it is an eMMC soldered to the board but that won't stop anybody with a screwdriver and scissors. Then you mount it in a computer and read it... unless it is encrypted. But encryption is nothing to do with booting. You can encrypt everything except the boot record and the bit of code which asks for the passphrase and installs the driver in the OS (many products on the market that do that).
My point is that booting security is just pointless because anybody booting the machine with media of his choice already has physical access to it! So he can just steal it, etc.
All this achieves is to drive sysadmins crazy because they can't backup the machine. Well, they can back it up but they can't restore the backup...
It sounds like I should move to Macrium. Their website suggests they are aware of the issues and the basic product is free. Trueimage (I bought one for every PC I built) works great on a very basic system but has always been a nightmare for any "less than common as muck" HD controller, and the only way I have been getting around it is by using straight single-drive SATA and configuring every motherboard's SATA controller for "IDE" (the max compatibility mode) which my tests have shown has no more than ~ 10% perf penalty over using AHCI which prevents Trueimage booting in most cases IME.
Before you make the move to Macrium, you should try Mustang PE. It will solve all of your problems. You can easily add all SATA contoller and RAID drivers to the build. MustangPE comes in two versions so you can build 32 bit and 64 bit WinPE. There are plugins available to add True Image 2010 - 2017, Disk Director and Universal Restore to the same build. Of course you can only add one version of True Image to each build. You will be able to boot UEFI computers with any configuration with Secure Boot enabled.
See the link in my signature to download MustangPE. You should choose the 64 bit version.
Paul, just to clarify, the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 is a 32-bit UEFI system, so Peter would need the 32-bit version of MustangPE and also the 32-bit WinPE version etc.
I have built a 32-bit MustangePE USB stick and tested this briefly on my Samsung NC10 Netbook which has the same Intel Atom 32-bit CPU where it boots fine. I just need to work out how to get my Atheros wireless adapter to show in PENetCFG as well as the Ethernet adapter. I can't test this on Peter's tablet as have returned this to him.
Steve,
That's the problem with WinPE. Microsoft did not include wireless support. Adding wireless support is very difficult and way over my head.
I am very happy to test any boot media anybody wants to send me. If it is flash, I will post it back.
Wireless doesn't matter to me, because I have an ethernet adapter for the T2.
The Q might be whether one can boot from say a USB stick via a *hub* - because I have only one USB port. The hub would be necessary unless the boot media is capable to auto-detecting ethernet, and enumerating any devices on it, after it has been booted. I seem to recall that Trueimage cannot do that; the ethernet adaptor needs to be connected at boot time.
Steve - many thanks. The tablet seems to be working perfectly. It does however ask to activate windows, which is another oddity: according to google, win8 tablets store the windows serial number in BIOS flash, so this step should have been avoided. I don't mind paying for another win8 copy but it remains curious...
The windows activation seems to have sorted itself out, as expected :)
Steve, you could add your wireless drivers to the Mustang WinPE boot.wim. Then grab the portable app of penetwork (you'd have to navigate to it from command line or have it run automatically by modifying your startnet.cmd file. This is the tool that WinPESE is using and I wonder if it would for you too as long as the drivers are there already.
For most tablets that only have wireless, I have just gotten used to useing a USB 3.0 to 10/100/1000 ethernet adapter. These are all pretty much using the same generic drivers and detected in WinPE (and default Linux Acronis media too).
My ASUS T200 is a strange one. The wireless is connected to the internal USB hub somewhow. I have to add a bunch of extra drivers which makes the WinPE unusable on other systems so I just carry the ethernet dongle around for simplicity now.