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Need special Boot CD for Acronis True Image that is offered on the "My Products" page

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Hello all,

I am trying to get a copy of the special Boot CD that Acronis have linked on the "My Products" page.

I cannot access this page as there is no mechanism for registering a copy of Acronis True Image Western Digital Edition and I need the CD as I am encountering problems with the Boot CD that the Western Digital Edition creates (it does not recognise my Western Digital drive and so it is unusable).

If someone could provide a link to this bootable CD (eg of Rapidshare and the like) it would be greatly appreciated as I currently have an unusable WD Edition of True Image and specifically bought a Western Digital drive solely to use with this program.

Regards,

Frank

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I think part of the problem is that the imaging software provided by Western Digital is supported by WD and not by Acronis directly, as WD will have been able to change the way in which the imaging software works to some extent. Much like Acronis' Security Software is BitDefender twiddled by Acronis and therefore BitDefender won't directly support the Acronis version.

I would first notify WD that their version of the boot CD doesn't actually recognise their own drives (there's some sort of irony there), second does it boot OK, but just not recognise that drive or do you get error messages?

Is this WD drive internal, external, sata, eSata or IDE?

You might find it works if you temporarily change your drive type in the BIOS from AHCI to IDE, this will break your RAID if you have one installed.

Have you tried sending a support request to Acronis?

Hi Colin B,

Thanks for your reply.

I called WD on the phone and they tried to help, but said they didn't have the knowledge to assist me. They told me to contact Acronis about the problem. And yes it is ironic and also frustrating that it doesn't work with my WD drive.

The Boot CD does boot ok (I have made several copies in case it was corrupted) and it picks up my WD drive. The one that is not working is my girlfriends WD drive of which I bought specifically to provide her a solution to back up her PCs using WD Edition + a WD Drive. The message I get is to attach a WD drive which sits there waiting forever if you leave it, so the program does not progress past that initial message.

The WD drive is an original WD800BEVS model Western Digital laptop hard drive installed into an External USB SATA drive enclosure. As I explained in the post relating strictly to the problem, 2 other external WD drive setups don't encounter the same problem that the drive + box that I bought my girlfriend encounter. The Acronis TI Home 2011 Boot CD picks up the "suspect" drive perfectly and the WD Edition picks up the drive perfectly within the Windows installed component of Acronis TI WD Edition, but the Boot CD just won't.

Being an external drive there is not much I can change in the BIOS, maybe except USB Boot parameters and I haven't played around with this but there are 4 different PCs failing with this error, so I suspect that the BIOS settings will not make a difference. I don't run RAID so that isn't an issue.

Regarding sending a request to Acronis, I found it impossible to do. When you follow the Acronis process you login which I do, go to "Support", then select "Get Assistance (Start Here)", select "Technical issue with the product", it asks you to select your product version which I select "I am using a freeware product version" and the only choice you get next is the product "Acronis Drive Monitor".

At this last step if you select "I am using a trial version of the product" the WD Edition is not listed, and if you select "I am using a full version of the product" it takes you to register your product and asks you for the product serial number, but the WD Edition doesn't have a serial number.

So you are stuck in a loop, hence why I asked on the other post how do you get support for the WD edition from Acronis?

I still would like someone to link me the special boot CD.

Regards,

Flavio

If the 2011 rescue CD works, then I suspect that WD have made some sort of alteration in the way the drive reports itself. If the TI CD can validate the image on the drive, then that solves the working problem, but not the lack of support or the WD end.

Did you check the 'suspect' drive on more than one computer to see if it recognised? There might be a subtle difference in the PC hardware that is causing the non recognisiton problem.

Make sure there are no external USB hubs connected, no card readers connected and try moving the USB connection to a rear port (if not there already).

I haven't backed up using WD Edition onto the suspect hard drive yet, but I had to test it when I first bought it for my girlfriend so I used my sister's 2 computers as a test. I backed them up using my copy of Acronis TI 9 (Full Version). The backup images were split for portability. I just then tried to validate those images using the Rescue CD of TI 2011 Trial and I get the following error:

"Cannot open backup archive on the specified drive. Either there is no archive on it or the archive is corrupted."

This error concerns me, although TI 9 is now ancient so there may be differences between the images produced by TI 9 amd TI 2011. Or TI 2011 has another bug when it comes to validating multi-file images. This sort of incompatibility concerns me as it could be the same problem between TI WD Edition and TI 2011.

When I had tested the solution of this suspect drive and WD Edition on my sister's computers, originally I had the same recognition problem. However that was the previous version of WD Edition. A few days after I attempted to backup, a new version of WD Edition was released and I found the problem was fixed (my WD drive was now recognised). However, on my girlfriends 4 computers, the problem it still there with the current version of TI WD Edition.

I have tried to backup with no external USB hubs connected, no card readers connected and moving the USB connection to a rear port however I still get the error.

Hence why I was hoping to get a copy of the special Rescue CD that Acronis offer on the My Products page. I have seen other people having the same recognition problem with TI Home and the special Rescue CD seemed to fix their problem. I could use this CD as a reliable (albeit temporary) workaround to the bug I am encountering and I could avoid having to backup whilst in Windows where the environment is dynamic and many files are open. I prefer to image my PCs from a Boot CD.

Regards,

Frank

Right, the imaging algorithm was not only changed mid v9 but again with 2009, so I wouldn't expect the 2011 version to necessarily be happy with v9 images.

Unfortunately Acronis are terse rather than verbose in their error messages and many of them are grouped together (as in error numbers) which for the end user is not helpful when troubleshooting.

I'm afraid I can't help you with the special version of the rescue CD, which was why I was trying to see if we could fix it by some other means.

Only Acronis can 'legally' help you here, perhaps a PM to one of the moderators here might be of help.

****edited*****

If the PC is a Dell, let Acronis know which chipset and model number it is/uses.

I have sent you a PM.

OK, so I guess my concern about the workaround using the Trial 2011 Rescue CD with the WD Edition images could be valid. I wasn't surprised with the v9 image not being the same as the 2011 one seeing v9 is ancient (even though v9 still services me in most areas!).

I understand now how the special Rescue CD could be a legal issue, so I wouldn't want to do that without it coming from Acronis.

A further note on Support for the WD Edition. Within the program there is a Support link as one of the Help menu options and it takes you to the support page with the products listed in a drop down box, however WD Edition is not one of the options. What I did was lodge a comment through the form that the link takes you to and selected Acronis True Image Home as the product. I'll wait and see if I get a reply.

Regards,

Frank

Hello Frank,

Please ping me in private and I will figure out the best solution for you.

Thanks,

Andrey