No Rescue Media - What now?
I was using Windows 8.
My Corsair 120 GB Force GT didn't come up on a boot, my uefi bios doesn't seem to recognize it. It was my system drive, but also has some important data on it.
I've got 2 large media backup drives, on each of which I also put copies of my C: drive.
I got here by getting out an old hard drive with a copy of Windows Vista on it. I had been used on another computer; so, I've been downloading drivers and such for more than a day. It's an ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe motherboard.
I also managed to download copies and serial numbers of all my software: TI-2012; TI 2012 Plus Pack; TI-2013, which I would have been using in Windows 8 on the now blown Corsair Force GT SSD.
Based on what I read in another post, I also downloaded the .iso file to be somehow put on a USB stick (I lack blank CD's or DVD's).
I've also got Windows 7 and Windows 8, which I thought I could just freshly install on empty disk, though they seem to object to installing on one of them (a 1.5-TB Seagate), as they say it's a GPT disk, and they object to installing on the other (a 1.0-TB Seagate), because "0x80300024."
I'm just making this procedure up, guessing I'm inching toward a solution.
Can someone give me a plan that will work?
Okay, I've upgraded my Vista system to Windows 8 and tried the recovery to the same 1500-GB Seagate. That disk doesn't even show under TI, nor under Windows Explorer, just in the disk management utility.
I tried to remove that volume in the Windows Disk Management utility, but it wouldn't allow that. Did some reading and found a way to delete it at a C: prompt, and I think I can do that. However, what do I want that target disk to look like? Should it have no volumes on it, one big simple volume, or what? Since TI tried to create what it thought it needed before under Vista, I'm thinking maybe a disk with no volumes will show under TI, and then I can let it try again what it tried under Vista, but this time from a Windows 8 environment; maybe it will do it correctly.
I'm trying to restore a Windows 8 system disk (with programs and data), and now I'm running TI under a new installation of Windows 8. What should I do to the target drive to make it work?
Thanks.
The Rescue Media you created with ATI 2013 doesn't work with GPT disks. Download the latest ATI bootable Rescue Media ISO (listed as Bootable Media) from your Acronis.com account. The web site lists it as the same build number as previously, but is actually newer build 6528. It fixes the wireless keyboard/mouse issue and the GPT disk issue. The fixes are only in the new build of the Rescue Media, as no new Windows version has been released.
Thanks, Tuttle.
I'm not using "Rescue Media." I found an old drive bootable with Vista on it and upgraded it to Windows 8, and I'm using the download IT-2013 from my account (my copy actually residing inside the backup I'm trying to restore.
I think I'm going to try to use the command line DISKPART command to remove everything from the target drive (a 100mb efi partition), make it all "Raw," then try again to get TI to restore to it, and see whether it creates the partitions it needs to install to, or not, or screws it up (as before).
The recommended way to restore an image is to use the Rescue Media.
I walked over to the Best Buy and got an 8-GB SanDisk Cruze Glide. I followed the instructions for preparing it so the media builder could use it; but it still only shows the options of using a CD or an ISO image. Maybe I should have picked up a blank DVD or CD, in case this happened.
In any case, I'm still stuck. I've got the disk now with a 100-MB volume and the rest in another volume. TI always unallocates that second volume. I tried restoring the 100-MB partition from my backup into that 100-MB partition on my target drive (which Windows created when I initialized it as a GPT drive. I don't know what happened, but it seemed to do it; it made me reboot at one point. So, I then tried to restore the main part of my system drive backup to the main part; but it appears to have made that part unallocated.
This ought to be easier, and I'm becoming very disillusioned with TI. Do I need to get the $59.99 upgrade to Premium 2014? It seems this, like the Plus addition I got for the 2012 version (and never used), is supposed to deal with installing on "other hardware," and I'm thinking maybe that will do it. Why the basic program doesn't do that is unfathomable to me, since having to recover due to hardware failures seems it ought to be one of the main expectations of the software. I'm unemployed, and cost is a serious factor. Or maybe that's not it either, and the whole thing of having a backup of my system was a grand delusion, for which I paid whatever the retail price of this stuff was. I've already spent 4-5 days on it; and, yes, I've spent longer, but it's not generally what I think I ought to pay for, and I don't think these people get it. You don't make a product that doesn't work for it's most likely purposes and then up-sell after you've wasted a week of somebody's time, not if you want to stay in business long in the American market--but, I do digress.
I've calmed down. I think I'll get the TI-2014 Premium, because they swear in their advertisements that it can extract the memory from your dog's brain, beam it up to the cloud, and then put it back into the brain of a chicken. I'd rather pay the $60 than to stand around another couple of days at the bus station wanting to know that I'm getting the cheapest seats available. Maybe I'll mess the USB functions in the UEFI Bios to see whether I didn't screw something up in there, though it shows in Windows explorer "Local Disk (F:)" and shows the property "FAT32."
I just have one question, which is whether the 2014 edition will recognize (be backward compatible with) the 2013 edition backups I made. I mean, it seems obvious, one would expect it, etc. But, then, I'd expect it also to fix my problem, which might just be a presumption. However, I'm running Windows 8 temporarily on an old 320-MB Seagate, which is not GPT (so the system is aware it booted on a non-GPT disk; I dunno; it's all confusing.), and I'm trying to restore a backup from a 120-GB Corsair SSD to a 1500-GB SG which is a GPT drive. Maybe, though it's the same computer, TI thinks it's another system altogether.
That's what I hypothesize, so far.
Got the blank dvd to write on and booted up from that, since I still haven't solved the USB problem. Also, got TI-2014 Premium with the Universal Restore. It worked.
I think the rescue media approach worked in part because it allowed me to boot up in UEFI, where the disk I had for the system I was in was an MBR. That seemed to affect how I was able to deal with the target, which I wanted to be GPT, like the system I was restoring. Or, maybe the universal restore made all that irrelevant.
Thanks particularly for the comments from tuttle.
Now I'll go do all the tweaky things I somehow have to do on account of drivers having somehow changed or things that just don't look or feel right. I'll have to run on this clunky old 1500-GB Seagate until I can save enough nickels now to get another SDD. I can see now it really made a difference in overall speed on the computer. But now I'm better set up to deal with a system crash, having rescue media ready for it.