[Resolved] ANOTHER ACRONIS SURPRISE!!! BIG SURPRISE!!!
I have been using TrueImage since 2004 and I have had many, many surprises (aka extreme disappointments) along the way but I stuck with the program. Now, this latest surprise is a biggie.
Everybody with a relatively new laptop better pay strict attention to what I'm going to reveal, much of which has already been posted but in fragmented and windy threads.
Scenario: You have TrueImage and have been regularly making backup images of your hard drive and storing them safely away so you can recover if your drive fails, right? So, your hard drive finally craps out and you buy a new one, same brand, size, model, etc. and install it. Then you stick your Recovery CD into your optical drive, boot up and....SURPRISE!!! True Image tells you the disk is not supported!!!
That's right. Your brand new hard drive, an IDENTICAL replacement for the one you've been diligently backing up that failed, IS NOT SUPPORTED by TI. How can that be?
Facts: Most relatively new laptop hard drives (and lots of desktops, too) are advanced format 4K sector size (vs. older 512K sector size) sata hard drives. Laptop manufacturers image them using various OEM imagers, install them and ship them out. True Image recognizes most of them once they are installed into a computer so you go merrily along making backups figuring you're covered, right? WRONG!!!
When you replace one of these advanced format hard drives (AFHD) with a bare new drive, True Image chokes and errors out giving you the message that the disk is unsupported, even though it's the exact same kind of hard drive as the one that True Image imaged with no hiccups.
Why: Because Acronis has been, as always, dragging their feet behind the industry hardware advances. Instead of getting ahead of new hardware and supporting the new AFHD's that have been around for several years now, as well as USB 3.0, Acronis is busy adding complicating and far out new features that usually only work in a very few circumstances and cause existing products to get buggier than they already are so Acronis can, as always, make pie-in-the-sky marketing claims to hype True Image product sales at the expense of reliability and functionality of existing versions.
Fix: It's a damned good thing I had laptop manufacturer recovery DVD's handy because True Image totally failed me. Support was absolutely useless because the genius I pleaded for help from required me to run two Acronis diagnostic reports and send him the results to ponder on a machine that DID NOT FUNCTION. Chicken-and-egg syndrome. If the machine is dead how can I install and run the diagnostics, save and email the results? If I could do that, I wouldn't need Acronis support now, would I?
Anyway, the solution is simple if you have manufacturer recovery DVD's. Just restore them to the new bare AFHD because they DO RECOGNIZE the AFHD. After you restore the factory DVD image, usually to the out-of-the-box state, you can then reboot and run your True Image Recovery CD and TI will recognize the AFHD and restore your diligently created image of the failed drive.
SHAME ON ACRONIS!!! This kind of letdown should NEVER happen. This is a basic requirement of any reputable imaging program. Many of the better-known FREE imaging programs have the capability to recognize and restore to bare new AFHD's so why in the world should this considerably overpriced True Image program fail to include it after all this time???
Summary: If you, as I do, choose to keep using True Image to back up your hard drive, be sure to have either your manufacturer's recovery DVD's handy in case of a hard drive failure OR create an image backup and a recovery cd using one of the FREE imaging programs that support AFHD's (mine begins with a P) so when your hard drive fails, you won't be left out in the cold by the program you should be able to trust but can't - True Image.
This is not meant to trash Acronis or True Image. Instead, this is posted to accurately describe an awful shortcoming and failure of True Image to provide the EXPECTED ability to restore an image to the identical type of hard drive which it was created from.
Hopefully, Acronis will IMMEDIATELY correct this glaring failure of its product.
<Issue resolution: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/30234#comment-94148>
I just spent $860.00 buying this over rated software only to find out while testing that I cannot even boot from the Recovery CD I just created. Tried three different systems, but no luck. I even created my Recovery Boot Disk from my registered license from the website but that does not work either. Tech Support is very poor and I wish I had never purchased this software. I have spent over 6 hour trying different tricks to get the Boot Disk to boot from the CD I created. It does not support the mouse, F10 or any of the selection. I hope somebody out there has a solution. This is very frustrating.
If the error message you mentioned says something about 'EZ drives, dynamic disks' etc, use the latest recovery CD (i.e. build 6154), it's fixed there
You mis-read the post. This is NOT fixed in build 6154 or any other build.
So is it that bootable media of build 6154 displays a message like that ( https://kb.acronis.com/sites/default/files/content/2010/06/11584/c288.p… ) and reboots when you press 'ok' ?
So is it that bootable media of build 6154 displays a message like that ( https://kb.acronis.com/sites/default/files/content/2010/06/11584/c288.p… ) and reboots when you press 'ok' ?
Yes, that is the message. True Image fails to recognize any advanced format BARE drives.
As I said before, once the new bare drive is prepped by using ANY recovery method, including the manufacturer's recovery DVD's or one of the FREE backup & restore programs that supports AFHD's, TI will recognize it and restore a previous backup to it.
BUT, the new bare drive must FIRST be prepped by and restored by another program! Acronis True Image fails to recognize these new BARE AFHD's at all.
As to why? I'm not an engineer but I suspect that it has to do with True Image looking for an old MBR before it recognizes an AFHD. Whatever the ACTUAL reason that TI fails to recognize and restore to a new bare hard drive BEGS AN IMMEDIATE FIX from Acronis.
By the way, these AFHD's are just about the ONLY drives you can buy nowadays. About the only way you can find a usable 512k sector sata drive is to buy a used one on eBay. ALL new production sata laptop hard drives appear to be AFHD's, regardless of brand.
As far as other discussions about certain brands emulate older 512k drives in their firmware, that SHOULD NOT BE AN ISSUE for TI users to ever have to deal with. As I said, FREE imaging programs have supported these AFHD's for some time now and it doesn't matter to them whether you're restoring to a Seagate, Hitachi, Toshiba, Western Digital or any other brand sata drive. They just do what TI should have been doing for over a year now.
Here's my gripe in a nutshell:
Instead of Acronis screwing around with relatively meaningless new bells & whistle features for the next paid upgrade, they should have had this obvious failure under their belts a year ago BEFORE 2012 was ever released.
You know what? That attitude will never change because that's been their model since I came on board in 2004. Sad but true.
Yes, that is the message. True Image fails to recognize any advanced format BARE drives.
When you have some time to boot from it again, what exactly build is in its help->about window?
Build 6154 January, 2012 burned from downloaded .iso file from Acronis website.
Hello all,
Thank you for your comments.
Dev-anon, thank you for your help.
flyprivate, we're very sorry for you've faced technical difficulties with the product. We would like to help you.
I've checked our internal databases: the only issue with AFHD was fixed in the latest update, so there might be some other reason. Could you please kindly send us Acronis Linux Report from the bootable media, and Acronis Disk Report from the problem machine (with the new drive attached, Disk Report can be performed from the bootable media)? This information might help to localize the issue.
ALB, thank you for being sincere in your feedback. Please accept our apologies for the situation. This behavior is abnormal, and we would like to investigate the situation. Unfortunately there are no support cases opened that are tied to your account, so I assume you've used another e-mail account. Could you please let us know the case # you've opened, so that we could review the situation?
Should you need anything else or have any further questions - feel free to contact us at your earliest convenience, we will be happy to help you!
Thank you.
Yana, Thank You.
I just downloaded the build 6154 .iso file again and burned another recovery cd and that one recognizes the new advanced format hard drives. The first one I downloaded in January when it was released did not. So, my conclusion is that Acronis may have updated the recovery cd .iso file.
Hello flyprivate,
Thanks for the update, I'm really glad to know that the issue got solved.
We update the ISO when we release a new build, so my guess is that there's been a glitch during the first creation of bootable media. Anyway, I'm glad that the issue's fixed.
Let us know if you encounter any new issue, we'll be glad to help.
Thank you!