TI2014 RescueMedia problem: Network not working, please fix r8168-driver!
Hello,
I'm using an Asus VivoBook S301LA - Laptop that comes with windows 8.1 and up to date hardware including a Gigabit NIC from Realtek.
Problem: this nic is not properly being recognized by the TI2014-RescueMedia so that I can not backup to/restore from my NAS. Instead of my NIC's mac-address one can just see Ethernet HWaddr FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF for eth0.
It looks like the r8168-driver is broken!!
When using the TI2013-RescueMedia (V16.0.6514/ there is no problem at all and the nic is being detected just fine.
For the TI2014-RescueMedia I was using the latest build whichi is 17.0.6688 from 2014-08-20.
The dmesg-logfile from TI2014-SystemInfo booted out of the RescueMedia shows that the NIC is being recognized by the r8168-driver BUT it does not get a proper MAC-address (just ff:ff:..).
RunInsmod:343 running insmod for r8168 - #0
WaitInsmod:298 waiting loading: running=1
Using /lib/modules/r8168.ko
r8168 Gigabit Ethernet driver 8.035.00-NAPI loaded
r8168 0000:02:00.0: irq 61 for MSI/MSI-X
eth%d: RTL8168GU/8111GU at 0xffffc9000564e000, ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff, IRQ 61
r8168: This product is covered by one or more of the following patents: US5,307,459, US5,434,872, US5,732,094, US6,570,884, US6,115,776, and US6,327,625.
eth0: Identified chip type is 'RTL8168GU/8111GU'.
r8168 Copyright (C) 2012 Realtek NIC software team
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details, please see .
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; see .
WaitInsmod:310 'r8168' was loaded: running=0
Windows reports the following hardware-id for this nic: PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_8168&SUBSYS_200F1043&REV_10.
May I kindly ask Acronis to improve driver support and add drivers for most common NICs.
King regards.
btw: It would be state of the art to add wifi-drivers, in my case for the Atheros AR9485WB-EG Wireless Network Adapter.

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I think your problem is that the driver does not detect your NIC chipset correctly. This could result in the device sensing something like the cable not being connected. Found this link which is some interesting reading:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43270
If you have the premium version of ATI I would suggest creating a WinPE disk with windows driver for your NIC and use it rather than the Linux based rescue media.
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"I think your problem is that the driver does not detect your NIC chipset correctly. This could result in the device sensing something like the cable not being connected."
I think that is nonsense: The MAC address of the NIC should be identified correctly whether there's a cable in the NIC or not. I vote for fixing the issue, as several recent (Asus) motherboards for latest Intel CPUs come with a realtech chipset.
I just checked: openSUSE 12.3 (somewhat old) has an "r8169" driver (version "2.3LK-NAPI") that should support the chipset identified. I don't know how that relates to version "8.032.00-NAPI", however. The other thing the openSUSE driver suggests is that it has a "debug" parameter and it needs firmware files:
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8168g-1.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8106e-1.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8411-1.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8402-1.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8168f-2.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8168f-1.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8105e-1.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8168e-3.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8168e-2.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8168e-1.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8168d-2.fw
firmware: rtl_nic/rtl8168d-1.fw
Finally, if Acronis can't fix it, this info from the openSUSE driver might help:
author: Realtek and the Linux r8169 crew
It would be great if the Acronis rescue kernel were a bit more open source so that the talented customer actually has a chance to fix things (I'm wondering whether the application will still work if the kernel, initrd and modules are replaced with a recent kernel).
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Hello,
it is pretty obvious that there is a bug in the nic driver. Acronis shall either update to a NEW version that fixes these bugs or fall back to the old one that was still working.
I got the premium-Version and wanted to include it into a WIN8.1 PE-Image which does not work.
This is ridiculous: one shall use BartPE which is based on windows xp that is way too old.
So Acronis.
FIRST: update your linux based image with a fixed rt8169-driver
SECOND: provide TI2014 for WIN8.1PE
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