Using bootable media
I recently bought a new laptop for a relative and wanted to set it up for his use. Part of that was to install Acronis TI 2013, back up the initial system and create bootable media in case he needed to reset his system back to the state it was in when I gave it to him.
Before I finished I decided to make sure the bootable media was working so I booted the system from the cd created by Acronis TI 2013. What I got was an unreadable display. That is, the Acronis bootable media page was unreadable and looked as though someone had pulled the display all the way to the top right. Nothing was displayed well enough to be readable and, even though I am familiar with booting Acronis from the bootable media to do restores (as I have to do several times with my laptop) I could not see enough of the display to know what to enter.
Has anyone seen anything like this? Is there some way to address this issue? The new system is a Dell Inspiron laptop running Windows 8 with an i7 chip and a display set to 1366 x 768 (which is its native resolution). This is a different resolution screen from my laptop which is 1920 x 1080 and with which I have never had a problem like this.
I could try setting the resolution to different values and see if any of them produce a readable screen but, since no one uses the bootable media unless the system cannot be booted, this seems pointless. It would mean that the system would have to be run at that resolution all the time since, if the bootable media was needed, it would not be possible to boot to Windows, change the resolution and then boot from the media. If he could boot to Windows he could use the normal Acronis app instead of the bootable media.
Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks in advance.
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Thank you for the post but, no, it does not help.
That article says it is for TI 2010 and 2011. The version of TI that I am working with is 2013. Still, I did try it but pressing F11 when the selection screen (which cannot be read) appeared displayed nothing allowing me to enter information.
I have attached an image of the screen taken with my camera. Perhaps that will help. This was taken after entering F11 but the screen before pressing F11 looks exactly the same.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| 128999-107269.jpg | 450.46 KB |
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Michael:
There have been a number of posts on here with similar problems. The Linux build used by the boot CD (it runs a customized version of Linux) must not have video drivers for some of the newer high-resolution 16x9 display modes in use in recent laptop models. You can contact Acronis support for help with this, or perhaps one of the recent forum posts may be helpful: http://kb.acronis.com/search/apachesolr_search/vga%3Dask?page=1&filters…
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Michael,
There is the opportunity to add the VGA=ASK parameter when making the recovery CD, just type it in on the wizard page that asks for parameters. Of course if it can't render that resolution you are still stuck, but at least you shouldn't have the problem of trying to read a garbled screen to enter the parameter.
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Colin B:
> There is the opportunity to add the VGA=ASK parameter when making the recovery CD.
That seemed like a really good idea that I had just not thought about so I gave it a try. I created a recovery CD with the vga=ask parameter, inserted it in the machine and booted to the CD. Unfortunately it did not seem to make any difference. I still got the same garbled screen.
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I would think they would want to know about this since the machine is a common Dell laptop with a standard resolution screen and there must be plenty of these around. Still, there does not seem to be a way for me to notify them.
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Something to try.
There was a very similar post regarding an unreadable display for Win8 and the fix was for the user to change the bios setting on the UEFI from enabled to Legacy mode and the change was onoy for the purpose of booting the CD. Afterwards finished with TrueImage, the Bios was reset.
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Don't know if this is related or not.......I (regretably) installed the current 2013 (not the new April release) on my new laptop (Hp Envy17-3270nr WIN7). I built a bootable thumbdrive. Attempt to Run Acronis from the thumbdrive (that is, running a full backup) and Acronis refuses to "see" my external backup HDD. It "sees" the laptop drive just fine (C Drive) but there is nothing there regarding the external. If I run Acronis without using the thumbdrive --- everything is fine. Acronis "sees" the external just fine and loads a full backup with no apparent problem. I worry about this because I always used the thumbdrive with 2011 with no problem (that way; if the computer croaks, I know I can get to my backup (external drive) from just about any computer.
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Patrick,
How is your USB stick formatted? Does it report itself to either the BIOS or Firmware as a HDD or as a removable flash stick?
If you wish to experiment, try formatting the drive either by using the HP USB drive utility or the one from RMPrepUSB. Both my flash sticks are formatted as hard drives using the RMPrep utility.
Note though, I haven't made a build 6514 ISO as yet, my plan for tomorrow after work.
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Thanks so much for the quick response. I just tried it and it reports as a removeable disk. I am using a 2GB thumb and the only thing on it is Acronis. I formatted it and the only option available was FAT32
If I may....another thing that has me worried........I just ran Acronis 2013 using the Windows starter and it appeared to run just fine on to my external drive. However; the result shows 32GB +/- "saved" but my computer shows 67GB +/- as used on the C Drive. Yet Acronis "validated" the backup and says everything is fine. I always got nearly identical qmounts backed up when using 2011
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Colin: I was unaware of the Hp Utility. I downloaded it and ran a format in NTFS, When I attempted to install the acronis bootable media -- it rejected the thumbdrive saying to reformat it in FAT. I refromatted in FAT, installed the bootable media package from Acronis and then attempted to run Acronis from the tumbdrive. The was no change -- when using the thumbdrive to backup --- the program fails to see the external HDD. It sees the C Drive and whatnot but not the external HDD (the computer designates the HDD as Drive G:). As before;
if I run Acronis from the windows package -- Acronis appears to see Drive G with no difficulty (except that, as before, the completed backup seems to be only one-half wht is actually on my C Driive). When I was using Acronis 2011 -- the completed backup always basically mirrored the size of the C Drive's contents. Thanks again for your interest. Pat
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Pretty sure it has to do with the UEFI/Legacy boot mode in a Win 8 system. While I've only come across two Win 8 systems where this Bios boot change was necessary for booting the Acronis Boot disc, from all I've read it does seem that this is the norm for Win 8 systems.
So try enabling legacy boot mode in the Bios.
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Patrick:
Another suggestion is to boot your PC from the Acronis flash drive. After the boot process has completed, the program is contained completely in RAM and the flash drive can be unplugged. Try doing this and then plugging in the USB external disk. This works with the WinPE version of the Acronis bootable media (Windows PE discovers and automounts USB devices when they are attached) but to be honest it's been a long time since I've used the Linux-based Acronis recovery environment that I don't remember if it can also automount, but it's worth a try. Most versions of Linux will do this correctly.
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Mark:
Excellent insight....I followed your suggestion and yes; the external drive was recognized by 2013 as a target for the backup, Thanks so much. Now I have two follow-on questions (1) is it not "bad" to just pull the thumbdrive without "stopping" it (you can't stop it because we're not in Windows) and (2) the "backup" continues to complete showing only 32GB when there are 67+ GB of stuff on the C Drive. Thanks again for the positive step forward. Pat
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Patrick:
The purpose of the "Safely Remove" feature in Windows is to be sure that all data is written to the device before it is removed. In this case, the Acronis bootable media doesn't write to the flash drive, so no harm is done by unplugging it.
Are you backing up a partition (in this case, everything on your C: drive), and does this partition contain a Windows operating system? If so, TrueImage doesn't include the hibernation file or the Windows pagefile, and it uses compression, so the resultant image file will be smaller than the used space on the partition. Your result sounds typical.
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Outstanding...you have assuaged my fears! Really do appreciate you guys for taking the time to help those of us not in the know! I shall crawl back into the woodwork and be satisfied I am backup and cooking on all fours.
Thanks again.
Yes I am backing up the C;Drive
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Patrick,
Just to make sure you are fully protected, Open Windows Disk Management and visually examine your disk in graphical view.
Is there more partitions on your system disk than just C? If yes, are some without drive letters? If yes, these partitions may be needed if you need to create a replacment disk. If yes, I would encourage to read the first part of my link #2 below.
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Thanks much for the additional input. I have followed your suggestions and have made a backup. Thanks again.
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GoverH:
Thank you for your post. Changing the boot option to "Legacy" appears to have changed the entire boot process and the Acronis startup disc worked just as it was supposed to. Of course I did not do an actual restore but the program ran and was visible on the screen. Given that I assume that the restore would work.
I have switched the boot back to UEFI but it does make me wonder why I should not just leave it at Legacy.
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you will have to return the BIOS to UEFI to get windows 8 or 8.1 to boot
It SHOULD also be possible to use a VGA= command parameter at either the bootable media start, or on creation of the media, however this dosn't seem to work.....
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