Windows 8 UEFI
I had problems with the recovery CD created with True Image 2013, it would not boot the UEFI loader.
The iso downloaded from my account works but I would have preferred to create a bootable USB stick.
When recovering the GPT partitions there is an option to restore the MBR and Track 0, also a check box to recover disk signature.
Surely this is incorrect I believe that only the three partitions need to be recovered, why the option to recover MBR, track 0 and disk signature?
Frank:
I'm not an expert on GPT but I suspect that the option is there partly for historical reasons and partly to recover the "Protective MBR" that is written to the first sector on GPT disks. The purpose of the Protective MBR is to make the disk appear as a single large partition to older software that is not GPT aware, thus preventing changes to the GPT partitions.
Hello Everyone,
Thank you for your posts and your help.
Frank, could you please provide us with more information about the issue that you experienced when booting from the recovery media.
Could you please provide more details about the failure. At what step does the error occur and if you have receive any error messages. In addition, have you checked your boot priority order? Do you have this issue with the bootable media as well as the usb drive?
Please let me know if you have additional questions.
Thank you.
I am having essentially the same issue as Frank…
HW/Software setup details:
New HP ENVY (Model DV7-7243cl) Laptop
Acronis TIH 2013 /w Plus Pack 2013 (Builds 5551)
Windows 8 Pro /w Media Center - 64Bit
Issue details:
If I try booting using either a CD made using the current downloadable recovery ISO or a CD or USB thumb drive created with the installed TIH, I receive an error that the media is not authenticated (with Secure boot enabled in the BIOS). If I disable Secure boot the boot process simply hangs with a totally blank/black screen. If I enable Secure boot (the BIOS default) and also enable Legacy boot support, I can boot any of the generated medias as long as I select the legacy access mode of the boot source image. If I attempt to select either UEFI boot mode or EFI file boot and browse to the EFI image on the media, it will again hang with a totally blank/black screen.
Concerns:
What I am most curious to find out of course is whether or not this recovery media, booted in legacy mode, can viably create and/or restore the entire system HD state. I’ve successfully (as reported by TIH) generated total image backups (Disk mode) within the Windows 8 environment as well as by using the booted recovery media (in legacy mode).
The fact that the laptop fails to boot in UEFI or EFI file mode from any Acronis recovery media is a bit disconcerting and brings certain reservations to mind as to fitness of intended purpose…
So, the question now is what will happen if I try to do a full recovery? Would doing so effectively “brick” the system?
Kind Regards,
John
You have to disable secure boot AND enable legacy Boot. Once you are done with your operation, turn the settings back on. I had to do that on a new Dell system as well.
The information transfer from the disk image to the original disk will not be affected by the way the system has booted on the recovery CD. At that point, your computer is an expensive pipe between the disk backup and the target disk.
As long as you don't change the BIOS settings related to the disk controller (ie IDE/ACHCI/RAID) you are fine.
Thank you Pat L for your quick and concise response. Your explanation essentially summarizes the course I have taken and more importantly affirms its viability.
Would you happen to know if there is an Acronis approved method for substituting the Acronis supplied generic EFI image with the specific manufacture’s EFI image so that the Legacy mode boot is not required? I do understand that this is not a necessity as long as the proper HD access parameters are provided by the manufacture’s legacy support solution to the legacy booted environment, but it would be nice to not need to go into the system configuration and change these boot mode settings each time the recovery boot media needs to be used.
Kind Regards,
John
Maybe this will shed some light....
My brand new HP g6 laptop (Win8x64, Intel I3-3110M) will not boot ANYONE'S RECOVERY CD. Why???
Because: Microsoft has required Secure Boot be implemented by hardware manufacturers to be able to sell Windows 8 on their computers. Microsoft has not (and probably will not) authorize a security key for any Linux developer. ALL RECOVERY CD's to my knowledge are Linux based so they absolutely WILL NOT BOOT on any Win8 machine....
UNLESS, you do a workaround as has already been mentioned here.....
You must go into BIOS setup, ENABLE LEGACY SUPPORT (on my HP laptops I DID NOT DISABLE Secure Boot because the one time I did, the ATI operation failed somewhere along the line, I don't remember where because I was so tired and frustrated at the time).
AFTER ENABLING LEGACY SUPPORT, Save changes and Exit BIOS and then, enter and set your one-time boot to the LEGACY INTERNAL DVD DRIVE. Then, you can boot from any Linux Recovery CD from any imager like ATI, Paragon (whose new Win8 Backup FAILED COMPLETELY on my machines!!!), Macrium, etc. and either BACKUP or RECOVER.
My experience PROVES to ME that ATI 2013 works perfectly to image AND restore the HP hard drives to my new HP laptops. Of course, the HP Recovery/Reset works perfectly also, further proof that all is OK with ATI 2013 on these new Win8x64 machines.
BUT!!!! You MUST enable Legacy Support or else you are dead in the water!
NOTE: After enabling Legacy Support and exiting and saving changes, DO NOT RESTART BEFORE booting your Linux CD because a restart causes an AUTOMATIC RESET to BIOS DISABLING Legacy Support (and enabling Secure Boot, if you disabled it) and your CD won't boot and you'll go nuts like I did trying to figure out what went wrong.
So, in SUMMARY: Nobody's Linux Recovery CD will boot on any new Win8 machine UNLESS you go into BIOS and ENABLE LEGACY SUPPORT First. Next, ATI 2013 works perfectly not only creating the image but also RESTORING your HDD to 100% functionality, including hidden recovery partitions.
Acronis owes it to purchasers to be VERY CLEAR in pre-sale info that the Recovery CD REQUIRES this somewhat daunting workaround OR the image will never be restorable in a situation that requires booting from a Recovery CD. As of now, Acronis's literature is completely MISLEADING and false because it implies fully functional recovery cd's can be burned, which is not true at all as discussed above.
QUESTIONS remain as to whether ATI 2012, 2011 and older version Recovery CD's will boot, image and restore Win8 machine hard drives. They should also work! Anybody wanna spend a couple hours and test the theory? I'm burned out for awhile after going crazy for 2 days straight trying to get to this point with my new laptops.
I hope this thread gets stickied for all the new Win8 machine owners who will go nuts if they don't have this info available to them.
flyprivate,
I agree with you. Acronis needs to be more clear about how to operate with these hardware configuration. I have a question out to them and still awaiting the answer from the development team.
Thank you both for your very enlightening responses. I especially appreciate flyprivate’s information regarding successful image recovery to a new HP g6 (Secure Boot, UEFI implemented) laptop using TIH2013.
As to the inquiry regarding use of older versions of TIH, I can volunteer that I have successfully used TIH 2011 generated recovery media to both image and viably restore a much older HP DV4000 laptop that was upgraded to Windows 8 Pro (32Bit). That old laptop is of course neither UEFI nor Secure Boot restricted. But I never, not even for a moment, considered attempting to use an older release of TIH to try the same with new HP Laptop – I’m just not that brave.
Thanks to both your responses I feel that I now have a good handle on the proper steps needed if a total image recovery ever becomes necessary with this new laptop.
Kind Regards,
John
flyprivate,
First 2 comments, then a question for you.
On a new Dell machine, it was impossible to enable legacy boot unless secure boot is first disable. Maybe BIOS implementations vary by manufacturer.
About older versions of ATI, per http://kb.acronis.com/content/6533, if a GPT disk image is recovered over an MBR disk, the target disk remains an MBR disk, and recovery to unallocated space of a GPT disk is not supported. So how an old version will restore a UEFI/GPT boot disk on a brand new disk will depend on the status of the target disk (a status that might be clearly known by the user or not): initialized MBR or GPT? prepartitioned?
The question: did you restore on a completely blank disk, or was the disk already initialized as GPT, or were the old partitions still on the disk when you restore?
Yes, machine manufacturers can implement efi booting as they see fit within MS paramaters. Your Dell obviously required Secure Boot disabled while the HP's do not. You just have to try it to be certain. I know the ATI 2013 restore failed on my new HP g6's when Secure Boot was disabled but was successful with only Legacy Support enabled.
The disks I restored to were the internal factory-installed Seagate drives they came with. GPT vs MBR was no issue. Bare metal should not matter either because ATI should format the drive upon restoring the image based upon the image parameters, unless ATI 2013 works differently in this regard than ATI 2012 did.
When I restored, I chose to delete all partitions on the target drive as I always do on any complete disk image restore.
. . . Acronis owes it to purchasers to be VERY CLEAR in pre-sale info that the Recovery CD REQUIRES this somewhat daunting workaround OR the image will never be restorable in a situation that requires booting from a Recovery CD. As of now, Acronis's literature is completely MISLEADING and false because it implies fully functional recovery cd's can be burned, which is not true at all as discussed above.
I hope this thread gets stickied for all the new Win8 machine owners who will go nuts if they don't have this info available to them.
I tried what you suggested and I think that it worked . . . I did not have the nerve to go to an actual recovery. I was just glad that I could finally boot from the recovery CD into what appeared to be the Acronis Recovery Screen.
I really do believe that Acronis needs to make this VERY CLEAR from the beginning and, they need to figure out a way to create a bootable CD that will work right out of the box so that a non-technical person like myself can use it without having to do something as daunting as "messing" with your BIOS.
Finally, the so-called "support staff" at Acronis should be aware of this workaround, and not continue to send out worthless suggestions like pressing F12 and then entering a linux parameter, which, at least in my case, did not work.
I too am waiting . . . thank god that I found this Forum Topic.
Acronis are aware of the Secure Boot problem and I believe they are addressing it.
The Acronis support people that I have spoken to over the past 10 days don't seem to be either aware of the precise nature of problem or the workaround.
Also, Acronis seems to be making a big deal that TI 2013 is Windows 8 tested and ready, so they should especially be aware of this very serious shortcoming.
Also, Acronis seems to be making a big deal that TI 2013 is Windows 8 tested and ready, so they should especially be aware of this very serious shortcoming.
This problem didn't show up during 2013 beta testing with either Windows 8 RC or RTM, Whether Acronis changed something between final beta and RTM or one of the large MS updates that happened when W8 was officially released altered something or even they both altered soemthign to suddenly cause this problem to show itself.
Colin - thank you very much for the explanation. It is always useful to have a "why". Now let's hope that they are truly working on a solution.
Another (newer) HP notebook, another TIH boot media issue...
HP has been shipping their latest series (4th Generation) ENVY notebooks for a few weeks now and I've discovered that they cannot be booted with either the current production TIH 6514 ISO or the latest TIH 6528 ISO. 6514 displays the Acronis logo then freezes. 6528 displays the Acronis logo followed by a list of six hardware compatibility issues/faults and a Linux kernel panic halt on CPU compatibility. These newest HP notebooks are implemented of 4th generation Intel processors - the two here have the Intel i7-4700MQ CPU. They both have 24GB mSATA SSDs in a raid configuration with the 1TB primary HD (for the Intel Rapid Storage implementation) and a secondary (not in raid) 1TB HD for data space. They also implement Intel Rapid Start (for fast boot) and Intel Smart Connect (for updates during sleep). The specific model of these new HP notebooks is "C8U17AV / HP ENVY QUAD 17T-J000 NOTEBOOK PC"
I chatted with a tech last evening (who was good enough to allow me to download the new 6528 ISO) but his only suggestion when that too failed, was for me to purchase a Plus Pack license and try generating a WinPE boot scenario. I already have one 2013 Plus Pack installed on another notebook that is currently traveling with a colleague and therefor won't be accessible to me again for another 2 weeks. I commented to the tech that if this is going to be the typical situation and requirement from now on for new OEM hardware, then Acronis should consider bundling the Plus Pack into the main TIH core application...
If anyone here has other suggestions they would be greatly welcomed -
Kind Regards,
John
John,
From the entries that cause the 'kernel panic' message, I wonder if any of the kernel parameter switches that are available would get the recovery environment to work? I'm not sure which ones would be relevent off the top of my head, but if one was found to work it could then be included when making the recovery media.
As this is a recovery issue, it may be worthwhile raising a support ticket and providing Acronis with a Acronis Report of these notebooks so the developers can get look at what needs to be done. Acronis state they don't charge for supporting recovery problems if found to be genuine.
Without seeing what your kernel panic message is, I'm guessing the RAID and mSata combination may be the problem.
Thank you for the quick response Colin,
Actually it is my guess that the Acronis supplied Linux kernel does not fully understand these very new HP notebook's systemboard hardware - perhaps the "Mobile Intel® HM87 Chipset", and/or the "Intel 82802AB/82802AC (FWH)", and/or the "Intel 8 Series / C220 Series Chipset Family (PCH)" - and/or any number of other recently changed/updated Intel support elements they incorporate. Most of these new elements have only been available to the OEMs since June of this year.
The fact that the notebooks (of course) work just fine with the OEM installed Windows 8 Pro 64 only means that HP, Intel, and MS all got together to guarantee a positive "Out of box" customer experience - but now everyone else has to play catch-up - Acronis included.
For this reason the tech's suggestion to try an Acronis/WinPE boot environment is really quite reasonable - just inconvenient for me at this time. And once an augmented Linux kernel that actually understands the new HW components is released by Acronis, then the problem goes away. To me there is really not much difference here than with the previous "Secure Boot" problem we had with last fall's bundled Linux kernel.
Since this is not an emergency recovery issue (at this time), rather only a recovery viability test failure, I believe I can wait until my other notebook returns so that I can generate an Acronis/WinPE environment to try with these new systems. And who knows - by then Acronis may have released a compliant boot environment ISO.
All that aside, I'd consider going the trouble ticket route if Acronis didn't insist on making such a damnable hassle of doing so.
Thanks again for your thoughts -
Kind Regards,
John
The fact that the notebooks (of course) work just fine with the OEM installed Windows 8 Pro 64 only means that HP, Intel, and MS all got together to guarantee a positive "Out of box" customer experience - but now everyone else has to play catch-up - Acronis included.
That is quite possible. When I bought my laptop a year or so ago, the Rescue Media did work but it was painfully slow to change screens, click buttons or open any commands. Later Rescue Media builds worked much better, probably because Acronis added broader support for newer hardware.
Dear John,
I have a problem with my computer. I lost recovery partition in hard disk, because I merged two recovery partition. Then my computer was not start.
My computer same with your computer. Model dv7-7243cl.
Could you give me the recovery media, John?
you could talk with me by email.
My email: nguyenvietcuong2806@gmail.com
Kind Regards,
Cuong
Thank you for the quick response Colin,
Actually it is my guess that the Acronis supplied Linux kernel does not fully understand these very new HP notebook's systemboard hardware - perhaps the "Mobile Intel® HM87 Chipset", and/or the "Intel 82802AB/82802AC (FWH)", and/or the "Intel 8 Series / C220 Series Chipset Family (PCH)" - and/or any number of other recently changed/updated Intel support elements they incorporate. Most of these new elements have only been available to the OEMs since June of this year.
The fact that the notebooks (of course) work just fine with the OEM installed Windows 8 Pro 64 only means that HP, Intel, and MS all got together to guarantee a positive "Out of box" customer experience - but now everyone else has to play catch-up - Acronis included.
For this reason the tech's suggestion to try an Acronis/WinPE boot environment is really quite reasonable - just inconvenient for me at this time. And once an augmented Linux kernel that actually understands the new HW components is released by Acronis, then the problem goes away. To me there is really not much difference here than with the previous "Secure Boot" problem we had with last fall's bundled Linux kernel.
Since this is not an emergency recovery issue (at this time), rather only a recovery viability test failure, I believe I can wait until my other notebook returns so that I can generate an Acronis/WinPE environment to try with these new systems. And who knows - by then Acronis may have released a compliant boot environment ISO.
All that aside, I'd consider going the trouble ticket route if Acronis didn't insist on making such a damnable hassle of doing so.
Thanks again for your thoughts -
Kind Regards,
John
Dear John,
I have a problem with my computer. I lost recovery partition in hard disk, because I merged two recovery partition. Then my computer was not start.
My computer same with your computer. Model dv7-7243cl.
Could you give me the recovery media, John?
you could talk with me by email.
My email: nguyenvietcuong2806@gmail.com
Kind Regards,
Cuong
Cuong,
You can download the recovery ISO from your Acronis account and then burn it to CD or use another utility to allow it to run on a USB stick.
As for your PC not starting, how far does it get when you try to boot and what error messages do you get? You could be lucky in that all that needs to happen is the disk/partition be made active again.
I take it you do have a recovery image on another disk or DVD that you can use to recover?