Acronis True Image Home 10 Startup CD fails to see harddisk and backup medium at the same time
Hi,
I have a version of Acronis True Image Home 10 which was supplied as a promo together with a magazine. It's a version (in Dutch) with some restrictions, but seemed to do all I needed.
It can only make complete images. I've been making images with this for the past year and just recently I had to do as restore, because my harddisk had crashed.
Now when I use the startup CD I can choose the "Secure" version or the "Full" version.
If I choose the "Secure"version I can't get to my image on which is on my USB drive, but I can see my C: drive. If I choose the "Full" version, the USB drive is shown as C: and the actual C: drive is nowhere to be found.
So it seems I'm unable to restore.
What should I do?
Regards, Bas Prins.
Hello,
Doug, thanks you for your useful suggestions.
Bas, let me assist you.
It appears that there's a compatibility issue with your particular hardware and Acronis Bootable Media. I may suggest you to try the following workaround:
- Boot the computer from Acronis Bootable Media (Full version);
- Hit F11 key after the "Starting Acronis Loader..." message appears and you get to the selection screen of the program;
- After you get the "Linux Kernel Settings" prompt, please add "acpi=off noapic" parameter (without quotes) to the end of the Linux kernel command line (so it will be "quiet acpi=off noapic");
- Click OK button.
If this will not resolve the issue, please try a special version of the bootable media. That new media is based on ISOLINUX bootloader (whereas the standard one is based on Acronis Loader) and has a different drivers set. I've sent you a Private Message with a download link and instructions.
Please reply to this thread if the issue still persists or if you have any further questions.
Thank you.
Thanks Doug and Ilya,
I didn't trie Doug's third option yet. (As far as I can see I have a Seagate ST9250315AS.)
All other options failed.
The ISOLINUX disc also didn't see the C: drive.
At a certain moment the version without USB drivers (I don't know how to call it since my version is in Dutch) of my original startup disk showed both drives. Which is strange isn't it? How can it see the USB disk if it doesn't use USB drivers?
But anyway, when I selected the .tib file and asked to restore it, the program just hung after a while.
Maybe it's important to know that these laptops have a hidden partitition which contains the manufacturer's system restore information. Also this partition seems to have the MBR on it. I don't know whether I'm writing nonsense now, because I'm not very much familiar with drive design.
Regards, Bas.
What you're calling the "Secure" mode version is the Safe Mode (or SafeMedia) version. This version uses the BIOS to access the drives. If the BIOS can detect/recognize the USB drive, usually the Safe Mode version can too. However, if it does work, the speed is usually very slow (USB 1.1 speeds). In most cases, the drive needs to be connected before the computer is powered on so it's ready when the BIOS scans for drives.
Since you're using a SATA drive, another thing you can try is to look in the BIOS for the SATA Controller Mode (it may be named something else). This may have options like IDE Compatible, AHCI, RAID, etc. You can try a different mode (obviously not RAID) and see if it will let the Full Mode, Safe Mode, or ISOLINUX version see both drives correctly. If you do this, make sure to set the mode back to its original value before booting into Windows.
Okay. So that explains why sometimes I didn't see the USB drive in Safe Mode, it probably was not turned on at those moments.
If it's slow I might have interuppted the restore after about half an hour. But it hadn't done anything yet, otherwise my current Windows setup wouldn't have started up afterwards. (The drive has been replaced and returned to me with Vista installed.) Also it keeps stuck in the screen were it asks which drive to restore. If in that screen I click "next", that button gets disabled, activity starts on the USB drive, but nothing else, no activity on the C; drive, no message, nothing. And when I look after a while there's also no activity anymore on the USB drive.
In that screen also the information seems strange to me. I would expect it to show the current C; drive information (Total space, free space). But instead it shows this information as it was when the backup was made.
I had another idea.
If I'd attach an aditional USB disk, would I be able to restore the image to there? Then I'd maybe not bother to restore to the C: drive. But just retrieve the "My Documents" folder from that USB disk.
Can this be done?
It should work. Of course, this assumes that Windows is still working and a full restore isn't needed.
Using the trial version of TI 2010 is another option.
Okay. it took me a while to arrange an additional USB disk, but I have borrowed one.
I recovered from one USB disk to the other by using "Restore specified files or folders". Now something very strange happened. It seems to put the files on the target USB disk. And if I browse through that disk using Acronis' Restore Data Wizard I can see them there, even after the whole system has been shutdown and started again. So I guess they really have to be there.
But, Windows (Vista or XP) doesn't see all of them. That is, some of them are okay (files that were in the Program Files folder), but the Users folder is shown as empty in Windows.
What can be the reason for this?
Your last problem Bas sounds like a Windows security problem. Does Windows report this folder with the correct size or as a zero byte folder?
Wow, it says:
Size: 19,3 GB (20.791.289.848 bytes)
30,235 files and 3,701 folders.
So, they're really there, but how am I going to retrieve them?
It really made me crazy, tried so many things. Other recovery software etc. In the end it turned out to be that some of my folders were given the system file attribute. These files are hidden in Windows by default. Changing that setting in Windows gave me all my files back.
Rather silly.