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Rescue CD won't boot when external USB Toshiba Canvio HDD is connected

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My HDD crashed, I got a new one and am trying to restore it with the backup on my 3TB Toshiba Canvio USB external HDD drive but the Rescue CD won't boot.

I set boot priority to CD Drive but after POST all I get is a flashing cursor.

- When I disconnect the external USB HDD, the Rescue CD boots fine.
- If I connect a different external USB HDD such as a Seagate HDD, the Rescue CD boots fine and sees External USB Seagate HDD for restore.

- The Laptop I am trying to restore is a Toshiba Satellite L670.

-If I connect the Toshiba Canvio USB external HDD to another laptop (Satellite L550), the Rescue CD boots fine but doesn't see the external Toshiba Canvio HDD for restore.

All my backups for all my computers are on the 3TB Toshiba Canvio USB HDD and although I was able to backup all computers to the drive through Windows, now I have no mean of restoring them because the rescue CD is flakey one way or another.

I have Acronis True Image v11 build 8053 and I have tried upgrading to build 8101 of the bootable media with no effect.

Does Acronis have a reliable way to restore their backups to crashed HDDs?

Is there another Rescue CD available that can overcome these compatibility problems or another reliable method for restoring HDDs?

How about a Windows based bootable CD that should (theoretically) support all PCs and All external devices or even Linux (if not too cryptic)?

Thanks in advance.

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Is this one of those external HDs that includes a small partition that identifies as a CD? Many do, to enable features such as password, encryption, etc. That could cause your BIOS to recognize it as the first CD and try to boot from it.

tuttle wrote:

Is this one of those external HDs that includes a small partition that identifies as a CD? Many do, to enable features such as password, encryption, etc. That could cause your BIOS to recognize it as the first CD and try to boot from it.

No. I checked it with Windows Disk Management and it just shows up as one big NTFS partition.

BTW- I think it is a USB3.0 drive but I only have it connected to USB2.0 interfaces.

tuttle wrote:

Is this one of those external HDs that includes a small partition that identifies as a CD? Many do, to enable features such as password, encryption, etc. That could cause your BIOS to recognize it as the first CD and try to boot from it.

No. I checked it with Windows Disk Management and it just shows up as one big NTFS partition.

BTW- I think it is a USB3.0 drive but I only have it connected to USB2.0 interfaces.

Putting all this info into the mix, here is one possibility.
If the disk is 3TB and only 1 large partition, this makes it GFT type partitions.
Version 11 or even if version 2011, a GFT presents a problem for either version.
You do not indicate which Windows OS.

One possibility,
Sign up for the 2013 test version. No installation is necessary.
Register the provided serial for the 2013 test version.
After registering, then download only the iso file and burn the iso as a image onto a blank CD.
Boot from the newly created 2013 trial CD and see if you have the same issues.
The trial CD could be used for a restore but as it is a trial version, its only function is as a restore CD.

-----------------------------------
With the 3TB attached, you could use the DISKPART command to view the partition type for that disk.
http://forum.acronis.com/system/files/resize/mvp/user285/misc/show-disk…

Well I made the 2013 Rescue CD and it does the same thing, after post I just get a cursor at the top left of the screen.

But I also discovered something else. I was able to restore the backup to the new hard drive yesterday by copying the backup image file to the old 1TB Seagate I had and then restoring from the Seagate with the Rescue CD. (Tedious process)

And now I just noticed if I try to boot Windows (Windows 7 btw) with the 3TB Toshiba Canvio plugged into the USB port, I get the same cursor after POST and windows doesn't boot. So it sounds like the Toshiba External USB drive is having trouble with the BIOS on a Toshiba laptop. Go figure.

Anyway, I tried booting the 2013 Rescue CD with the External Drive detached and as soon as I saw that the Rescue CD was booting I plugged in the External drive and after True Image started I was able to see the external drive and archives.

I had tried the same thing with the v11 Rescue CD yesterday and though True Image would boot, it would never see the external drive. I guess the 2013 Rescue CD will though. It's kind of a klugey workaround but I guess it will work in the future. Also I'll see if Toshiba has a BIOS upgrade to make their laptops work with their external drives.

Thanks for your help.

BTW- DISKPART doesn't show the 3TB External Toshiba HD as a GPT.

Disk 1 shows 2794GB and no asterisk under GPT column.

What could that mean?

Another workaround that should work would be to divide the 3TB into 2 partitions of about equal size or one partition 2TB and the second partition 1TB. This would get around the MBR barrier which is unable to see the 3tb in normal fashion.

If you did this, your version 11 would see the 3TB as it would have 2 partitions.
This could be done using Partition Wizard or Win 7. PW might be a better bet since you could create both partitions as primary.

That might work but I have some pretty large backup image files and invariably I would end up hitting a partition boundary which would mean wasted space in the end. I would like to keep it one big partition and since I don't need to restore from the Rescue CD very often, I guess the workaround I have will be fine.

It's just really lame that a Toshiba Laptop won't boot with an external Toshiba HDD attached. Now that I have an HD Camcorder I'm sure it won't be long before I need a bigger backup HDD and I'll be sure to get one that won't prevent my laptops from booting when its attached.

Thanks.

Another alternative would be to format the disk as GPT which will be just one large partitions and also will be the type partitioning in use if you should move to 4TB with just one partition.

Having GPT would not work with V11 but would work with latest version of 2013.