Restoring to an SSD
I made an image backup from a 256GB SSD drive with three partitions, saved onto an external USB HD using an Acronis 11 boot disk.
A few weeks later I needed to restore the image and I reversed the process. The restore worked OK to start with, but after a few minutes Acronis froze at the restoring partition screen. I left it for 6 hours but there was no further progress. When I rebooted into Windows7 the SSD was not accessible by windows - Win said the drive needed formatting but couldn't format it. After trying with various tools to clear or format the SSD I decided that it had failed and I RMA'd it. The new SSD formatted OK but when I tried to restore using the Acronis image it failed in exactly the same way as the first one and I now have another dead drive.
I have restored the image to another disk - an ordinary HD - and that worked fine.
What is Acronis doing to my SSD drives?
Thanks for that prompt reply.
I'm using Home 2011 Update 2.
Using the boot CD both to create the backup image and restore it.
No BIOS security.
I'll have a look at that link.
RG99,
What type of partitions did you have on your SSD (format)?
It was a Win7 64bit system disk from a Lenovo Thinkpad, with a system boot partition, a system restore partition, and separate data partition. No system changes since making the backup.
I've created an HDDerase CD, but no success running it. I've tried the various boot options but they all give EMS memory errors.
EMS memory errors? Seems to be pointing at a faulty memory module... Can you run memtest86?
I've run a full memory check and no errors, no other reason to suspect faulty memory.
I will investigate erasing the SSD as a separate issue, but when that's done I am left with the original issue: will the Acronis restore corrupt it once again?
RG99,
I am using a SSD and I have been restoring about 15 times now, never any issues so far.
One thing you can try is to restore one partition at a time, in the same order they were laid out initially. Remember that the disk letters when you use ATI on the CD are not the same as in windows. Look carefully at disk labels and characteristics. You don't need to reboot between single partitions restores. As you restore the first partition, make sure there is a 1MB space left before the first partition, and that each partition has a size that is a whole number of MB. This will ensure alignment (ie each partition offset should be divisible by 4096 when expressed in bytes)
If you believe the backup is questionable, then boot from the CD and validate the backup again.
The ThinkPad disk has special geometry. In order to get a successful restore and bootable drive, the target disk must be in its normal boot position when either restored or cloned. While you would expect the SD to have been aligned, some of the Windows 7 factory installs on new sales still do not have the correct starting offset. It is something you must confirm.
You can use the backup file being restored to confirm both the starting sector/alignment and confirm the positioning sequence of your partitions--but it requires adjusting how the information is presented via the column icon in upper right corner. These images show an example.
You may find one of my guides helpful but it does not specifically illustrate the Thinkpad. Click on signature index item #C-BB showing the Compaq restore to a larger disk.
The easiest restore should be a restore where you checkmark the disk as being restored and this would restore all partitions. The next easiest possibility would be to restore each partition individually but you would need the information shown in the preceding paragraph on how your disk is configured. In both cases, when you select the target disk, also checkmark "Recover disk signature." Restore must be done when booted from the TI Rescue CD.
Thank you both for your very helpful comments. I wish I had known this before I started. I have used Acronis for several years and never had these sort of problems before.
I'm going to sit back and digest the guide before doing anything more, but I will report back when I've tried again.