Bootable media does not work with Windows 8

Okay, I disabled Secure Boot and changed the boot mode from UEFI to CSM, and that gets me to the Acronis Loader screen. However, if I choose to boot from Windows OR wait a minute, then I get a black screen with a blinking cursor and nothing more.

Brian,

Windows 8 won't boot on your system with UEFI or Secure Boot disabled, you only need to disable these when booting from the current recovery CD and this needs to be switched back once finished so that Widnows can boot.

Thanks for the response, Colin.

So if I want to boot from Windows 8, I need to enable Secure Boot and UEFI.

If I want to boot with my True Image boot disk, then I need to disable these two items.

So that means it is impossible to boot from the boot disk then click the option to boot to Windows.

Man, when my laptop has a meltdown in a year, I hope I can remember this. :)

Thanks for your help.

Hopefully when the next build of 2013 arrives the recovery environment will have been updated to cater for UEFI and Secure Boot systems.

Has this problem been addressed?

The latest available build (6514) does address the Windows 8 problem in this thread, however it has introduced a new problem whereby it can't see GPT drives on some systems.

You can download the recovery ISO from your account if you want to check out if it is working OK with your system. In fact if you look in your account under download you can see the list of fixes for build 6514.

Thanks Colin.

I am on a trial version for 30 days, and it doesn't appear I have access to 'my account'.

From what I read and the issues I've had in the past plus the secure boot / legacy drive issues I don't think it's worth the risk to gamble that Acronis will work correctly when needed the most, at time of failure.

For a program that has such critical responsibilities I'm amazed how many issues it has.

Register the trial serial number in the serial number box on your account front page, and TIH trial should appear in your account.

Thanks again for your input.

I will never use Acronis again. It just crashed my computer.

pdxrealtor wrote:

Thanks again for your input.

I will never use Acronis again. It just crashed my computer.

The recovery version or from within Windows?

What exactly happened, what were you trying to do and what assuming there was a BSOD was the Windows error code?

Trying to uninstall Acronis. Chose 'delete acronis secure zone and distribute its space among partitions' and 'delete nonstop backup storages'

Did this twice, same result. Computer boots up, goes nowhere. Computer attempts to fix itself, but cannot. Drops me off in the advanced menu.

Luckily I was able to grab an Acronis backup from last night, another nightmare of a task. Then reboot and make a Windows image backup, which I used the second time around.

Why would anyone not just use the Windows tools? System image and file backup work great! The only problem you'll have is if your hard drive actually fails, since system image can't be put on an external drive. But who cares, there's a lot more times your computer won't boot vs. an actual drive failure. As a matter of fact, since 1995, I've never had a drive failure- ever. Knock on wood.

Anyways, I'm going to try and uninstall without the two options mentioned above selected. LAME

I don't use the SZ, but I would be inclined to deactivate it before deleting it. I suspect the registry entry pointing to it still existed or more likely because the zone hadn't been deactivated, the MBR was trying to access an area that no longer existed.

This problem when it arises can be solved by running the recovery CD and manually deactivating the SZ. Booting directly to Windows boot manager should then work.

I just tried it with both boxes unchecked and im in the same boat.

Any suggestions now? Or same as above? I didnt have a problem removing my last copy. I never enabled SZ i dont think.

I did enable something that had to do with F11 and booting.

OK, you activated the Acronis Startup Manager, this also can be deactivated via the recovery CD or from the utilities tab from within Windows. The ASRM has both registry entries and MBR/EFI entries, if it has been deleted but the pointers still exist, this will stop Windows from booting as the MBR never hands over to the Windows boot manager, expecting the ASRM to perform that task.

I don't see it under the utilities tab. I'm looking in the acronis program, under utilities. If I hit the acronis startup recovery manager link it asks me if I want to activate it. For sh*ts and giggles I clicked activate. Then I get an error saying the files aren't available, please re-install Acronis.

Hi Colin:

I have the new build of True Image 2013 (6514) and a new Windows 8 laptop, and I created a bootable media DVD using the create bootable media app. The bootable media does not boot properly even with the Secure Boot disabled. I could not seem to change the boot mode from UEFI. All I get is a black screen.

When I go into the bios and force the boot from the usb dvd drive, the bootable media comes up in very small text with three choices: 1. true image, 2.reports, or c. continue booting. When I type 1 the screen fills with small graphics and colors and that cannot be read and then locks up and I have to power the machine down.

I am trying to clone the hard disk on the computer and that did not work, just keep getting a black screen every time the clone utility tries to reboot. I read in this forum that booting from the bootable media would fix that problem but as you can see from above, the bootable media does not work. I am very frustrated with the Windows 8 performance, this was so easy in Windows 7.

Franco:

Windows 8, with UEFI and GPT disks, has certainly made things more complicated compared to Windows 7.

You didn't say whether your system has a GPT disk, but you might as well use the latest Rescue Media. Try newly downloading the Rescue Media ISO (listed as Bootable Media) from your Acronis.com account. The web site lists it as the same build number as previously, but is actually newer build 6528. It fixes the wireless keyboard/mouse issue and the GPT disk issue. The fixes are only in the new build of the Rescue Media, as no new Windows version has been released.

Thanks Tuttle.

I burned the Rescue Media ISO from my account but for some reason Windows 8 does not recognize it in my USB DVD drive. It recognizes the previous one I made from ATI 2013 and provides a boot option for that in the bios but does not do so for the ISO image that was burned. I used Nero to burn the ISO image to both a CD-R and a DVD-R and neither one worked. Did I miss something?

I just looked at the directories on the CD's and the directory from the Rescue Media ISO that was burned onto the CD has one file called "image.nrg" while the directory from the Rescue Media produced from ATI 2013 has a folder called Recovery Manager which is full of files.

To turn an .ISO into a bootable disk, you must burn it as an image not just copy it to the optical disk.

In Windows 7, you don't need any third-party software. Right-click the .iso and select "Burn disc image". Perhaps there's a similar function in Win8. Nero certainly should have such a function.

Nero did not work but I was able to properly burn the image in Windows 7. I tried booting to the new CD and had the exact same problem. It boots up and displays very small text with three choices: 1. true image, 2.system reports, or c. continue booting. When I type 1 the screen fills with small graphics and colors and that cannot be read and then locks up and I have to manually power the machine down.

It looks like you have an issue with the support of your chipset, since your laptop is new. Your options are to upgrade to the PlusPack to create a WIN-PE based recovery CD, or, unfortunately, to try some other backup software.

I don't know if it would help, but rather than using the keyboard, can you use the built-in pointer or a usb mouse attachment.

Are you sure the ISO file was the most current listed inside your personal account.
This problem sounds like what the new iso was supposed to fix.

My bootable does not work in Window 8, can somebody tell me how to disable Secure Boot and UEFI?