C Drive Image restored to C Drive

Roger, welcome to these user forums.

One key difference between the Acronis Rescue Media and other programs is that Acronis use a Linux based media by default, and this carries the warning that drive letters can be shown differently to how you see these from within Windows.  This is documented in the ATIH 2017 User Guide: Preparing for recovery where it offers the following advice:

Assign unique names (labels) to all partitions on your hard drives. This will make finding the disk containing your backups easier.

When you use the Acronis True Image rescue media, it creates disk drive letters that might differ from the way Windows identifies drives. For example, the D: disk identified in the standalone Acronis True Image might correspond to the E: disk in Windows.

Thanks Steve

Already noted that drive letters are re arranged, but as stated, the boot drive is not seen under any alternative drive letter

My question hinges on the fact that  an image  backup in TruImage  windows version does see" C Boot drive" to backup and also apparently to  restore .

However one is more likely to want to / only be able to  restore via the Media Boot disc program, when there is a Windows 10 problem

When one reboots from the MB disc , regardless of rearranged drive letters available, my 250 Gb M2 SSD Drive is not a visible restore option .

The C Drive becomes X drive & is not thus listed to  restore.

As mentioned in "Reflect",  C Boot Drive ( or any renamed drive letter for that hard drive )  is a restore location  option where the current contents of the boot drive will be deleted on request, in favour of the instalation of the backup available.The system will then always reboot into windows 10 with no problem.

How does the equivalant work in TruImage ?

Roger, you have provided the extra information that explains why your C: boot drive is not visible in the standard, Linux based, Rescue Media - that the drive is a M2 SSD drive.

The issue here is that the Linux Rescue media does not have the necessary device drivers to see that drive, whereas when looking from within Windows, these drivers are provided by the OS.

In this instance you need to create the alternative Windows PE version of the Rescue Media (Macrium defaults to using WinPE media, hence why that can see the drive but the ATIH linux media cannot).  

When you go into the Acronis Rescue Media Builder tool, it will prompt you to download the Windows 10 ADK needed for WinPE media - this is a 3GB download but you only need to install the top 3 options shown in the ADK install window.

We also have an MVP Tool - Custom ATI WINPE Builder script you can use once the ADK is installed, which provides more flexibility than the default Acronis media builder - the custom script can build both 32-bit or 64-bit media, plus can inject additional device drivers such as the Intel RST drivers needed if your M2 SSD is operating in RAID mode (again not supported in the Linux media).  See link in my signature.

Hi Steve

I did use the Windows PE version of the boot disk through loading Windows 10 ADK , as far as I was aware !

I will recheck if I loaded the top 3 options of ADK

Roger

Hi Steve

I thought I had configured the Recovery Media correctly.

I made another disc and still cannot see the M2 SSD which is in standard config & not RAID

I will check your custom ATI Win Builder & check back if any problem ,

Roger

The default Acronis WinPE media builder does not supply additional drivers outside of What the ADK from Windows includes - this does not include IRST (INtel Rapid Storage Technology) drivers, which are needed if the SATA mode is set to RAID in the bios.  Most OEM's are using RAID as the default SATA mode for systems shipping with PCIE NVME hard drives now so IRST is a driver that needs to be added.  Because the current version of the Acronis WinPE media builder has not option to inject drivers, nor does it support 32-bit only UEFI systems, Mustang and I took it upon ourselves to re-vamp this process and make it easier for the user to inject drivers (we also provide the IRST driver by default for your build) and to also support those 32-bit only UEFI systems.

The MVP winpe builder should be exactly what you're looking for.  I highly encourage you to use the advanced version and see how cool the resulting winPE media is.  It's just as easy to run as the the basic, but gives you a lot more extras like a file explorer and web browser.

We should be releasing a new build any day now, one small hiccup, but we should have it ready to go VERY SOON.  The current advanced builder is still very nice and both it and the new one will feel verry similar when booted - the new version is using an entirely new process though and will have some ability to use WinRE to bring in wireless support, automatically add Universal Restore, and a few other new features.

Thanks Bobbo

However I used the MVP Win PE builderas per instructions and :

The generic version boots correctly but with no additional drivers, does not see the M2 drive to restore to

I then produced a second version with all M2 drivers manually added to the 64bit folder and the resulting disc does not boot at all ( after 15 minutes )

No error shows however

Roger

Roger, in your initial post you mentioned coming back to Acronis from using Macrium.  Does Macrium see this M2 SSD drive correctly when booting from their boot media?  If so, what device drivers are being selected by Macrium when you create the boot media?  Just wondering if this is coming down to a driver issue, especially as the Acronis MVP media didn't boot after you added the M2 drivers?  One thing I like about Macrium is the list of drivers it offers to be included when creating boot media plus those that are already covered by the ADK version being used.

Roger, one of the reasons we're rebuilding the WinPE tool is to ensure the rescue media is always formatted first. If possible, please fully format your flash drive first.

2nd, what type of system are you using? In most cases IRST drivers are sufficient, but if you have a custom raid controller such as LSI or RocketRAID then you'd have to provide those drivers for the controller, not the hard drive itself. The hard drive is fine.

what version of the ADK did you install as well? Highly recommend using the Windows 10 adk 1511, but 1607 is ok too. If you add more custom drivers, make sure you only include the correct architecture (assuming 64bit) and the version to match the ADK being used (win 10 drivers if using win 10 adk).

there may also be custom driver packs for your system. Dell and hp provide WinPE driver packs. You have to extract them from a single .cab and you must ensure to remove the 32bit folder after that if creating 64bit WinPE.

Hi

I am not using RAID drivers or Controller , just 2 standard SAT AHCI drivers .

I am using a self built system with  the full Windows 10  v1607 build 14393.726 ( not Insider )

I would never use Dell /HP systems !!

Asus Z170 board ,  i7 6700k processor, Evga 1050 nvidia graphics card, 16gb RAM

also ADK 1607 for Windows 10

I did not use a flash drive but CDs/ DVDS for your boot system

I wasted 6 discs ( 2 different types) in the process, all loaded vanilla version of your WIN pe modifier.but not with added drivers

Hope this helps

Roger

Can you try a USB flash drive as a test instead? I can't speak for the actual burn process, but have seen strange things with burning directly from Windows- especially if the burn cache still has files from a previous burn. Perhaps, create an .iso first and then try burning that with Windows or imageburn or something else to test then. If you have a spare flash drive to use, try that instead - 1gb is all you need if you have an old stick lying around. Just make sure to give it a full format first.

I don't have any Asus boards but booting fine in my tests with my gigabyte z170x. You should not need any additional drivers other than the IRST drivers we already provide in the custom folder.  That already contains the intel AHCI and raid storage drivers for all versions of Windows, providedd directly from Intels website. 

MVP Enchantech and Mustang have ASUS boards and all is working for them so I'm inclined to think it's a bad burn for some reason. Double check the pending items to burn and remove if anything is there. For S&G's you can rerun the full installer of Acronis and run a repair too - just to be sure the media builder app is ok.

could you also post a screenshot of what you do see when you boot the WinPE rescue media for hard drives. Letters may not be the same as you see directly in Windows. WinPE assigns itself as x. It will assign letters for other drives automatically. First come, first serve. These are letters for the WinPE OS only and don't umpavt how you would see them from your regular OS. Instead of relying on letter here, look at the name of the volume you assigned to it - this is the best way to determine which disk is which in WinPE.

Hi Steve

MacriumReflect v.1745 sees the M2 SSD 960 Evo correctly in both Windows 10 and via boot disk

I had previously not noticed what drivers were selected when compiling the disc .

Currently there seems to be a false error on attempting backup / restore "file system bitmap fragmented cannot proceed"

I have tested the drive many times with various appropriate test software, Samsung Magician , and via CHKDSK /r (f) , no errors show up.

The drive is 2 months old.

Being an experienced soft ware tester for 20 years , I have installed thousands of items and many boot discs .

In answer to your colleague, I can be absolutely  sure which hard drive is which when looking  in TruImage windows version / boot disc , regardless of  rearranged  drive letters used by TruImage or any other similar software .

Hope that helps .

Roger, interesting that the Macrium boot disk sees the M2 SSD 960 Evo correctly, so would be interesting to compare what drivers they choose to include for this in their boot media compared to what is being injected in to the Acronis media?

If I understand how Macrium works correctly, they copy the installed drivers from your Windows OS rather than relying on you having to find and download the needed drivers.  I wonder if you could use a tool such as Double Driver to make a backup of the installed driver and use that with the Acronis media?

If the bios is set as AHCI for the SATA mode, there's no reason that Acronis WinPE would not see it with the included drivers in the MVP PE builder.  1) The WinPE is created direclty from Windows ADK - same as Macrium.  Windows 10 ADK has default ACHCI drivers for all hard drives - SATA or PCI - there is 0 difference in this regrard.  Custom drivers would be the differnece, but there is no need for any custom drivers other than what is provided.  

Again though, if using RAID as the SATA mode, you must have the proper RAID controller drivers to see it when in RAID mode as these are not in the Windows 10 ADK by default.  The IRST drivers provided in the MVP winpe builder will be sufficient for 99% of systems.  Only those that have a custom controller on the motherboard will need to inject their own.  

If using the Windows 10 ADK 1607 and the MVP winpe builder (make sure the custom drivers folder has an x64 folder and inside that contains IRST with 6 files in it that include iaAHCIC.inf and iaSotrAC.inf) you're good to go for drivers to see the NVME drive in the built winpe.

As for bootability - that's completely different.  Again - the Acronis builder does not format the drive first if using a USB flash drive.  If it had Macrium, or Acronis Linux, or something else, format it first.  And if not using a USB flash drive, but instead, burning directly to CD/DVD automatically, please try burning to .iso first and then burning the .iso.  There have been a few people in the forum who could not burn directly to CD/DVD because of old temp files in the Windows "waiting to be burned" queue that prevented the burn straight to disc. 

I've tested this rescue media on a large number of systems - 32 and 64bit - using RAID and ACHI, SATA SSD, SATA HD, emmC flash hard drives, and a PCIE NVME hard drives - it boots fine and detectes the hard drives on all of them (custom boards, OEM's, tablets, and more).

---------

Also, just to clarify, because someone else had this problem as well...

1) You're selecting 64-bit as the option when building your rescue media  (you should be)

2) When the Acronis rescue media builder pops up... you're selecting the option to build WinPE and not taking the default to build Linux rescue media

I Have now tried a formatted 1gb flash drive . still does not boot, but hangs for 15- 20 minutes .

The IRST folder in the advance version of boot disc installer contains the files mentioned and I had added the NVME driver and  other drivers fron device manager view of SSD 960 drive .

You mentioned "Sotra" but I think you mean "Stora"

Perhaps I am left with a strange system error which accounts for the macrium problem with backup not working,.as above.

I had overclocked the Z170 board awhile ago which can lead to file corruptions , but the "sfc /scannow" option does not show any errors

Yes 1) & 2) selected as the bottom of your message .

Any other thoughts Bobbo ?

Running out of ideas - it boots fine without drivers, boots not so good with included drivers - just a black screen.  These extra drivers are standard IRST so I don't see how it would cause an issue just for booting. Yup, that is a type-o above, sounds like you have the correct IRST drivers.  

Are you running the NG 6116?  If so, please whitelist the MVP builder application folder.  Please temporarily turn off NG system protection - all settings after that (just in case) - I use NG6116, but I disable the new protection, but since it needs to "touch" Acronis to use the media builder, maybe it's part of the problem in this case.

Did you try a "repair" install of acronis as suggested above - mabye it's the media builder component that's actually the problem - something that didn't quite upgrade correctly the last go-a-round.  

It's also tough to come by 1Gb flash drives these days so I'm assuming this one is fairly old and may not be a good drive to test with.  Regardless, try "cleaning" the flash drive first with diskpart - that will guarantee to wipe out any old system volume information with a possibly old bootloader.  https://forum.acronis.com/system/files/forum/2017/02/128699/formatting_a_new_disk_using_diskpart.pdf

Start with those and see how it goes. If it's still problematic, a few things to check in the bios still, but I'm out of ideas.  You're definitely in a more unique situation than I've seen so far.  We had one other user having issues long ago and it turned out all of his media was bad - CD/'s and flash drives were the same brand - none of them worked.  He grabbed a new 8Gb usb 3.0 flash drive and built it and it worked fine the first time.  

In the bios, do you have secure boot enabled - if so, disable it for now

In the bios, do you have a CSM\legacy option you can enable - if you do, and it's not, enable that for now

What's your one time boot menu key (mine is F12).  From there, I can specifically see my bootable USB drive as both UEFI and legacy options.  From there, I can which one I wan to use.  Try both on your system (I'm not sure how your OS is installed), but would be curious 

I have a recollection that if the system has an ancient main board (ancient chipset) that if you use the latest IRST drivers you get this result. The solution may be to use older version of IRST driver - Intel has a list of the latest IRST driver supported by each chipset.

In my case it was Z77 chipset - another vauge recollection is that if the system is using an old IRST driver that is a contributing factor. You can load newer (unsupported) IRST drivers on a system and it still works, and again if I recall correctly they the work with WinPE recovery media.

Update: Here there is a Z170 being used, so my explanation does not expalin what is happening.

Ian

 upi

On checking against other boot intensive software for cloning & backup,I am eventually coming up with sector errors on this M2 drive.

Despite the usual repair attempts they have reduced, but are still present.

This does not affect the general running of the drive in other areas.

I will see if a supplier replacement is possible

R.