How to recover my lost drive/operating system (first time I've had to do this)

Lots of questions here.

"Another complication is that I downloaded ATI2017 and entered my key but Acronis says that I have already used this before and I have 30 days to sort it out." Not sure why this happened, probably the disk signature was changed when you did the new Windows installation. Presumably it will work for 30 days, so you are OK.  When you do the recovery make sure that the check box for restore disk signature is ticked. This will ensure that you do not get the licence message again.

It is possible to restore from a NAS, but experienced users suggest that it is easier to first copy the backup to the PC, or a USB drive attached to the PC.

To avoid making a bad situation worse, do not do the recovery from Windows. Create a recovery media (USB or CD/DVD). If your system is not using raid drivers then the standard recovery media should be OK. If not you will need to create your recovery media using the MVP Tool - CUSTOM ATI WINPE BUILDER. 

Ian

Thanks. I'm going to attempt to recover the previous state of my Windows 10 drive on the weekend. What I'm hoping/aiming to do is have my drive be in the same state that it was when I used Acronis to plonk my data onto my NAS. Given that the TIB file is over 100 GB, does that suggest I cloned my drive onto my NAS? What are the options as to what I did in that case? Given that I want to restore to the exact same state as before, what operation SHOULD I have used on Acronis? Since posting this message, I've had to reinstall W10 again, and download Acronis again, this time not entering my key, so I don't have that message I need to resolve the issue as to why I've used the same key twice...but I still have the free trial of Acronis for 30 days. Will using the TIB file to restore fix this issue with Acronis? I.e. will I have full access to the product again?

Anyway, I've downloaded the TIB file from my NAS to my PC as well as to a USB drive which has a lot of other data on it as well. With that USB, does it matter if there are other files on it?

"To avoid making a bad situation worse, do not do the recovery from Windows. Create a recovery media (USB or CD/DVD)."

Thanks, Ian...will the recovery media USB need to be empty to use? Formatted to Fat 32? If it does, will it need to have at least 100 GB+ of space on it to fit that TIB file on it? Acronis app will guide me to creating this recovery media?

Given what I'm trying to do, are there any useful URLs which can guide me through the process in case I don't find Acronis' app intuitive?

A few questions here.

For the recovery media it will be FAT32 USB stick. Anything on the USB stick will be lost. The USB stick should preferably be 16 gig or less, as problems have been reported in the past with larger USB sticks.

The *.tib file(s) do not have to be the only files on the partition or USB storage device. When you start up the recovery media it should find the recovery set (backup) when it scans the drives. You then select the appropriate recovery set, and then select the date - the most recent one possible.

I cannot remember if there are an limits on what you can do with the trial version; hopefully the trial version will create recovery media that can recover. I cannot remember what the limitations are. If it does not, you will have to log into you Acronis account and download the recovery iso, then use a utility to transfer it to a USB stick. There are many utilities that do this, for example Rufus.

Ian

accidental duplicate post!

Another accidental duplicate post content deleted! Have not done this for a while! Senior's moment?

Thanks. Does the USB stick need to be a minimum size? That's what I was getting at before...the tib file is over a 100 GB size, so I was thinking that in order to restore my old drive state, the USB stick would need to have that amount of capacity too. That's not the case? This kind of stuff is technical knowledge to me and I'm not technically minded...i.e. I'm not sure what the relationship is between the tib file and what ends up on the recovery disk and how the recovery disk manages to put over a 100 GB of data back onto your PC.

Since I had to download Acronis' free trial (again), this time I input the key from my Acronis Account:

Products > Acronis True Image 2017 Workstation

That did unlock the software for me (the last time I input a code, it might have been some other key...I have no idea how many different kinds of keys there are). I also tried inputting the serial number but that got knocked back.

With that key that successfully used to unlock the software...how does that work? I mean I don't want to have wasted a key, as in Acronis now thinks that I'm using it on a different computer or something....I'm on the same computer, but I just had to reinstall Windows 10 and now I want to get my PC back into the same state that it was before. Actually, looking in my Acronis app, it still says that I've exceeded the maximum number of activations for this serial number.

Anyway, if I successfully use that tib file, is my PC going to be returned into the exact same state as it was before I messed my drive up? Will that also resolve my issues with exceeding the maximum number of activations for my Acronis serial number?

I'll try and fix my PC tomorrow...in case I find doing that complicated, any useful links on how to do this? Looking at my TI 2017 app, there's menu items for Backup and Archive. I suppose that recovering my old drive state is in one of these...and I'm not sure if I could access my NAS from here...so I suppose that I'd have to access the tib file from the USB that I put it on (and not from this computer, which I also put that tib file on.

Strummer, the recovery media has to be on a separate USB stick; I am relatively certain that it will not search for recovery sets on the recovery media USB stick. Further, the issues reported when using USB sticks of greater than 16gig mean that you would not be able to fit the recovery set on the USB stick.

The recovery will restore the system so that it recognises the PC as the device that originally had the Acronis software installed. Make sure that the option to include disk signature to guarantee that all software continues to work (as disk signature is often used for licence authentication).

It is possible that the Acronis server may still think you have the software on two PCs; it will allow you to select which device the software is on; either transfer to new device or keep on current device (the latter is what you will want to do as you have recreated your old device). I have never had to do this, but others have reported that the process is painless.

Ian, I've made progress...but with complications. It wasn't as complicated as I thought that it might be to recover my lost drive setup, so I have that now. I think I get how the system works now...you don't need too much space on your USB for the recovery media stick because all it does is lets you into Acronis to access the backup so that you can recover it, right?

Anyway, I've got my restored drive setup on my secondary drive. I'm updating apps and other stuff in there. Here's the complication: I want that restored drive on my primary drive but I'm not sure how to do that. So, I boot into my secondary drive and have the restored drive setup. If I try and delete the contents of my primary drive (which has the reinstalled Windows 10, minus all my paid for apps etc), Windows 10 warns me that this might brick my computer. So, I backed up my Acronis save onto the primary drive...but I can't seem to boot into that as the primary, restored drive. Furthermore, that primary drive now has less capacity, due to my misguided attempts to add my restored drive to it.

So, how do I go about having the restored and updated drive (I hope) which is housed in my secondary drive, moved to the primary drive in such a way that I can boot into it, and not have lost any storage capacity between the two drives?

P.S. I can't remember if ticked any options for disk signatures but I'm under the impression that my Acronis knows that I am using it on the same computer.

This will teach me to think that installing a Linux on my secondary drive was a good idea...I have lost so much time on this since that went wrong!

Thanks for your efforts though, appreciated.

I suspect that the problem may be the boot priority in the setting; you need to make sure that the first HHD\SSD to boot from is the one with your restored version.

Given the problems you are having (reduction in storage space) I would delete partitions on drive with the recovered version - you will probably need to use a partitioning tool such as the free Minitool - I have used this several times.

As you now have experience in the recovery process it should go much more quickly.

Ian

Thanks Ian

Currently my boot options are:

SATAO P0

SATAO P1

Windows Boot Manager (P1…)

UEFI OS (P1…)

Weirdly, when I check the boot order via F12 on startup, Windows Boot Manager comes up first, but when I check the boot order in BIOS settings, it’s UEFI which comes up first. Is that a problem?

SATAO P0 and SATAO P1 both boot me into my recovered Windows 10 desktop, which isn’t as up to date as it should be (it’s been updated since the state I recovered it from, but not as much since I’ve used it more). The fact that it’s P0 and P1 suggests that both drives have this stored on it, right? So, that means I did clone (?) it onto the other drive. I’m not even sure which drive I’m booting into, as far as Window 10’s “This PC” options goes, with it stating that I have a Local Disk (C:) drive and a Local Disk (D:) drive. The C drive does have the Windows 10 symbol above it though. How do I tell whether I am in the C or D drive? The “P1” and “P0” boot option confuses issues for me! Would Acronis create trouble for me if I attempted to use Windows 10 on the other drive (as in demand I buy another licence or something)?

Windows Boot Manager (P1…) and UEFI OS (P1…) both boot into the version of Windows 10 that I want...updated and with some new stuff that I downloaded. Is there a difference between these boot options? If I update stuff when booted into one of those, will it also update the same stuff in the other boot option here? What on Earth is the difference between these boot options? Doesn’t matter which boots first?

In “This PC” option, Local Disk (C:) has “762GB free of 953GB” and a Local Disk (D:) “565GB free of 952GB”.

...Anyway, my process doing this has been pretty haphazard. Not sure I could do it again easily! Basically, I just want to have my current Windows 10 setup on the C drive, without any older setup in the same drive too, and a bootable version of that same setup on either the D drive or a USB drive. Is there a guide to finding partitions or whathaveyou on the drive that I’m using which may contain another version of my desktop and how to get rid of that easily? When I recovered my desktoop, Windows did do an update. No idea how much space that took, but I’d assume that it wouldn’t account for the large loss of storage data I had when reinstalling Windows 10.

When I recovered my old Windows 10 desktop, I deleted then installed the same browser (it was no longer running smoothly so I thought I should redownload it), losing all my bookmarks from the old one, unfortunately. I want to re-reinstall my Acronis image (?) onto another drive to access those bookmarks and hopefully copy them or something. It’s Firefox. Easy to do? Now, seeing as want to have my current desktop saved by Acronis, how do I ensure that my previous Acronis copy of my drive isn’t replaced by the new copy? I can have a copy of each on my NAS?

What other operations can Acronis perform as far as saving data? Backing up? That won’t save your desktop settings will it? Why would you choose that (or other) options?

I tried to clone (?) my current Windows 10 setup to a USB drive but that was unsuccessful, due to something about some files being missing. Any ideas what went wrong?

Windows 10 has an option for “Create a recovery drive” is that basically the same as Acronis’ bootable recovery disk? Worth doing that via Windows 10?

This is the site which has that tool you mentioned? > http://www.minitool.com/

What particular app should I download?

P.S. I regret cutting and pasting my reply to you...it cut all right, but I lost my paste for some reason (that feature was not supported on my browser or something...then why the Hell did it let me cut it?)! Had to write this post out again! FFS! Ironically, I was just trying to make sure that I didn’t lose my post before I posted it.

Strummer, the best way forward in your situation here would be to follow the KISS principle - Keep It Simple...

Remove or fully disconnect each of your SATA drives one at a time, then test booting into the UEFI BIOS settings and check what is shown in your Boot Priority settings?

From what I have read above, it sounds as if your recovered Windows 10 drive is the one shown with P1 (SATA Port 1) and this should be selected using the Windows Boot Manager P1 option rather than selecting the SATA P1 option.

Once you have clearly identified which drive is which, then either select just that drive as the primary boot drive, leaving the other drive alone, or reformat the other drive as needed.

If you want to keep things tidy, then move the P1 drive to the P0 cable / port and select the Windows Boot Manager P0 option to boot from this, but if doing this, do so with the second drive disconnected or removed, keeping the change as simple as possible.

   I'm don't think that I have the confidence to actually mess with the innards of my PC...I had it assembled for me. MIght have to leave things here, unless I maybe want to hire a PC repairmen to go over this sometime.

   My PC automatically boots to the option which has my preferred, updated drive systems, which is good. So that would be either:

Windows Boot Manager (P1…)

or

UEFI OS (P1…)

   I wonder if making changes when booted in one changes the other too, so it's as up to date if you decide to boot into the other using F12. It's a pity that it's not obvious to tell which "P" in the boot menu corresponds with the "C" or "D" drive.

" it sounds as if your recovered Windows 10 drive is the one shown with P1 (SATA Port 1) and this should be selected using the Windows Boot Manager P1 option rather than selecting the SATA P1 option."

   Any idea why choosing the "P1 (SATA0 P)" boot menu options boots to the slightly older version of the desktop which I had? Been a while, so I can't remember whether that slightly older version is just the reinstalled Windows 10, which I've updated, or my Acronis version...I'd say that it's most likely to be just the reinstalled Windows 10 version though, before I recovered Acronis version.

Just tried using Copy and Paste...that actually worked on this site, whereas choosing Cut and Paste was disastrous!

Thanks for you help anyway, Steve.

Ian, I've struck trouble again! Details of how I managed to do that are in the post I link to, below.

Can I restore the desktop and contents that I was using last night via my Acronis app on my PC or do I NEED to use the Acronis USB recovery method?

Anyway, I do have an Acronis rescue USB, which I don't think I've had the chance to test out yet.

I have a .tib file in my NAS which hopefully should restore the version of my desktop which I was using last night. I'm not sure that Acronis can view it though, although I do comment on that in my other thread, below.

Since I'm new this, my problem is that I don't know how to access that newer .tib file...going into "Backup" on the Acronis app only seems to show a prior version of my PC, which is months old now, and not what I want to restore.

What's the step-by-step guide to restoring the version of my PC which I was using last night?

P.S. It might be possible I'll work this out myself in the meantime by attempting to use the recovery USB, but if I have problems with that, I thought I'd just better post here to outline where I'm at and how I got here!

https://forum.acronis.com/comment/423046#comment-423046

Strummer, please see my comments in your other forum topic 423046.