Acronis True Image 2021 - Can't restore from network share
Hey all, glad to be here!
I was an Acronis user a LONG time ago, and had my system backed up on CD/DVD media. Then I got a home server and was using Window's built in backup software to backup to the Windows Server. That worked great. Then over the last month I've been in the process of building a new server with UnRaid so I could give my old server to my brother. That much is done. Unraid is up and running fine. But it doesn't have any backup capabilities. Enter in Acronis again!
Until I buy a full license, I wanted to first test and see if I could make the latest version work for me in my situation. I'm running Windows 7. Unraid is a Linux OS. I have both computers connected directly via a high speed 10 gigabit. connection. They are also connected with a separate NIC to a router which supports 1 gigabit. The software installed ok, and I created a dedicated network share folder for Acronis to use. The network share is publicly available on the server using SMB and does not require any account information to access it. Without changing any settings, I went through the process of allowing Acronis to create a backup and have it's destination be on the network share. It processed perfectly, and when I browse to the share I can see the new file is there. The next thing I did was create the system recovery disc using a CD. When I reboot the computer onto that CD, I do get it to boot up with the recovery environment. However, I am unable to access the network share. It just doesn't display anything at all. I poked around in the software a bit and found a hidden menu to configure the network and appearance. However, the network options are all completely blank. According to the (?) help link, it looks like the software isn't loading any device drivers for my NIC. I can understand it not wanting to use the 10 gigabit NIC because it's an addon card and not part of the motherboard. But it should at least be loading some generic drivers for the 1 gigabit.
Has anybody else had any trouble getting the recovery environment to load network devices and getting network shares to work? I'm very eager to use this software as I've had great success with it in the past. But if I'm not able to recover with the created backups, the whole system is VOID.
No experience with Unraid here but do have experience with other Linux based backup apps.
I have experienced issues like you are in using them. Since your configuration screen, which you were quite lucky to find by the way, are blank, this suggests that the media does not detect your network at all. This is common when a WinPE version of the media is used.
You are fortunate to have discovered where the Network Options configuration screen is as this is not obvious and it is not documented to my knowledge as well. Since you know how to get that up all you will need to do then is enter in your network configuration settings to get things working.
You will need to know the following items prior to booting the recovery media and accessing the Network Options settings page. I am assuming you will know how to get this information:
- IP address (of your nic)
- Subnet mask (255.255.255.0 is a good bet)
- DNS suffix [Domain name] (WORKGROUP is a good bet)
- Default Gateway (192.168.1.1 is common)
- DNS Servers addresses (just the primary will be sufficient but both if you have them)
Once you have the Network Options screen open, uncheck the Auto configuration box, then fill in the fields with the above information. Once entered, click on the OK button, a message will appear saying that the app is saving the network connections settings. The message should disappear after the IP address is resolved and you should then be able to access your SMB share(s).
If you want to test a recovery then click on the backup type you wish to recover under the word Recover seen on the Home screen. Click on My Disks for disk based backups or Files & Folders for file/folder backups. Then follow the steps below:
Assuming you are wanting to recover a Disk backup,
- Click My Disks
- On the next screen click the Browse button.
- On the next screen, click inside the File name field and erase any text.
- Now begin entering the network path in the following example format \\servername-ipaddress\sharename\
- As you type beyond the servername or ipaddress (it is one or the other here) the app should begin to locate your SMB shares on the server and will display them for you. You can select the suggestion or continue typing in the path. At some point if your shares are password protected a credentials prompt will appear and will require credential entry before proceeding. Once entered you may proceed to navigate to your desired share.
That's it. Hope this helps