Mother Board Tech claims
I have been using for quite some time now Acronis backup software and was recently told by a Tech at the manufacturer of my motherboard that on a daily basis they get user calls regarding boot issues where Acronis TI was used to create a boot drive. Furthermore, he said it creates a 100 MB sector on the boot drive that can sometimes float and cause boot failures. This is the first time I have ever heard of such a thing and must admit do not have enough hardware savvy to argue for or against. Secondly, with other systems I have built, I have never run into boot issues using Acronis, not until a recent change to my new mother board, an Asus Crosshair V Formula-z. Any thoughts on this from some of you more advanced and experienced users? I would very much appreciate your inputs.
That 100 MB volume you see in Disk Management is created by Windows on install, NOT Acronis. You can prevent the OS from creating it at install, but it's a bit tricky. I'm not surprised your mobo's manufacturer is making such claims, as such is common with hardware makers; it's always the software's fault, never bad engineering or QC in their manufacturing. The truth is, getting hardware and software to play nice on a regular basis is an art, not a science.
FWIW, I could not get the Acronis recovery boot CD to start my system; it would simply return a message that no OS install could be found. Acronis tech support and I tried everything we could think of to make it work, to no avail. Finally, out of desperation, I updated my BIOS, and wham! I was good to go. What difference did the updated BIOS make? I have no idea, I only know it worked.
I have hard times imagining what a "floating" 100MB "sector" is.
I wonder if that is a 'floating' in 'hardware' or software 100MB sector? :-) When those fixed point floats get involved all bets are off.
@OP.
I think either the Tech was talking codswallop or there has been some miscommunication somewhere.
Perhaps he was referring to the Acronis Startup Manager.
Thanks folks. I had a feeling he was grasping at straws! They are having a hard time at ascertaining the root cause of my MB issuess that seem to relate to either a bad sata controller, BIOS chip, or BIOS chip. A replacement MB is suggesting that is the case. Addtionally, I am suspicious of the mobile drive racks I have been using for years. I may have one in particular that is contributory to my ongoing boot and corruption issues. I hav e nto mentioned that to the MB manufacturer for dear of them grabbing on that as well as a cause. I am wonder if either of you could tell me if cloning or using Backup & Restore is the most reliable way to go for backups? I have always relied on clones. If I can do the Backup & Restore, is it possible to restore to a USB connection, remove the drive from the external case, put it in the system case, hook it up to sata boot port, and to exepect it to boot?