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Recover problem with windows 8.1 backup

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I have just upgraded to TI 2014 from TI 2013 and Pluspack.

Im running 64 bit Windows 8.1 Update 1 installed under UEFI on a SSD. I can successfully create a backup of the SSD. When I try to recover the backup onto another SSD, the recover process starts, doing some calculation for a while and then a message pops up saying I need to restart my computer for the process to finish. When I restart, the computer boots and then just hangs. A message appears on the screen saying something like "load UFI ...."

This didn't happen when I was running Windows 8 and using TI 2013. I could then successfully recover backups onto another SSD. No restart popups occurred then.

What is going on? Thanks for any help you can provide.

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If you recover a disk and partition backup and you initiate the recovery within Windows to a disk that is the current system disk, the computer will always restart to boot into the pre-Windows environment and execute the restore operation. Sometimes the detection might trigger a reboot even if you recover to a disk that is not the currently operating system disk.

I strongly recommend not to initiate disk and partition backup recoveries from Windows. Always do these operations (and clone operations) by booting on the Acronis recovery CD.

Thanks Pat for your response.
What I actually have is a desktop with two SSDs and one hard disk for data. One SSD (my system SSD) contains my windows 8.1 installation, settings and programs. Nothing else. The other SSD is just a spare. It is to this spare SSD I want to recover the backup I have made of my system SSD. Once I have recovered to this spare, I switch it off. If anything should happen to my system SSD, I can then switch the spare back on and boot up from it. All my disks are mounted in mobile disk racks. Each rack has its own on/off switch.

So, Im not recovering to the system SSD but to the spare SSD.

I used to able to do this backup and recovery process when I was still using windows 8.0 and TI 2013. But now that I have upgraded to windows 8.1 it doesn't work anymore. Now I wonder if this problem I have is caused by windows 8.1 or TI 2014. Or both.

To do a recovery by booting from the recovery CD is a bit clumsy, don't you think? So, any silver bullet you have for me? Interestingly, the recover process in TI 2014 does allow for a destination disk other than the disk the backup was made on. So why shouldn't the recover process done from within windows be doable?

Yeah but Acronis tries its best to detect what the backup data contains and it sees a system image that you try to restore to an internal disk and declares it has to be done in the pre-Windows environment. Not sure if the issue is from Windows or ATI, frankly.

I agree, it would be more convenient to do everything within Windows. The software has to work in all cases though and most cases are about recovery to the live operating system disk. You cannot do this while Windows is running, hence the default option is to reboot in the pre-Windows environment.

Rebooting in the pre-Windows environment can be problematic. First, it modifies the boot records, so things can get screwed up if the operation fails, for example because of a corrupted backup. It happened to me a couple of times on a UEFI Win 8.1 system and it was a mess. The computer wouldn't reboot at all, couldn't fix it with Windows. Ended up taking the disk out and doing what you are trying to do on another laptop.

Always use the recovery CD. This is much safer and reliable.

OK Pat, I have now tried out recovering inside the recovery CD environment and it seems to work well. It took about 1 hour to recover a 120 GB SSD. I always validate the backups to ensure they will recover properly. After recovery, I do not reboot in the pre-windows environment. I shut down and reboot normally.

I will do a few more experiments and report back.

Thanks for your help.

I have had several of the situations both you and Pat describe and I can only concur with Pat: it is MUCH safer to do all this stuff in the RECOVERY environment (not Windoze). I use a Flashdrive, not a CD, and that seems to work fine.

OK. I have now tested out the recover process from within the CD recovery environment and it seems to work well. Took about half an hour to recover a 120 GB SSD of which the Windows system occupies 46 GB.

I now understand that to recover system disks one needs to be in the pre-windows environment. But what about data disks? Cant that be done inside windows? Apparently not. TI 2014 requires a system restart like it did when I tried to recover a system from within windows. So, I tried a recovery of a data disk in the CD recovery environment and it works OK. Interestingly, I could do a data disk recovery inside windows with TI 2013.

Any comments?

I think it is safer to do ANY sort of WHOLE disk recovery in the recovery (pre-Windows) environment. Extracting files in Windows is fine (and much easier) but not disks.