Windows 8 and Universal Restore
I'm having problems trying to use the Universal Restore feature with a Windows 8 OS I'm restoring. I'm using the WinPE 4.0 recovery as the Linux-based option does not have support for my RAID drivers (A85X chipset, Asus F2A85M-CSM) . I'm transferring from a single-disk OS install to a RAID 0. A straight restore works okay, but that obviously will just cycle boot. The problem is when using the Universal Restore feature, at the very end, each time, it states "Operation has failed." I have checked the logs (attached below) and am getting the error "Cannot open registry key 'CriticalDeviceDatabase'." Well, I can understand WHY that's a problem, because Windows 8 no longer contains that key. Tech support is less than helpful. http://kb.acronis.com/content/34317 states explicitly that all editions of Windows 8 are supported. Has anyone with Windows 8 been able to get this to work (and before anyone asks, I've used the drivers off the CD and downloaded from Asus' site. I have put the drivers on a flash driver, external, CD and network share, if you read the log, you'll see the three previous messages before then stating it has found and loaded the files). Any help would be appreciated, tech support has done me no good.
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Well, James, you were right on the button. Once I copied the mspack.dll file over I was able to get to the point where it would attempt to get the drivers. I say attempt because it gets to a point now where its telling me it can load a chunk of drivers, even though I have dumped my entire driver directory, INF and SYS files, from the previous setup and included the necessary raid drivers (the only thing changing on this system is I'm going from a single-disk AHCI to a RAID-0, other than that nothing has changed). It looks like it even finds the files from the backup to install but in the end, ends up asking me for new files. Problem is, I can't seem to get newer files as my board uses an AMD chipset, and catalyst doesn't exactly make it easy to find the straight drivers. But hey, you were right on the button, I appreciate the help, hopefully Acronis will listen to you and get that missing file fixed in their PE Builder. Oh, and I attached my new log file below if you maybe got ideas on the driver issue.
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Your logs duplicate mine when trying the same operations for a Windows 8 system, both with and without the mspack.dll file present. With the mspack.dll in place, you can see the additional errors with the registry updates while Universal Restore is trying to open the key that does not exist. The now defunct registry key no longer exists in Windows 8 and a new method of installing the drivers looks necessary to me when applying drivers to a Windows 8 UR restored installation vs. earlier versions of Windows. Acronis has been able to duplicate the problem, and promises a fix in an upcoming build. The mspack.dll missing issue does not exist in the Linux version of the Rescue Media, but the registry changes in Windows 8 still prevent proper Universal Restore with the current version (2013 build 5551) and Windows 8. I have a system that has the ability to change the controller mode to IDE, AHCI non-RAID, and ACHI-RAID, and have extensively tested the restores from one mode to the other with WinPE 3.0, PE 3.1, PE 4.0, and the standard Linux based Rescue Media. The standard Rescue Media recognizes my controller in all modes allowing for testing with the Linux based media as well. In all cases with Windows 8, the failure to properly use Universal Restore is because of the defunct registry key (as far as I can tell - I'm not a programmer). Using the same system with Windows 7 and Universal Restore, it is successful with all Rescue Media (WinPE media updated with the mspack.dll is still necessary). I have successfully used Universal Restore to restore from IDE to AHCI, IDE to RAID, RAID to AHCI, RAID to IDE, and AHCI to IDE with Windows 7, but no luck with Windows 8.
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Well glad it's not me then. Just kinda feels wrong that they state Universal Restore works with Windows 8, but no one from tech support seems to know how. I really appreciate all your help though. I'm going to try one last thing, but thank you again.
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So delving in to the realm of the bizarre, I got it to work with Windows 8 ... just using a different backup. I used one from a different computer with a similar chipset (A75 instead of A85X), to the same computer I was trying to restore to. It worked, and booted up just fine, with no errors in Acronis. I did find one difference though ... the A85 I never bothered to install the official drivers from AMD after Windows 8 installed because no hardware missing errors showed up. I'm reinstalling to the AHCI setup, installing the drivers, backup up, then trying to restore to the RAID again and see if it works.
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Good luck. Since the controller is in AHCI mode when using RAID or not, you "MAY" be successful, but it will not be because of Universal Restore. As a matter of fact, I can restore my system image created while in AHCI mode to the system when set to RAID mode, without Universal Restore.
Apparently, on my system, the AHCI drivers and RAID drivers are the same or are installed together, and are available (and set to enabled in the registry) for Windows at boot. There have been other users that tried the restore without Universal Restore when going from AHCI to RAID, and did not have any success.
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That's the thing, I was in RAID mode when I got that other computer's backup to work with Universal Restore (The other system was in AHCI as well for the backup).
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