Acronis Boot Disk failing? WTF

[GoodEnough]

I use Acronis True Image Home to save an image of my baseline OS build with all apps installed. I just bought an SSD drive and wanted to revert/refresh/restore my baseline OS build instead of cloning my current 1-year old Win 7 build (which gets cluttered and bloated)

When I try to boot my PC with this Acronis boot CD, I get the following error:

Starting Acronis Loader:
Acronis Loader fatal error: Boot drive (partition) not found.
Press <ENTER> to try to boot your OS...


I know the Acronis boot CD is working, b/c my laptop can boot from it.
I know the PC's CD/DVD drive is working, b/c it can boot from a different non-Acronis boot CD.

Anyone have any ideas on the issue?

 

[corkyg]

Use your installed Acronis TI software to create bootable rescue media in ISO format. Store this conveniently, and use it to creat additional boot disks and even bootable flash media. Your problem stems from trying to boot to media probably not created by the drive selected.

You say it works in the laptop? Is that where the media was created? If so, is that where your Acronis program files are stored? Sometime optical drives are not totally aligned. If you have the ISO file, you can burn a disk for that particular optical. With newer machines, I prefer the bootable thumb drive.

Assume you are talking about Acronis prepared rescue media and not the program disks. If you are dealing with SSD, you should upgrade to TI 2012.

 

[GoodEnough]

It's not about where the media was created.
I think it's a SATA compatability issue.
I am going to try a BIOS mod (IDE Compatability)

I am also going to try bootable USB.

What is "TI 2012" Not Texas Instruments, I assume

 

[corkyg]

It's not about where the media was created.
I think it's a SATA compatability issue. I am going to try a BIOS mod (IDE Compatability) I am also going to try bootable USB. What is "TI 2012" Not Texas Instruments, I assume

TI in this context stands for True Image. YYou have another problem in that you have triple posted this thread - and are in line for an infraction.

I have had cases where the disk simply had to be tried again and eventually it worked.

I really prefer to let TI prepare a bootable ISO file, then I can burn copies of Rescue Media as needed.

Assume your BIOS mod would change from AHCI to ATA? Yeah - that could be the problem as well.

 

[GoodEnough]

I would delete the cross post, but the forum doesn't allow this.

No, turns out the bootable USB just hangs.
I tried using "ATA" mode in the SATA BIOS, but that didn't work.

I think it's a versioning issue. I am going to buy the new version of Acronis 2013 and try to use that boot media to restore my TI 11 image.

 

[Burner27]

If you are going to clone the SSD from whatever your source is, make sure your destination (target) has been initialized by the software. By that I mean it should ask you whether you want it to have an MBR or GPT. It's under the tools section of the bootable media.

 

[GoodEnough]

I figured it out. Sorta.
I never knew this restore stuff has gotten SO freaking complex in the last 10 years.

First, the Acronis Boot CD would NOT work with my PC.

So, I made an Acronis USB Boot drive instead.
This time, it would start the DOS based Acronis program.
However, it would not detect any drives. Dead end.

So, I changed the BIOS SATA from AHCI to ATA, and booted from USB.
This got further. It allowed me to select the source drive, but then hung. Dead end.
I set it SATA back to AHCI.

I tried to access the "network" (since the image was also on my network)
but it started asking me for some network NSID config crap. Dead end?

So, I copied the TIB image from my 2nd drive right to my C:\, and I ended up doing a "hot" Win-Acronis backup from C:\ image to the new SSD.

This worked ! Lesson, keep it as simple as god damned possible.

The lesson here?
1) DO NOT try to boot from a CDROM to run the DOS based restore program
2) DO NOT try to use the DOS based restore program
3) DO NOT try to restore over a network (unless you want to spend weeks dealing with drivers)

From now on, I will ONLY "hot/live" restore by writing the image to my spare SLAVE hard drive while running Windows Acronis.

Thank for you trying to help!

 

[GoodEnough]

Ran into this BS again tonight.
What a piece of crap.

Screw this image backup bullsht
B/c if Windows get corrupt, Acronis restore is shit out of luck, since I can only invoke it via Win7 desktop app (vs. DOS boot)

The ONLY reliable backup is a physical god damned hard drive mirror.

No booting bullsht.
No network driver bullsht.


I again just cloned my live C: partition onto a spare slave HD.
Now, I have a perfect mirror that is updated to 10/2013.
So, that much more reason to have that image updated.
I will have to remember to do a manual clone every few months.

 

[videobruce]

I thought one couldn't swear in a on line forum? He must be a Republican, they thick they can do whatever they want. :whiste:

 

[Doomer]

Acronis started loosing it a couple of versions ago. I no longer use it and have switched to Marcum Reflect.

 

[HeXen]

I had that problem with Acronis years ago. Stopped using it. The built in Windows image seems to work fine but it has it's limits too when it comes to reinstalling the image. I just make mirror copies of files on other drives and use W8's refresh mode now.

 

[GoodEnough]

I have an fresh baseline OS (plus all my apps) Acronis image that I'd like to still keep as an option

Can I make an Acronis USB boot image?
Anyone have one that can post on FTP and PM me?

 

[Z15CAM]

A SysPREP DOS GHOST.GHO image on a DOS Bootable USB or Optic has never failed me - X-Fingers.

 

[John Connor]

I thought one couldn't swear in a on line forum? He must be a Republican, they thick they can do whatever they want.

I beg to differ! It's Democrats (AKA Jackasses) that think they can do what they want, but that's not what this thread is about now is it?

OP, I just use Macrium Reflect. http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

UBCD4Win has cloning tools too. http://www.ubcd4win.com/contents.htm

 

[Towermax]

I thought one couldn't swear in a on line forum? He must be a Republican, they thick they can do whatever they want. :whiste:

Could you please leave politics out of it? We have enough of this extreme polarization occurring all over the net. Let's avoid it on the tech forums here.

If you want to call names, go to the discussion/political forums.

 

[GoodEnough]

A SysPREP DOS GHOST.GHO image on a DOS Bootable USB or Optic has never failed me - X-Fingers.

What is that? In English please.
Can you help me make an Acronis USB boot flash drive?

 

[corkyg]

What is that? In English please.
Can you help me make an Acronis USB boot flash drive?

In order to create a bootable USB flashdrive with Acronis on it, you must have Acronis installed and simply follow the instructions for media creation.. After opening Acronis TI, look for Rescue Media Builder -second box on left. Follow the wizard, and it will show you choices availble on your system as far as media goes. A bootable flash drive should be in FAT32 format, not NTFS.

 

[Golgatha]

Your problem is you kept using Acronis TI past the 2010 version. What a piece of horrendous crap that piece of software has become.

 

[GoodEnough]

That's a shame, as it used to work just fine.
It still does, when I do a drive copy.
I just won't be able to use the DOS if my Win7 ever gets corrupt.
I'll try to make a USB boot media now.

 

[jkauff]

Your problem is you kept using Acronis TI past the 2010 version. What a piece of horrendous crap that piece of software has become.

I don't know what your experiences have been, but I use TI 2013 and have several times flawlessly restored a system image using their bootable rescue disc. I've also used the Clone functionality successfully. I also like its ability to mount a backup image as a drive, so I can use my normal file manager to restore individual files and folders.

I won't be buying the 2014 edition, because it has no new features I need, but the 2013 is a solid, reliable product.

 

[corkyg]

I don't know what your experiences have been, but I use TI 2013 and have several times flawlessly restored a system image using their bootable rescue disc. I've also used the Clone functionality successfully. I also like its ability to mount a backup image as a drive, so I can use my normal file manager to restore individual files and folders.

I won't be buying the 2014 edition, because it has no new features I need, but the 2013 is a solid, reliable product.

Echo this fully. Yesterday, I was reviewing the Rescue Media Creation, and my TI 2013 offered an update. It took several minutes, but installed just fine. I then created a new Rescue Media ISO file, and burned a new Rescue CD as well as a Thumb Drive. The program has never balked or made an error and I use it regularly, but always from Rescue Media boot - never from Windows. That has its own set of problems.

 

[AdamK47]

I had the same problem booting from the disc that came with True Image 2013. Didn't play around with it too long to try and get it working. Decided to use an older SSD (120GB Vertex 3) I had laying around that still had Windows on it. Put it in a hot swap tray, slid it into my PC, and booted it up. Installed Acronis onto that and restored the image I needed to on my main SSD (256GB Vertex 4). It worked. I'm keeping this older SSD in case I need to do it again or need access to another OS to try things out. It's handier than using the Acronis boot disc anyways I think.

 

[corkyg]

I have a feeling some folks just don't understand how to use the program. It is installed using the disk that comes with it or, more commonly a sownloaded file. After that is installed you can then create bootable rescue media in a variety of formats depending on what the program senses in your system, I choose the ISO file because I can then use it to create rescue media in several formats. You don't try and use the program disk as rescue media.

 

[nightspydk]

Prolly not knowing a bit like what happened to hirens. To many controller drivers to much to handle rip.

 

[techie81]

I too have stopped using Acronis TI, I have had multiple image restorations fail and multiple boot disks fail to load. This is on multiple computers - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I am currently looking for something more reliable.