Universal Restore - dead end

OK, so I have spent hours reading FAQs, the howto on acronis.com and the fine documentation included with the product. I have purchased valid licenses for TI 9.1 Workstation and Universal Restore.

I just can't get it to work and it's really rather annoying to me.

Here is what I have done:

1. Created bootable rescue media which includes TI Universal Restore
2. Booted the PC to backup with this disk, selected TI/UR (Full mode)
3. Backed up the entire computer C: drive to a removable drive
4. Moved the removable drive to the new PC
5. Booted the new PC with the TI rescue disk, selected TI/UR (Full mode)
6. Selected Recovery, selected the archive on the removable drive
7. Choose to restore disks or partitions (for the entire drive)
8. Proceed through next screens, select drives, partitions, etc and restore it
8. BSOD on reboot after restoration (no driver process has been asked for)

I have read over the Acronis how to many times and looked at the doc with the product. They both mention "select the Universal Restore option" in conjunction with the step where you select the archive to restore from.

The screens for me at this point never offer an option to do Universal Restore.

What am I missing? Seems like it should be an easy answer.

TIA.

-buck

 

You are not missing anything. Acronis Workstation 9.1 w/Universal Restore v3886 and 3887 have known bugs where the Universal Restore option does not appear. Acronis has been informed about this months ago through this forum and support tickets.

They have been completely silent on this issue and have done nothing to fix it. If you can get some of the older builds, such as 3666, then you can do a Universal Restore.

 

Hello,

since i upgraded to TrueImage Workstation 9.1 Build 3887, i never was able to create a Rescue Media with Universal Restore option, too.
To create such a CD, i installed TrueImage in a virtual machine, but found no way to get Universal Restore working.

The Trueimage Console on my Windows however gives me the option of Universal Restore, but i cannot assume a scenario where i would need Universal Restore on a running Windows!

Fortunately, i have a copy of my old Build 3694 where Universal Restore works, but if my machine crashes, i would probably need the new build to get Universal Restore working on a new motherboard...

Regards

Erich Blos

 

Okay, here's what I did to solve that problem.

I uninstalled ALL traces of TI from the computer I was backing up. I then scrubbed the the registry of ALL traces of Acronis. Then I went to my program directory and deleted anything left behind from Acronis.

Then I reinstalled TI/UR using the 3887 builds.
Then I created a new Acronis Bootable Media with EVERYTHING on this CD.

I then did my backup from windows to the target drive. Using the Bootable Media UR was NOW an option and worked perfectly.

I don't know if this will work for you but it worked for me. I'd give it a shot.

 

Aside from the usual "uninstall" and obviuous things like desktop shortcuts, couldyou go into detail about what to look for and how to really get all traces of Acronis off the system ?

Thanks.

 

I used REGEDIT to open up the registry and found every instance of Acronis, TI, True Image, TrueImage, etc... and then deleted the entries from the registry.

Then look for the obvious files left behind in the programs directory, and delete the files and any directories associated with acronis only.

 

Rad,
Please let us know of your results with this procedure. Many thanks,

 

anyone know if the problem exists on enterprise server build 3872? support sent me a file related to debugging a problem with drivers on universal deploy and I don't get the universal restore option. this is getting old. 3 weeks old. same problem. no solution. dead ends. ::: rant over:::

on a side note i think someone should change the account exec:tech support rep ratio at acronis from 7:1 to something a little more useful. Or at least give the tech department a little bit of the LD budget from the sales folks. ::: ok, rant really over:::

 

just to clarify the file was a ati ent server with universal restore iso.

 

I have a Maintenance Contract with Acronis that I paid for in advance. I submitted a ticket to them over a month ago regarding the same problem with Workstation 9.1 b3887. They sent me the same Iso. They requested that I send them back a file which took me 2 hours to prepare and was sent to them the next day. A couple of days ago, after getting no response from them for a month, I asked them the status of the ticket. They requested that I prepare another file to send them.

At this point, I gave up on Acronis. The support people at Acronis remind me of an ostrich with it's head in the sand. They are completely out of touch with reality.

In the meantime, I will use Build 3666 for my Universal Restore needs. When StorageCraft or someone else comes out with a product that has the same functions, it is bye-bye and good riddance for Acronis and their buggy software and terrible support. If this behavior is typical of Russian companies, it is no wonder that their economy collapsed.

 

Dear Friend,

May be this article could help you,

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/company/inpress/2005/02-28-en-smallbizpipeline-trueimage.html[/URL]

Some times it solves the problem when the hardware is too much different betwen two images, keeping all the others programs working.

David

 

I was just getting ready to buy TrueImage Workstation 9.1 with Acronis Universal Restore to clone my laptop HD to a desktop HD, I just want something easy, what your going through sounds like a nightmare!

 

That article has nothing to do with Universal Restore?

 

I'm not sure if this will help, but I have been experiencing the same problem. The reason we have found is that the disk is a dynamic disk which Universal Restore does not support. You can use Paragon Partition Manager to convert the disk from Dynamic to Basic which works. I have used this on both IDE and SCSI disks with a Windows Server 2003 Domain Controller with no problems. You can check if you have a dynamic disk by going to Computer Management, Disk Management. Hope this helps.

 

It DOES NOT WORK even on non-dynamic disks.

 

Hello everyone,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please note that as it was stated in this previous post a most possible and common reason for the above issue (Acronis Universal Restore option does not appear) is that the operating system, which you backed up can not be recognized by Acronis True Image. However, to find out the exact reason additional information is needed.

To collect the information for investigation you will need to contact Acronis Support Team via e-mail and you will be provided you with a special version of Acronis Universal Restore (in ISO format) to get the log for troubleshooting. Please also provide Acronis Support Team with Acronis Report and Windows System Information (check Acronis Help Post for the instructions on how to collect these information) and let us know if you backed up entire drive or system partition only.

Having said the above note that currently there is no solution/workaround that would fix the issue for everyone. However, as I stated in this previous post of mine Acronis Development Team is working on this problem along with the Quality Assurance Team and will do our best in order to provide you with a possible solution as soon as possible.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

It is NOT the operating system. Or, do you mean that Universal Restore does not work with either XP or Vista?

When are you guys going to give us a fix for this problem that you have known about for over 2 months? I am tired of seeing "we are sorry for the delayed response".

How about a solution?

 

Hello silver0066 and everyone interested,

Acronis Universal Restore does support Winodws XP and Windows Vista operating systems. It supports the same operating systems as the appropriate version of Acronis True Image. Check this page for the list of supported operating systems. Acronis Universal Restore does not support Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server, NT 4.0 Workstation, 98, or Me.

In most cases it is possible to provide you with a solution after investigation of the information requested in this post I mentioned earlier. Please note that as I stated the operating system in the image archive is one of possible reasons. In addition, as I stated we are working on this problem and will do our best in order to provide you with a solution that may work for everyone.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Aleksandr,

I guess my disenchantment with Acronis stems from the fact that I spent over two hours providing you with logs from an iso file you sent me over a month ago. After not receiving a response from Acronis for more than 3 weeks, I emailed you for the status of my ticket. All I received in return was a website to download another iso file, requiring another couple of hours to produce logs.

It is not the customers job to be your beta testers. It is Acronis obligation to provide their customers with a product that works as advertised and the maintenance that they paid extra for. Your company has failed in both regards in my opinion.

So, for me, until you decide to provide these needs and live up to your obligations, I will use 3887 for my imaging needs and use 3663 for my Universal Restore needs. I just don't have the time to debug your software for you.

In the meantime, I will be searching for a product and a company that provides these needs for me.

Silver