Acronis True Image - Universal Restore = Not Ready for Prime Time (not even close)

I work for several IT companies as a contractor and get to see all kinds of neat/strange software and hardware. I also get to test alot of these products out which is great for me, even if it is a headache.

I definitely like the Imaging programs and regardless of whatever program I choose I like to have my primary and secondary choices. For antivirus i choose Kaspersky, then Nod32 then Symantec Corp. For compression it is Winrar then Winzip. For tape backup it is Veritas and Arcserve.

Etc. etc.

So when I had a 64 Bit server that wouldn't take my favorite imaging software - Powerquest/V2i which is now Symantec Livestate/Backupexec Recovery, I had to find an alternative.

I tried Acronis True Image. What really intrigued me was on the webpage the statement about "Universal restore".

Since my client already had this true image program, I persuaded them to also get the Universal Restore. This way I get to try it out, no guarantees!

Let's just say that Universal Restore is an absolute JOKE!


Test Systems:

Compaq Presario Laptop V5000 - AMD Sempron
Asus M6n laptop - Intel Centrino
Shuttle micro system - AMD 64 3800 dual core


Completely different systems. All of them except the shuttle were ready to go with Windows XP Pro all set.

I clones the laptops with Acronis True Image, checked the image, all ok. Even restore back to a new hard drive on the same system, all ok.

I did the exact same thing with Symantec Livestate 6.5.

Now to cross the images with eachother, restore the sempron to the centrino, restore both to the Shuttle. Let's see what happens.


Livestate Restore Anyware- All systems restored. All drivers that were missing were listed in Device Manager with the yellow exclamation point. I just had to get the driver cd and restore. Average time was about 1.5 hours to restore


True Image with Universal Restore - FAILED, 100%! All systems got to the "Your system did not shut down properly, choose Start Windows Normally, Safe mode...." this was all on the first bootup.



So, Universal Restore is a joke at this point.


Acronis - Purchase Symantec Livesate 6.5 which includes Restore Anyware (about $1000). Learn and see what they do right. Livestate is a BREEZE to restore to, far easier than True Image. However True Image blows Livestate away on the front end with all the nice little features like backing up folders and files, something Livestate cannot do (it only can do volumes).

Anyways, just me $99 cents.

 

Well then maybe someone with much more Acronis Universal Restore experience should tell you that it does work flawless in 95 percent of the cases.

What is the exact error you get. Have you tried the driverpacks from www.drievrpacks.net to specify in the driver search paths...

Acronis works reallt great!! don't base your testing on just 1 TRY!!!

 

I have tried to test Universal Restore the same way gcoleman did. I got 100% failure also.

I made an image on a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop with no additionnal hardware and wanted to restore it to a desktop PC with classic hardware (no special hardware, just VERY common stuff).

The restore worked. No errors. But when I restarted the PC after the restore, all I got was a black screen with a message in white telling me my HDD was wrong and that Windows won't boot...

So I tried once again by making another image of a Windows 2000 Server on a simple PC (common hardware) and to see at least it works once, I tried to restore on the PC where the previous restore failed.

No luck... I got a BSoD while booting Win2k Srv and I could'nt do anything to fix this.

I am kind of disappointed since I use ATI 8 for some time now and I love this product, but ATI 9 with UR did not work for me neither.

<snip>


removed off-topic remarks - Detox

 

Re: Acronis True Image - Universal Restore = Not Ready for Prime Time (not even close

Seeing you asked for opinions...

I imaged a Dell Optiplex GX150 and restored the image to a Dell Dimension L667r, a Gateway computer (Pentium 4 1.3 MHz), and Dell Dimension XPS T450. All old computers I know.

I used AUR with success on all computers. Restoring without AUR produced three failures.

 

Maybe the others arent using universal restore...

Boys... Universal restore is an ADDITIONAL BUY!!.. So its not in the main product!!

Thanx! ;-)

 

I just got a full 15 day trial of ATI 9.1 workstation and Universal Restore. I did a backup from a 1.6 Gigahertz Dell 4300 and the restore onto a 2.6 GHz Dell Gx-260 (Win2K). Everything appeared to go well, but on the boot of the new system, after the windows logo, after the "starting windows" message a message came up that Universal Restore was configuring things and the system would reboot. Reboot it does, over and over with the same message. Does it from safe mode, too. Everything is garden variety about these PCs, nothing special. Griping is good, help is better. Any to suggest?

Thanks!

 

Re: Acronis True Image - Universal Restore (anticipating eventual success??)

I have an XP migration to do from an HP dv9000z laptop (machine #1) to an HP dv9000t laptop (machine #2). Both machines have 120GB drives, 2GB Memory, identical packaging and ports. Machines differ in CPU mfr (AMD / Intel) and mfrs for drives and graphics, probably other assorted diffs too.

Because of my professional and personal projects and the vast number of software applications and utilities required, a complete build from scratch of #2 would take at least 40 hours of install and configuration and registration time. So a migration is called for.

My Acronis product set is Workstation w/ Universal Restore.

For safety and fallback of #2 machine:
==> Acronis universal backup of #2.
==> Acronis universal bootable dvd of #2.
==> Non-universal restore to #2 of #2 accomplished without error.
==> Universal restore of #2 to #2 accomplished with missing driver errors reported, but #2 boots and operates seemingly fine.
==> Why are drivers missing when all drivers required are presumably on both the bootable dvd and the disk backup? I had already run a subscribed Driver Detective pass on #2 with acceptable results.

To try the migration:
==> Acronis universal bootable dvd of #2 (from above).
==> Acronis universal backup of #1 disk.
==> Boot #2 with #2 Acronis universal bootable dvd (as above).
==> Acronis universal restore to #2 of #1 disk.
==> Universal restore of #1 to #2 accomplished with missing driver errors reported similar to above.
==> #2 will NOT boot successfully, even in safe mode.
==> Now what
==> My next step is to see if I can make a library of drivers from the www.driverpacks.net site kindly listed above and reference that during the restore.
==> Any ideas anyone

 

Re: Acronis True Image - Universal Restore (anticipating eventual success??)

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

First of all, please make sure you use the latest builds of both the corresponding Acronis True Image version and Acronis Universal Restore which are available for downloading in the Product Updates section of your account at Acronis web site.

You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

To get access to updates you should create an account then log in and use your serial number to register the software.

Please uninstall the previously installed build by following Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Acronis True Image, prior to installing the latest one.

You should create new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update.

In case of using Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation or Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server, you should also update all components including Acronis Agents, Acronis Management Console, Acronis Backup and Group Servers, as it is obligatory for all components to be of the same build on order to interact correctly.

Please also make sure that everything is done correctly, i.e. in accordance with the corresponding sections of the respective version User's Guide (sections 3.7 and 7.3.11 of Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation and Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server User's Guides and sections 3.6 and 6.3.11 of Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows User's Guide).

If the problem still persists with the latest builds of both the corresponding Acronis True Image version and Acronis Uinversal Restore, please try the following tips in order to solve the problem you experience:

1. Make sure that the image in question contains a partition with a Windows operating system (it is preferred that image contains entire source disk).

2. Make sure that the Windows operating system is not Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98 or Windows ME. Acronis Universal Restore does not support these operating systems.

3. Make sure that partition with a Windows operating system is selected for restoration (it is always better that the entire hard disk is selected for restoration).

4. Make sure that the restored backup contains no dynamic disks\volumes. The current version of Acronis Universal Restore does not allow restoring dynamic disks\volumes.

5. Note that the Acronis Universal Restore option does not work if a computer is booted with Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (using F11) or the backup image is located in Acronis Secure Zone. This is because Acronis Startup Recovery Manager and Acronis Secure Zone are primarily meant for instant data recovery on the same computer.

6. Note that if you manually specify drivers/HAL to be used with Acronis Universal Restore, then the auto detected drivers are not used. In case you select drivers which are incorrect, Acronis Universal Restore will still use them, and the restored system will not boot as a result. So, make sure that all the drivers you specify are correct. You can also try restoring with the default (auto detected) drivers.

7. Note that Acronis Universal Restore is primarily meant to be used from the Bootable Rescue CD and not within Windows. So, please try using it from Acronis Bootable CD if you have originally used it within Windows.

8. If there are any errors during the restoration proces, please try re-creating the image.

9. If you have some special drivers for the RAID/HDD controller installed in the destination computer then please force them when the Acronis Universal Restore wizard prompts for drivers (*.inf or *.oem files are supported).

10. If forcing the drivers does not help (the restored operating system still does not boot or gives out a BSOD after being restored), then please boot the computer from the corresponding Windows version installation CD, hit F6 when prompted and check out whether the drivers work there. If they do not (the RAID/HDD is not detected), then get the latest version of the drivers from the respective hardware vendor web site and try to use it instead of the older one.

If nothing of the above helps then in order to investigate the problem you experience we need to provide you with the ISO image of the special version of the Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server Bootable Rescue CD with Acronis Universal Restore allowing creation of the Acronis Universal Restore log. As this can be done via e-mail only, please submit a request for technical support containing the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears along with the link to this thread. Please also let us know whether the operating system displays a BSOD after being restored or some error messages appear upon the restored operating system startup (provide us with the exact text of these error messages). We will send you the download link for the above mentioned ISO image and proceed with the investigation of the issue.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Re: Acronis True Image - Universal Restore (anticipating eventual success??)

Hello Mel,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Workstation Disk Backup Software.

We are very sorry for the delay with the response.

Please see my reply in the forum thread that you started.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Re: Acronis True Image - Universal Restore = Not Ready for Prime Time (not even close

One software plug removed - that's not what this forum is about - this is about Acronis support issues.

 

Re: Acronis True Image - Universal Restore = Not Ready for Prime Time (not even close

I have never used AUR nor do I know how it operates. I however do have a lot of experience on transferring a hard disk from one hardware combination to a different one.

All I do is change my graphic card driver to a generic xga & ide controller to a generic ide driver. To be on the safe side I also change the boot.ini to default to safe mode. From here you may create image or physically transfer the hdd to a different machine & boot to safe mode. Windows will detect the new hardware & install appropriate drivers.

Recently I came across a ulility clled DriverMax. It works only under XP. Whenever I come across a set of hardware I use the utility to backup the drivers. Include them in my unattended install cd making appropriate additions in the winnt.sif file. This approach has not failed me as yet on such disparate hardware as intel, via, nVidia, ati or what have you so far as chisets, graphic cards, nic or sound cards are involved.