BartPE plugin

Am I going mad or what?

My machine has Promise RAID, so in order to restore a .tib I needed to load RAID drivers into BartPE which works fine. I can see the RAIDed (mirrored drive) from command prompt/explorer no problems.

When I go to restore .tib using ATI it says "Acronis True Image could not be found on any hard drive"

I googled it and found references like:

To use the BartPE True Image plugin, you need to have the application installed on the system as well.

How can this possibly be right?

Why would anyone in their right mind make imaging backup software and a boot disk, that has to be installed on a new hard drive in order to work.

Why bother putting the BartPE plugin in the install dir if this is the case.

Either I am missing something very simple or it does not work properly.

Any hints anyone?

 

scowse,

That's incorrect of course. TI doesn't need to be installed.

Are you using Mustang's plugin?

 

deleted

 

If he is using Mustang's plugin then he does have to have the application installed to configure the plugin correctly. If he is using the Acronis supplied plugin then he will need to download it for V11 and that should work without installation of the application. On versions of TI 9 and 10 you had to install the application to get the plugin. In version 8 it was available by down load.
@scowse
What version of TI are you using? When you built your BartPE CD did you copy the TI plugin to the BartPE\plugin subdirectory?

 

The error you are getting is not that True Image could not be found on any hard drive. The error is that True Image could not find any hard drives on your system. This happens when the Acronis Snapman service is not running in BartPE. The Snapman service detects and enumerates the hard drives. The plugin is supposed to supply all the necessary info to install and automatically start the service when you boot into BartPE. Something must be wrong or incomplete with the plugin or your BartPE.

You have not provided enough information for me to help you with this problem. If you tell me what version of TI you are using and what version of the TI plugin you are using, I will try to figure out what is wrong.

 

I am using Acronis*True*Image*Workstation® with Acronis Universal Restore® version 9.1 (build*3,71

I installed the plugin from the install dir provided by Acronis - \program files\ - which seems to fire up OK when BartPE is booted.

ATI starts OK

If I choose the Backup Option:

I get the welcome screen -> Next -> Select Entire Contents or Partition -> Next and then I get the error message consistently:

E000101F4: Acronis True Image Workstation has not found any hard disk drives.

If I choose the recovery option:

I get the welcome screen -> Next ->

E000101F4: Acronis True Image Workstation has not found any hard disk drives.

I am certain that I have seen the other message that I originally posted:

"Acronis True Image could not be found on any hard drive"

but now I cannot reproduce that

mustang said:

and

This seems to be on the right track.

The plugin was copied complete from the install dir.

Upon closer inspection I note that the plugin has a "Files" subfolder that has another folder called "Drivers" which contains snapapi.dll and snapman.sys

These files could not be found on the finished boot cd.

I am guessing that perhaps this "Drivers" folder should be copied to the PEBuilder\Drivers section?

Thanx for all your help guys.

 

You're using a very old build of TI, so I can't look at the Acronis plugin. Please post the Acronis.inf file. It's not very long, so just copy and paste it to the forum. I will be able to see if anything is wrong by reading the file.

You are supposed to find snapapi.dll on the BartPE CD at I386\System32 and snapman.sys at I386\System32\Drivers. If these files are not in those locations the snapman service will not run and you will get the no hard drives error. I'm surprised you don't see that error when TI first starts to run.

You can see if the snapman service is running under BartPE by opening a command prompt and entering net start snapman. You will see a message that the service has already been started if it is running. Otherwise, you will get an error message if the service can not start or is invalid.

I would make two recommendations. First, update to build 3854 of TI Workstation. Second, purchase the plugin for TI Workstation builds 3625 and Up from my website.

 

Thanks for your time mustang.

I can confirm that pebuilder is doing the right thing. From the log:

DecompressOrCopy file "C:\PEBUILDER3110A\PLUGIN\TRUEIMAGE\FILES\DRIVERS\SNAPAPI.DLL" to "C:\PEBuilder3110a\BartPE\I386\SYSTEM32\SNAPAPI.DLL"
DecompressOrCopy file "C:\PEBUILDER3110A\PLUGIN\TRUEIMAGE\FILES\DRIVERS\SNAPMAN.SYS" to "C:\PEBuilder3110a\BartPE\I386\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\SNAPMAN.SYS"

and that these files are in the right places on the boot cd.

When I run "net start snapman" it responds with:

"The requested service has already been started"

I still get the same error message about no drives being found.

The .inf file is:

; PE Builder v3 plug-in INF file
;
; acronis.inf
; Acronis True Image
; Created by Acronis, Inc.

[Version]
Signature= "$Windows NT$"

[PEBuilder]
Name="Acronis True Image"
Help="acronis.htm"
Enable=1

[WinntDirectories]
a="Programs\Acronis",2

[SourceDisksFiles]
files\TrueImage.exe=a,,1
files\f11.cfg=a,,1
files\kernel.dat=a,,1
files\ramdisk.dat=a,,1
files\timounter.dll=a,,1
files\bootwiz.sys=a,,1
files\bootmenu.exe=a,,1
files\mouse.com=a,,1
files\Drivers\snapapi.dll=2,,1
files\Drivers\snapman.sys=4,,1

[SetupReg.AddReg]
0x7, "ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}", "UpperFilters", "PartMgr", "snapman"
0x7, "ControlSet001\Control\Class\{71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}", "UpperFilters", "snapman"
0x4, "ControlSet001\Services\snapman", "ErrorControl", 1
0x1, "ControlSet001\Services\snapman", "ImagePath", "system32\DRIVERS\snapman.sys"
0x4, "ControlSet001\Services\snapman", "Start", 0
0x4, "ControlSet001\Services\snapman", "Type", 1

[Software.AddReg]
0x1, "Acronis\TrueImageWorkstation\Settings", "WorkingDir", "\Programs\Acronis"

[SetValue]
"txtsetup.sif", "SourceDisksFiles", "snapman.sys", "1,,,,,,_3,4,1"
"txtsetup.sif", "SCSI.Load", "snapman", "snapman.sys,4"
"txtsetup.sif", "SCSI", "snapman", """Acronis Snapshot Driver"""
"txtsetup.sif", "HardwareIdsDatabase", "STORAGE\Volume", """Volume"",{71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}"

[Append]
nu2menu.xml, acronis_nu2menu.xml


It does seem to be all there - just a bit broken.

Once again thanx mustang

 

There's nothing wrong with the inf file. The fact that the snapman service is running explains why you don't get the error when TI first starts. I've never seen that error come later, like you are getting. Do you see the hard drives enumerated properly in the BartPE registry under HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Services\snapman\Enum? They should look the same in the BartPE registry as they do in the Windows registry at that location.

You mentioned you can see the drives using Explorer. What version of BartPE do you use? Is it XPE, Reatogo, UBCD4Win or another shell?

Also, do you have any other plugins that use Upper Filters? Look in the BartPE registry under HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}. What are the Upper Filters? Do you see snapman. Also look under HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}. What are the Upper Filters? Do you see snapman. If any of your other plugins use Upper Filters on those lines, they will overwrite the snapman Upper Filter because the plugins are processed alphabetically.

 

Under HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} UpperFilters I see "PartMgr"

Under HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F} UpperFilters I see "snapman"

I found this on the 911cd forum.

Will this help me?

 

You do have another plugin that overwrote the Upper Filter. Do you use HWPnP?

Just rename the TI plugin from Acronis to z_Acronis. This will force it to process last and solve your problem.

 

You are the man mustang

The old "z_" did the trick very nicely. The simplest fixes are always the most satisfying.

I do not use HWPnP. I am still trying to track down the culprit but at least the stupid thing works now.

You are a bonzer mate (as we say in oz).

 

Glad it works.

It is probably in the shell you are using. Do you use XPE?

Just so you know, if you use my plugin, the shell is detected and a Z_UpperFilters plugin is automatically generated. This saves you a lot of trouble. The Acronis plugin is designed to work in a plain BartPE with no other plugins. They don't support any other shell. You may also be interested in mounting an image in BartPE. It is really the safest way to restore individual files and folders. You will need my plugin to use that feature. The Acronis plugin will not mount an image.