Booting with the Recovery CD - as a test

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Mediaman, Aug 31, 2007.

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  1. Mediaman

    Mediaman Registered Member

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    What happens when you boot up a computer with the Acrnois CD? Does it automatically start making changes, or does it give you the opportunity to proceed?

    I do NOTwant to do a full recovery a test and do NOT want any changes made to my perfectly good computer......but I have no objection to test that CD itself is not defective and can be booted.
     
  2. jpayne

    jpayne Registered Member

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    It does not automatically restore your disk...you do not have to worry about it automatically doing a full restore you will be given opportunity to make selections and exit the program.
     
  3. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Jpayne is giving you the correct stuff.

    Furthermore, it's impoprtant to confirm that you can boot from the recovery CD and see all your drives. It's also important to validate your backups a few times from the recovery CD.

    Of course, a full restore is the best proof that your backups work, but booting from the Recovery CD and validating your images is second best.

    You can follow the Recovery wizard to become familiar with it, but DON'T press the Proceed button. That's what actually starts the restore. Press CANCEL instead.
     
  4. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Mediaman,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Please notice that Acronis Bootable Rescue Media has the same graphical interface as when you run your copy of an Acronis True Image product under Windows. It allows you to perform the same operations as when loaded in Windows (except scheduling). Please see this FAQ article for detailed information on standalone versions of Acronis True Image.

    If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
  5. Mediaman

    Mediaman Registered Member

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    1) OK, so the above suggests the the bootable CD has a version of the program on it - but I note the CD is only 47MB...whereas the full program is over 100MB. Is that becuase the version used on the bootable CD is a 'lite' version of the program??...just enough to find the image and restore it?....and why the FAQ article refers to a 'standalone' versiono_O


    2) My images are stored on an external USB drive....I gather the bootable CD smart enough to find connected USB drives (and not simply just the internal drive it would ultimately restore that image to)?
     
  6. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    1. Yes ... kinda.
    2. Yes ... unless your external USB enclosure has an odd-ball chipset that isn't supported by the Linux drivers. This is why it is important to make and use that CD so you would know that your external drive can be seen by the CD.
     
  7. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    The Linux based version of TI can make and restore images to the same locations that the Windows program can (except as noted where appropriate Linux drivers don't exist). It can't do some of the things that the full Windows program can such as schedule backup, etc.

    Bootiing from the CD lets you test whether all your hardware is adequately supported. You can make and validate an image from the Recovery CD as a further test.

    The ultimate test is to restore an image.
     
  8. fce

    fce Registered Member

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    This is correct. When i test my bootable recovery CD and choose the Full Version it loaded same graphical interface when you are under windows but i received this message before this graphical interface loaded --> PCI: cannot allocate resource region 9 of bridge 00:01.0

    what does it mean?

    thanks
     
  9. Mediaman

    Mediaman Registered Member

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    OK, so as a partial test, I booted the Rrecovery CD.

    Pleased to observe that, while I didnt take the processe too far, all seemed to be ok. I simply wanted to confirm that it would boot, present me with a logical interface and options, recognize all my drives. locate and read all the backup images. (I dont beleive is test restoring images to a perfectly working drives)

    I give it 100% on all the above. I even later made a second copy of the CD just in case !

    One confusion was the volume labels and drive letters....

    I assign my own names. which is a good thing as per an earlier post : " Assign names to your drives. The drive letters assigned by Acronis is meaningless. Don't identify your drives by letters. Identify by names."

    Still, it is confusing in that :

    My internal Main Drive is C : Acronis sees it as Main Drive D:
    My internal Backup Drive is D : Acronis sees it as Backup Drive C:
    My external USB Drive is N: Acronis sees it as USB Drive E:


    ..and of course the image itself has the image correctly labelled and assigned as Main Drive C:

    So is Acronis really going to know to restore to the real Main Drive C: when all I can select as a target is Main Drive D:? I guess the answer is yes, if the dirve letters indeed are meaningless. It is a bit confusing on that rather critical point! It would be nice if a future upgrade addressed it.
     
  10. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    This is not a bug, just down to the fact that different operating systems enumerate and name drives in different ways.

    Stick to volume names and you won't go wrong.

    F.
     
  11. Mediaman

    Mediaman Registered Member

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    You are suggesting its a Linux vs Windows issue - that may be, but, if the drive letters are meaningless and misleading, they should not be shown in the Acronis application. Just show the drive names.
     
  12. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hi Mediaman,

    The "Full" (as opposed to "Safe") version of TI on the bootable rescue CD is Linux based. This uses a totally different algorithm to Windows for assigning drive letters. A bit confusing I agree but easily overcome by assigning meaningful volume names to all your drives e.g. MAIN_NTFS, BACKUP_NTFS, USB_NTFS, etc. All you need to do then is to ignore the drive letters and just select the appropriate drive name.

    Regards

    Menorcaman
     
  13. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Possibly but remember, not everyone assigns a Volume name to a newly formatted hard drive. ;)

    Menorcaman
     
  14. Mediaman

    Mediaman Registered Member

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    All the more reason to drop the letter. For example it was asked to select a target given the choices of :

    Volume has no label ( C: )
    Volume has no label ( D: )

    I would "assume" the letters are correct, and proceed to select the wrong drive!

    But if I was shown:

    Volume has no label
    Volume has no label

    then I would not be sure so I would investigate further..


    Question ....can the software at least show Drive 0, Drive 1, etc?
     
  15. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    Even Disk #'s can be different depending on how Linux/Windows/DOS enumerate the drives. And this still wouldn't change how the partitions are displayed. On one of my computers, Windows will show the RAID drive as Disk 1 and the Data drive as Disk 2. TI-Linux will reverse those. Apparently, it sees the non-RAID drive first and assigns it Disk 1 and then assigns Disk 2 to the RAID drive.

    If you don't label your partitions, then you should at least have an idea of the partition sizes. If your XP partition is 100GB and your Data partition is 250GB, then it's quite easy to tell them apart even if they are not named and the drive letters are different. If you have several partitions all the same size, then you won't be able to tell them apart without exploring the contents.

    I never pay any attention to the driver letters. I always go by the volume label and the partition size/position.
     
  16. Mediaman

    Mediaman Registered Member

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    I thnik we are saying the samr thing. Never pay any attention to the drive letters -they can be misleading. rely only on drive names.

    My only sugggestion was that future Acronis software should do the same - dont display drive letters -they can be misleading. display only drive names.

    Moot point is they never change it. But good thread for those concerned about the drive letters they are seeing.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2007
  17. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    YOu could say the ame thing about Windows, sinc eit doesn't assign letters the same as other OSs, such as Linux. Best to name your drives and not worry about letter assignments.

     
  18. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    I agree it can be misleading if you don't understand what is going on. However I don't accept for a moment that getting rid of the drive letters from the user interface would be an improvement.

    Whilst I accept that you need Linux to restore the system partition, remember that there are those who spend most of their TI run time backing up and restoring using only the CD environment, or only the Windows environment. To start hiding drive letters when working like this would not offer any benefit.

    F.
     
  19. Mediaman

    Mediaman Registered Member

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    I was only referiing to the Recovery CD user interface - the one that is rarely used. To me, if it is agreed that the drive letters in the Recovery interface are misleading (for whatever reason), and IF they can be removed, I would say remove them, so as not to mislead users - especially if that interface is rarely used.

    But I agree, that if that means it would affect the normal user interface , then I would say leave it alone.

    I was under the impression these were different programs - the full 100 MB version for normal use , versus the 47MB "lite" version on the Recovery CD.
     
  20. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Mediaman,

    I'm really glad to hear that you are satisfied with the work of Acronis software.

    We will certainly do our best in order to provide you with the good and reliable software in the future as well.

    Please notice that while volume letters assignment in Linux is different from Windows (as noted in chapters 3.4 and 6.1 of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home User's Guide), they are still used for internal addressing to volumes, and in logs, and displayed letters might help solving some of the problems, should they arise.

    Please notice that as Windows installation of the program includes the data for creating Acronis Bootable Rescue Media as well as some other, beside the actual program, the size difference is not that large.

    If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
  21. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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