More On Seeing Ext. USB HD Using Boot CD

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Chutsman, Jun 24, 2005.

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  1. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    I'm starting a new thread on this as FeverFive's situation is a little different. I hope the mods do not mind.
    ======================================================
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chutsman
    Continuing the saga of "To See Or Not To See" an external usb HD. Today my boot CD (build 826) absolutely refused to see my ext. USB HD, in spite of retrying the things I tried and which worked previously.

    So I made a "Safe" version of the CD and "Voila!" ... the TI boot CD now sees my ext. USB HD. Now whether the image can be restored, I have not tried that yet.

    Menorcaman replied:

    Hello Chutsman,

    Boot from the Safe version rescue CD again and use the Check Image Wizard to verify your image on the external drive. If it checks out o.k. then there shouldn't be problem when the time comes to carry out an actual restore.

    Regards
    ====================================================

    Menorcaman, thanks for your suggestion. When I tried my Safe version boot CD, which ALWAYS SEES the ext. HD, and ran the Check Image wizard, I selected my image on the HD and got this message:
    "Acronis would see the 160Gb Maxtor ONLY when it is connected via the USB to Pcmcia card. Acronis does NOT see the 160Gb if it is connected to the onboard USB ports."

    I had the HD on the onboard port. One question immediately comes to mind. If "Acronis does NOT see the 160Gb ... etc." how come it lets me select the image? Partly a rhetorical question. When I proceded with the Image Check, the next screen with the two progress bars came up. Then the first estimated time shown was 2 days (!!). Then it changed to 3 day, then to 4 day, then to 5 days. During the next 20 minutes, the estimated time flip flopped from 2 days to 4 days. I then canceled the process.

    So I thought, "okay, Acronis wants the HD to be on a USB to PCMCIA device. I have one of those. I'll use it." It worked! But it took about 1 hour and 25 minutes to check about a 25Gb image. Is this about right?

    On a whim, I decided to also try my Standard Boot CD. Remember in another thread I mentioned where my Standard Boot CD, which saw the ext HD the first time I created the CD, would not see the ext HD a few days later. This was when I decided to create the Safe boot CD as someone had suggested.

    Well, today the Standard boot CD SAW the ext. HD which was connected to the onboard USB ports. So I went ahead to try the Check Image wizard. I got the same message about "Acronis would see the 160Gb Maxtor ONLY when connected via the USB to PCMCIA card ... etc." as stated above, but this time when I continued with the Check Image process it saw the image, as with the Safe boot CD, and when I selected it, it started to run, unlike with the Safe boot CD! [Remember the ext HD is on the onboard usb port].

    At this point I don't know what to expect when/if I actually need to use the Image restore. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and hope one of my boot CDs will work when needed.

    Comments welcome. :)
     
  2. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Chutsman,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Your observation is really valuable. Could you please let me know whether you had the same problem with all the builds of Acronis True Image? Also please let us know whether your external drive is recognized byAcronis Bootable CD created with build 889 of Acronis True Image?

    Thank you.
    --
    Ilya Toytman
     
  3. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    Thanks, but I think that I will hold off on going to build 889 for a while yet. :)

    As for whether my observation is with all builds, I only recently got this ext. usb hard drive (three weeks ago). And at the same time I also decided to check whether I can actually do a restore. Previous to this I had been simply making my backups and never had the need to do a restore ... still do not need to. [knock on wood]. So the answer is "I don't know" since I never checked. :)

    But I'm beginning to think that the warning message I got ["Acronis would see the 160Gb Maxtor ONLY when it is connected via the USB to Pcmcia card. Acronis does NOT see the 160Gb if it is connected to the onboard USB ports."] may be hardware related. This laptop is relatively new (three months). It is an Averatec 3250 HX. I still have the old laptop so I will check to see if I get the same warning with it and post my findings.
     
  4. aoz

    aoz Registered Member

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    chutsman,
    re: avaratec,

    I have an Avaratec laptop (I think 3500),
    PROBLEMS with onboard USB, I can't get the program to see the USB external hard drives
    I have been corresponding with support for the past MONTH about this; I have been sending them screenshots of the sysinfo, etc.

    Your comment about the external USB PCMCIA card triggered a light bulb for me; I have a gateway notebook that I did use prior, to test backups, and it had no onboard usb ports, so I had used the PCMCIA usb card, and was successful.

    I had NOT tried that yet on the Avaratec; as it has USB 2.0, I want it to work with the ONBOARD stuff.
    BUT, I will test this out later this week, and also I will pass back to support, the results fo that.

    thanks for the suggestion

    NIck
     
  5. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    Nick, thanks for posting your situation. I actually haven't had time to go and check if I get the message with the old laptop. But what build of TI are you using and did you boot with the TI boot CD?
     
  6. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello NIck and Chutsman.

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    NIck: Could you please let me know your Acronis Request # which will be sent to you in autoreply?

    Chutsman: Please note that the Safe version only supports devices that have direct BIOS support such as floppy disk drives, CD-ROM drives, DVD drives and IDE hard disk drives. Please create the bootable CD with the 889 build then please try the "acpi=off noapic" workaround (please see https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=55317 for the instructions) if it doesn't help please create sysinfo.txt file and send to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
  7. aoz

    aoz Registered Member

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    chutsman, and suport -
    I will experiment more this weekend with the latest version that support gave me,and I'll check the response number in my email (I'm at my office currently)

    I will experiment with the USB pcmcia card also
    thanks
    Nick
     
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