Unable to restore data using restore/media CD in Acronis True Image Home 11

Can not restore previously verified backups.

I posted a description of this problem on the forum on October 9th and I have not been able to find any response. Heck, I can't even find my original post any longer.

I am using Acronis True Image Home 11 (build 8,027). My backups and restoration CD were created with this edition. I deleted True Image 10 before installing version 11.

I have two internal hard drives, each hard drive is divided into several partitions. Drive ZERO is the boot drive and it contains my operating system (Windows XP Pro sp2). Drive ONE contains my data and my program files. While I installed my programs on drive ONE, I am aware that many of the programs have written files to Drive ZERO, the system drive, in locations such as "Documents and Settings" and .DLLs were written to "Windows System 32" , etc. on Drive ZERO per the Windows XP protocol.

Using Version 11, I made a full backup of Drive C. (Drive ZERO, containing my operating system) and saved it to my F Partition (located on physical Drive ZERO). I also made a full backup of Drive D (my data files located on a separate physical drive, Drive ONE) to Partition F. The backups were verified by the True Image program.

As stated earlier, I burned a rescue/media CD using the version 11 software. After booting my computer using the rescue/media CD in an attempt to restore a group of files I got the following error message: "E000101F4 Acronis true image has detected an un-supported hard disk drive. Acronis True Image Home does not support Windows Dynamic Disk, EZ-Drive, etc."

No other drives or storage media were connected to my computer other than the above and my two CD drives. Thinking the error message could be referring to the Windows page file (virtual memory), I checked its settings. The minimum and maximum settings were both 1.5 GB.

One final observation, looking at the partitions using "Windows Disk Manager" - all of my partitions were pronounced as being normal-no errors found.

I ran “chkdsk /F” on both “C-drive” (Drive ZERO) and D-drive (Drive ONE). I could be in trouble if I need to restore any data as I do not seem to be able to make a restoration using my Acronis version 11 boot / rescue disk.

Please help.

Acronis True Image Home v 11.0 build 8027
Dell, Dimension 8400; Pentium 4; 3.3 GHz; 1 GB RAM
Windows XP Pro sp2
Drive 0: 250 GB WD SATA; Contains OS on drive C; drive also contains 3 additional partitions
Drive 1: 150 GB Seagate SATA

 

If you look in Windows XP Disk Management does it list your disk type as "Basic" or "Dynamic"? TI does not support dynamic disks.

 

Listed in Windows XP "Disk Management" all of my partitions are shown as "Basic".

The only mention of "dynamic disks" that I have seen is in the error message that I get when I try to restore using the Acronis True Image Home 11, rescue/media CD. The CD initiated the error message. I have not seen any other mention of a dynamic disk.

I have a hidden "virtual" partition on one of my physical drives and I thought that may be Acronis was calling it a dynamic disk. But, it makes no difference as far as the ability to restore goes if I hide that partition by un-mounting (dismounting) it or mounting it. So I guess that Acronis must be referring to something else.

I had a "ZIP Drive" attached to the parallel port of my computer and removed it, cable and all, to see if that made any difference. Still the same thing.

I just had Acronis True Image 10 for a few days when I uninstalled it and uninstalled the backups that I made using it. I know that I checked the CD that I made with version 10 to make sure that it would boot. The disk booted the computer correctly and I got the menu asking if I wanted to restore a backup. I can not remember if I went any further than that. So, I am not sure if version 10 would restore or not.

Other than uninstalling version 10 and installing version 11, I made no other changes to my computer. I wonder if I should uninstrall version 11 and go back and try version 10. Seems to be a lot of work that I can avoid if I can find something else to try first.

 

Then the problem must be that the Linux drivers on the recovery CD are incompatible with your hardware.

If you still have your TI 10 rescue CD then try booting with it into the "full" mode and verify that it sees your hard disks. If so, then the Linux drivers furnished with TI 11 are at fault. I know that several people on the forum have found that the drivers with Version 11 have problems with Intel RAID, for one thing. I'm pretty sure that Acronis is working on this.

You could file a support request on the Acronis web site to see if they have updated drivers for your hardware. In the mean time you could go back to using your TI 10 rescue CD to to backups and restores until the problems with version 11 are fixed.

 

I do have a version 10 CD. My current backups were made with version 11. If the version 10 CD works correctly up until the time that it rejects the newer version backups, I suppose it would indicate a problem with the version 11 drivers - as you suggest. If the version 10 CD fails at any other point, I don't think I will know much more than I do now. My problem could still be with version 11 drivers.

I was hopping that some one else was having the same problem so that I could learn from their misfortune rather than my own. I seem to be having difficulty navigating this particular forum. The indexing does not seem to be straight forward and I lose a thread easily. It may be that other have had this problem and I just have not found their posts on the subject.

I hate not being able to solve a problem myself or through the forum but I guess that I will need to contact technical support. I need to find out from them their definition of a "dynamic disk". I am familiar with Microsoft's definition and I do not think that I have a dynamic disk on my computer using Microsoft's terminology.

Microsoft: Dynamic Disk
"A dynamic disk is a physical disk that provides features that basic disks do not, such as support for volumes spanning multiple disks. Dynamic disks use a hidden database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and other dynamic disks in the computer."

Microsoft: Basic Disk
"A basic disk is a physical disk that can be accessed by MS–DOS and all Windows-based operating systems. Basic disks can contain up to four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and an extended partition with multiple logical drives."

Thanks for the input!

 

Jack:

The error message only listed dynamic disks as one of the possible causes of non-recognition of the hard disk. There could be other causes.

I have an almost identical Dell 8400 to yours. It works perfectly with TI version 10. I don't have TI 11 to test, but have read the reports of problems with Intel SATA/RAID drivers that others have posted on here. The Dell 8400 uses Intel motherboard SATA/RAID. I would be willing to bet that the version 11 Linux drivers are the cause of the error message.

You could do a quick test. Boot with your version 10 rescue CD and see if you can see your disk drives. If you can, TI 10 will work fine. By inference then, the TI 11 drivers are the culprit.

 

I booted my computer using a version 10 rescue/media CD and got the same error message with the version 10 CD as I have been getting using version 11.

I tried a restore operation from within Windows and took the operation all the way to the final execute command. No error message.

I don't know why True Image sees my system as one that has dynamic disks when using the CD and it does not see (or it might see dynamic disks but does not care if I have a dynamic disk or not when restoring from within Windows) dynamic disks from within Windows.

I think that the Rescue/Media CD has a stripped down Linux operating system on it - but why would that make a difference if all it is doing is analyzing my drives early in the restoration process? May be some type of Linux "swap file"?

The partition that I sometimes mount and at other times leave as "hidden" should not be considered a dynamic disk. I do not run programs or applications from it - only use it to store some data files.

As a final "checking everything twice" operation, I ran verify on my backups. They were pronounced as being clean.

I had hoped that an Acronis technical person would notice my posts so that I would not have to condense and re-type them to submit them to technical support. Possibly one still will. I only have the use of one hand and typing can be a chore. So I pick PSK31 to use. Go figure that one out. 73s

 

If you submit a support request to Acronis, just reference this thread. That way you won't have to retype it all.

 

And I would have taken you for a 20m SSB type of guy

 

I referenced the Forum's URL for my post when I sent in a request for help from Technical Support. The URL does not take one to the first post in a thread, but with a little perseverance, I suppose that a technically oriented person should be able to find his way to my starting post.

After making a flippant statement or two, I'm going to have to humble myself and ask for help with one other item. Where where the heck do I find a post's serial number?

Today, all typographical errors belong to Dragon Naturally Speaking. The program keeps going back into my document and makes changes to text without my permission.

 

If this is a request from Acronis, I think that just sending them the URL of the post will be sufficient. So while viewing the post, copy the URL from your browser's address bar. For this post it is:

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1095766

Maybe they are referring to the number at the end of the URL, 1095766?

 

Mark:

I am waiting to hear something from Acronis Technical Support.

Is your understanding of the terms "dynamic" and "base" any different than my own? I picked the terms up from Microsoft's technical forum.

An example of what I would call a 'dynamic disk" configuration might look like the following:

C-Drive contains the operating system and a program that stores its data on D-Drive. E-Drive contains programs that operate machines.

Certain data on the D-drive is noted by the intermediate program on C-Drive. The intermediate program on C-Drive then signals a program on the E-Drive and the E-Drive program initiates its programed functions.

I am aware of the term "dynamic drive" being used for a partition that ferrys data from one partition to another.

I am too tired tonight to digest all of the information in
Microsoft's Knowledge Base article " http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175761/EN-US/ " NOTE: The KB article is on Windows 2000 but should be valid for XP as well.

I think that I once had a working knowledge of the terms used in the Knowledge Base article. But I can not call it up tonight. I will try again in the morning. May be Acronis Tech Support will jump in quickly and get everything going for me.

My computer has crashed repeatedly since June. I am in a hurry to get a good backup and have a reliable method of restoring my system.

I think that

 

Jack:

Basic disks are what have been used in PCs since the early days. Most systems use basic disks.

Dynamic disks are a way to manage multiple hard disks in several ways. You can combine one or more disks into a single dynamic disk so that the result appears as one big disk to the operating system. Or, you can combine multiple disks into RAID arrays.

But I don't think that the problem you are having has anything to do with dynamic disks. It sounds to me like the TI Linux recovery environment is not seeing your hardware properly.

 

I assume that they mean the number at the right of the coloured band at the top of the posts the date and time being at the left, in your case the above quote is taken from post 10.
To find your own posts just click on your name at the top of the index page, where it says Welcome, to find a subject click on Search and then Advanced Search, make sure you are searching only this forum, on the advanced search you can even search by the posters name. There is also a help section on the search page.