Acronis True Image 2017 Restore Problem

Tested the new Acronis True Image 2017 backup and restore for my Windows 10 LTSB Enterprise install on an SSD drive, using the whole disk backup/restore options. The backup went well, as always: quick, efficient with small disk image size.

However, a test restore of the whole disk turned out to be a disaster. Since I don't do OS image restore often these days, I accidentally ticked the "restore whole disk" option, which automatically selected "restore MBR and first track 0". the restore resulted in a non bootable OS, not surprisingly, since my OS is a UEFI with secure boot system.

I then tried to restore again, with the "Restore MBR and track 0" manually unselected. But since this was no longer considered a "Whole disk restore", I had to manually confirm the correct location for each GPT partitions to restore. Tedious. Upon completion, still non bootable OS.

I am very curious why Acronis still keep that option (Restore MBR and Track 0), no matter the type of your OS/system (MBR vs UEFI Secure boot). Neither Macrium Reflect nor IFW/IFL has that option, while they restore perfectly fine without confusing users with that stupid "restore MRB and track 0" option.

Fortunately I have a disk image made by IFL, which saved my ass this time. Considering this potential pitfall for whole disk restore, I will ditch Acronis, and do my duplicate OS backups with IFL and Macrium Reflect. After all, speed is important, but reliability and bs-free in both backup and restore are more so.

 

LOL I have to agree with you on this one. All the new features in v2017 appear to be useless to me. I still don't understand at this day and age why Acronis still insist on keeping "Restore MBR and Track 0" if you want to restore the backup of the whole OS disk, no matter what your actual system is, UEFI or MBR. This is very confusing to average users. While they have time and resources to add useless things such as "Facebook backup". For old schoolers like me who has no Facebook account, this new feature certainly is garbage.

I hate to admit, gone are the good old days of Acronis True Image. From a fan who has been using ATI since 2003. I feel lost today.

 

Yep, these two are what I am relying on now (I use both offline using boot usb). Acronis is off my list (maybe in the future when they remove that stupid "restore mrb and track 0" i may give it another shot).

 

There is quite a bit of difference between "Acronis True Image" and what they call now "Acronis Backup". Years ago I looked at both and had determined that the former is garbage, while the "Acronis Backup" is a clean and professional piece of software.
Also, while using Acronis BU, I always opt for a volume BU and not Full Disk - I like the granular control and the inherent safety during restore.

Never heard of IFL before - I looked up their site and I saw that they also sell Image For Windows. So why the recommendation above, by Peter2150, for IFL and not IFW ?

 

I think Kob might not know that IFL isn't just for Linux... that it works just great for Widows restorations, and is a bit faster than IFW as well.

 

Can't agree more with you.

 

I have to say, after about 4 whole disk OS backup/restore, it turns out IFL v3 is the all time champion on both backup and restore in all aspect for offline backup/restore. Speed, size of disk image (at high compression levels, e.g., enhanced size B/C), the speed of whole OS disk restore, easy to use GUI. IFL even surpassed Acronis at speed and size of disk image at high compression level by a few percent. It appears the utilization of multi-thread backup/restore in IFL v3 works really well on multi-core CPUs, such as desktop i7 (4 core, 8 threads) and i5 (4 cores, 4 threads).

Macrium Reflect is reputable on its reliability among wilders here, the only drawback (for me, who only do full disk offline backup/restore) is the slower speed and large disk image size, especially with laptop CPUs (even with high end 4-core, 8-thread i7-4700HM, which is stange). On desktop MR is faster, but still takes as much as 2 times the time that IFL use (12 minutes for MR vs 4 minutes for IFL on my laptop; 8 minutes for MR vs 3.5 minutes on desktop). But still, it's good enough for me, since I only do image restore once every 3-6 moths or so, so a few minutes longer is not a problem at all. If you do incremental backup/restore, the MR should be a much better choice.

 

Thanks for the the responses. Time to look into IFL and Macrium to see if I can improve on my current tool set.

@Peter2150: The Acronis BU comes with different flavors. One is what they had called up to a couple of years ago or so "Backup for WorkStation" and now it is called "Backup for PC", and they also have "Backup Advanced for PC" (I disregard right now the "Backup for Servers") . Their naming and flavors are really confusing.
See http://www.acronis.com/en-eu/business/overview/compare-products/

The BU for PC Advanced comes with a management console (optional installation), among a few other "enterprise" features .
The Management Console in BU for PC Advanced is not for servers proper - it can be installed on your WIN7 box, and used to remotely contol BU ops on some additional machines.

I use the "Advanced" , and when installing the product one can select the components to install. For my single PC I leave the "Management Console" unselected.
Even with the latest version, 11.7, I don't see after installation any unwanted feature (except the cloud option which I don't use).

 

I agree. Macrium is slow for full image creation and restores. Images are somewhat larger too, compared with IFW. Macrium is good for solving boot problems, when Windows doesn´t boot after a restore with IFW or other program.

 

since acronis got bloated (all after v7) i used the ISO, either Linux or WinPE based. But the annoying "restore mbr track 0" persist here also - i need to untick. i tried it early 2016 but did not noticed any change on booting, at least BCD is important here (no EFI/UEFI board).

next time i try AOMEI Backupper pro ISO - at least any imaging program should offer ISO or get dropped.

 

I usually buy Acronis over Macrium because of cost. And Acronis does incremental and differential faster than anyone. But I never do the first build or 2 of a new release. They are always too buggy to use.

 

Hello oliverjia.

Could You explain steps, You made during backup\restore?

As I understood, Restore was made via Acronis Media?

Igor

 

Yes I made whole disk backup of the OS drive (it's a 120GB SSD with only OS and applications installed) also from the acronis boot USB (cold/offline backup). I checked the whole disk checkbox instead of individual partitions, so that all partitions were selected automatically. My system is GPT with UEFI secure boot, so there are 4 partitions including C: partition.

Then I tried to restore the image I made, also from the same Acronis boot USB, from offline. I again checked the whole disk checkbox, as I figured Acronis would have restored the disk structure and all partitions to its original state. I mean, isn't this the whole point people would make a disk image of their OS drive? Regardless, Acronis automatically checked the "Restore MBR and Track 0". Upon restore, the OS disk was rendered unbootable.

In the old MBR days, "Restore MBR and Track 0" makes a lot of sense. However, at this day and age, Acronis still can not tell whether one's system is legacy MBR, or UEFI/Secure boot/GPT, and still insist restoring a non-exist MBR to a GPT disk. This is beyond ridiculous. As a contrast, all other major disk imaging software would be able to restore the whole disk (which is supposed to be the easiest task) without any problem on modern GPT/UEFI disks, even the good old Symantec Ghost can do it right.

Anyway, I am done with Acronis.

 

Thank You for the answer, oliverjia.

About MBR under UEFI-system, it is "by design", developer said. But I understand. that it might confuse experienced users.

About backup\restore of your UEFI system.
Could You please collect System Report under Acronis Media after restore and send link to report to my e-mail igor.filinATacronis.com
It will help us to understand and fix your issue.

Igor

 

By design? Well, if you've read OliverJia's post, you should change that "design" as quickly as possible. It doesn't "confuse" experienced users, it "annoys" experienced users!

Wrong again. OliverJia clearly said he's done with Acronis. So I don't think he's looking for a "fix to his issue", as I understand he already "fixed" it by using Terabyte Image.
So if Acronis is serious about this issue, why not create a test version for OliverJia (and us) as quickly as possible, that removes the MBR tick box [when doing a GPT restore]? Now *that* would show Acronis is serious about the issue, and listens to their users.

 

Hello Igor,

Thank you for you kind response. As much as I would love to help improve Acronis TI, I also would like to point out that my system is a very ordinary, and common GPT UEFI system, with Windows 10 installed in Secure boot mode. I am afraid specific information about my system won't be of much usefulness since it's a typical modern desktop PC hardware.

I had been a big promoter of Acronis at various forums but I could not recommend it to others anymore, since that "Restore MBR and Track 0" is very likely to be a trap for regular PC users who only need to backup and restore a whole OS disk drive. This feature would easily render the restored OS non-bootable considering GPT/UEFI has been around since Windows 8.

As I am on this topic, the other serious bug that has been persistent in ATI is that it will backup all disk sectors (used sectors + unused sectors) on a Linux OS EXT4 partition if the Linux is installed on a GPT disk with UEFI and secure boot. As a result, the backup Linux OS disk image took forever to complete (since ATI is backing up the all sectors), and the backup disk image would be huge (again, since it contains all no-need-to-backup disk sectors). I reported this bug to Acronis via an email address dedicated for bug report last year, but I heard nothing back from Acronis. By contrast, Drive Snapshot had the same bug, I reported the bug to them, they quickly identified the bug, and then fixed it within 10 days. I happily tested a couple of test builds for them.

So, please, if Acronis would seriously consider being competitive in the market among so many new and established disk imaging software, you really has to listen to customers.

Regards,
oliverjia

 

Thanks Atari for your input. Yes I agree that "Restore MBR and Track 0" should really be removed ASAP for a GPT/UEFI restore.

For now, I am with Terabyte IFL. Very impressed with their V3, as they also introduced multi-thread compression and restore (that has been used in Acronis TI), which leads to huge performance gains and much smaller disk image files. So currently I normally make offline disk images of freshly installed OS with three imagers: Terabyte IFL, Macrium Reflect and Drive Snapshot. Although IFL has never failed me, "backup images of a backup image" is still a good idea.

 

In IFW there is also a "Restore First Track" option when restoring to a GPT boot disk. Not an Acronis "exclusive".

 

Thank You again, oliverjia, for the answer.

I've sent a change request about MBR under UEFI and info about issue with EXT4 to our developers.

 

Thank you much, Igor for forwarding the info. Hope the developers could consider the users' opinion here and make corresponding changes.