*WorkAround: 'TrueImage 8' & 'Vantec NexStar' enclosures

Hi Everyone,
Just to make it short, I found 2 work arounds for the issue with:

- Acronis True Image 8
- Acronis Drive Cleanser 6

...hanging up while attempting to load with the Vantec Nexstar Enclosures hooked up to the computer. The workarounds are as follows in order of easiness:


*Method 1 Workaround*:
- Place the Acronis CD inside the cd drive and boot the computer.
- After the True Image 8 recovery console finishes loading, wait 5-10 seconds, then insert the usb cable for your Nexstar enclosure.
- Wait 5-10 seconds after inserting the usb cable, then reboot and True Image 8 should load with the hard drive detected.


*Method 2 Workaround*:
- Insert the usb cable for your Nexstar enclosure and start up the computer with the Acronis CD.
- Acronis should now be loading, and hang up after awhile (about 2 mins) with the Nexstar's LED blinking.
- After the LED blinks around 5 times (give or take), remove the usb cable for an instant until you see the recovery console 'just' coming up; then re-insert the cable.
- Your Enclosure and its hard drive should now be detected.


*** If this work around helps you, please post a reply saying 'Confirmed', so we can know how many of us it works for ***


Test Setups:
- Toshiba Portege M300 Laptop (Pentium M)
- Compaq X1050CA Laptop (Pentium M)
- Pentium M 760 (2Ghz) Desktop w/Asus P4P800 E Deluxe Motherboard
- Athlon XP 2600+ w/MSI Motherboard (can't remember the model off the top of my head)

- Original 2.5" Vantec Nexstar Enclosure w/Hitachi 4200 RPM HDD
- New 2.5" Vantec Nexstar Enclosure w/Hitachi 4200 RPM HDD
*Manufacture date between the 2 Hitachi HDDs are 2 years apart
* All issues and their work arounds were duplicated on all 3 Systems


P.S. I would like to see Acronis do something about this, as I was quite pissed after purchasing these programs and going through the hell that I did to find a workaround; then realizing a month or 2 into my purchase that my newly acquired product was now at the 'End of its Life'; then to top it off, I read about other customers who purchased the 'physical' product and received the free True Image 9 upgrade voucher.
In truth, with all the problems with version 9, I rather Acronis fix this one problem and let me happily continue using version 8. I hope this helps everyone who had this problem.


A Note to Mods or Acronis Staff: If you find this workaround useful, and there IS NOT going to be a fix for the problem, it might be useful if this thread was stickied.

 

Hello j0rd,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Sharing your experience is very much appreciated.

If you have any further experience to share, please feel free to post it on this forum.

If you want us to change the behaviour of Acronis True Image in any way or add some new features to this product, please feel free to post any of your suggestions in Acronis True Image WISH-LIST thread.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Hi,
Thanks for the tips as I followed your instructions and it works. Not quite well ... but it does works, thought. Anyway, I wish Acronis do something about this issue, thought.

I was able to restore the WinXP + SP2 image to my external USB 80GB Fujitsu drive on DELL D600. But, upon boot up from the USB drive. It complained that the "Primary Hard Drive 0 is missing/not found"? Any idea how you fix the problem?

FYI, I fotmat the USB hard drive as a "Primary" partition with NTFS. I wonder I need to prepare the Acronis image with MS SysPrep prior to take an image and restore it, thought?

Any advise!

 

The problem regarding 'Windows XP' not wanting to 'boot' from a 'usb drive' has 'Nothing' to do with 'Acronis Products' OR 'Vantec Nexstar Enclosures' - as in your case you're trying to load windows xp and NOT an Acronis product...

...however, I don't think you will be able to boot the operating system via a usb drive, because it has something to do with the operating system initializing its own usb drivers upon booting.

Either way, you're asking an entirely different question from what this work around post was created for; and the answer to that question (in my opinion) is that it is improbable that you'll get it to work. However, others 'may' have a solution to your issue.

 

Got it!

FWIW, if we could not boot off of the USB drive. The, why in the world that they have that option from the BIOS? Perhaps, it's for future use?

Cheers,

 

Or maybe it's because Windows isn't (yet) the only Operating System in the world!!

Regards