Acronis True Image 10: bootable recovery cd won't start up

Hi,

First post here. Thanks for all the good information I get here, and the relaxed attitude of these forums.

I have made an bootable cd with the wizard 'Create bootable rescue media'.

When I want to test this cd, it won't function. There is a file on it named 'recovery manager', but it doesn't do anything at startup. The boot sequence is ok.

My OS is XP home sp3 , installed on a Dell computer, 5 years old.

Do I something wrong? I am by no means an expert, so please bear with me.

Since I got a near fatal crash a couple of month ago due to malware, I was shocked, and determined to do everything to never have this horrible experience again.

Thanks.

 

Hi Dutchie,
It can be difficult to know the exact answer but I suggest you run Recovery Media Builder again but make an ISO on your hard drive then use another program, Nero perhaps, to burn the CD from the ISO and use a slow speed for best results. I also suggest you use good quality CD media, avoid no-name brands. I use TDK and Verbatim. Hope this helps!

 

When making a bootable DVD using the Acronis Media Builder, do you have to enter anything in the "Bootable Media startup parameters" under "command line parameters"?

 

Aussie42,

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated

I'll do as you suggest. One more question: is it possible anyway to test an bootable cd from Acronis?

Cheers.

 

BChat, I can't see any of the options you mentioned, in ATI 10. Where can I find them?

Thanks.

 

MY BAD dutchie - I have ATI 12.

 

dutchie,

When you put the TI CD into the drive and boot the computer, does the drive spin up and access the CD or does the computer just boot normally from the hard drive?

Have you ever booted the TI CD successfully on this computer?

Does any other bootable CD boot okay (Live Linux CD, Windows Install CD, etc.)?

 

MudCarb, concerning your questions, the answers are:

1. Yes, the cd drive spins up.

2. No, never. I have made several bootable cd's, but to no avail.

3. Yes. The XP installation cd does automatically start up. (I checked all the register settings and services and they are ok).

Regards.

 

Must be MudCrab, sorry, typo.

 

Can't understand why one CD work work while others will not. Should we assume that you've checked the boot order in your BIOS to verify that your CD drive will boot before the C drive?

 

Try this , put the "boot" CD/DVD in the drive, once it spins up try right clicking on the CD/DVD rom drive and pick "properties" let us know if it is a "CDFS" OR a "UDF" under file system.

 

Also, did you try creating an ISO and burning the ISO image to a CD instead of using Media Builder to burn it (as suggested by Aussie42 in Post #2)?

Are the TI files in the Recovery Manager folder on the CD?

 

Hi all,

Yes the boot order is checked in the bios.
Under 'properties' it says cdfs is the file system.
I made a iso image with Acronis, and burned it to a cd, with ImgBurn, at low speed (2x).

I have to correct myself however: when the computer starts up, it seems that the cd tries to spin, but then stops again. So something is wrong.

So what I have done today is buying a new dvd/cd burner ( I hope you understand my English) plus Nero 7 essentials and a couple of Verbatim cd's. When I have time I will install the burner and check if this solves the problem. I'll let you know.

I just don't understand that this cd won't start up, but the windows installation cd does start up. Thanks all for your suggestions.

 

While you are still investigating your problem a great way to test things is use a virtual machine and boot from the ISO file to confirm the ISO is OK.
You might try looking at these

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

http://www.virtualbox.org

http://www.vmware.com

You can also boot a virtual machine from the CD drive as well.
Please keep us informed of your findings. Good Luck!

 

Aussie42 and all the other good people at this forum , thanks a lot for your time!

Today I installed the new cd/dvd burner.

The Acronis bootable cd burnt on a verbatim cd with the XP burn software, does start up at boot and then the Acronis software will startup. (I hope you understand, since English is not my native language).

However, when I click on the wizard 'Restore Data' and then double click on the file 'recovery manager', I normally see the the option 'next', (greyed out till that moment) , getting activated, but in my case, this doesn't happen.
In other words, I can't get further than this step.

I wonder if this is normal, or if something is still wrong.


Then I made an iso file with Acronis and burned that with Nero Essentials at 44x speed (there was no other option) on another Verbatim cd. This time the computer didn't boot up from the cd.

Of course what I tried was testing how far you can go testing a bootable medium on a computer with a properly running OS. I don't know if this possible anyway with Acronis. Maybe it works only with a corrupted OS?

Regards

 

Hi all,

The problems are solved. I was doing some things wrong, but I managed to boot up with the cd and then getting to the image which I put on my external hard disk. This is a big relief!

Is Acronis good for making backups of your files? Syncback se for example makes normal copies of your files, while Acronis has a proprietary file format ( I mean the tib extension). It seems to me that making normal copies is safer, but I might be wrong.

 

True Image Home excels at making an backup image (archive) of your entire computer (disk option checked in backup type selection). This backup should include all partions (both hidden & diagnostic) and it will naturally include all files within those partitions. Once you have a backup the backup of everything, it easy to restore a single file or folder, etc. This disk type backup also makes it much easier to restore to a new or larger disk should a calamity befall your computer hard drive.

I do not like or use the Files & folders backup because it will not help me recovery the entire sytem should I need to move to a replacment disk. Many prefer Syncback or similar programs for extra type backups because the files can be read as a normal file. I use Karen's Replictor as my choice but I have never tried the other sync programs but I do recommend additonal backup by other programs just for safety.

 

GroverH, I am actually thinking to use Karens replicator. I read her website some months ago and it seems to me a good program. And it's free

Good that you mention to use more than just 1 backup program, thanks for your valuable remarks.

My concern with Acronis as backup program for files backup, is: do the newer versions of Acronis support the file format of Acronis 10? And another concern is that I read about quite a few problems with Acronis 2009.

You see, I am thinking ahead, since I intend to buy a new computer when Windows 7 will be available. I wonder if I can put back my entire backup of my current computer with what will be the newest version of Acronis at that moment, or just with Acronis 2009.

 

Verify you have the latest firmware for your cdrom. I have a Dell laptop that use to boot fine from bootable media, then one day it could no longer boot from known, good (tested on other machines) media. I discovered there was a cdrom firmware update that addressed this very issue. I updated the firmware, and now it is fine.

(Yeah, I know, it doesn't make sense. If it worked when it was new and then stopped working - booting from bootable media - how could a firmware update fix what appears to be a hardware issue? I don't know. All I know is that it is working again).