Booting from Acronis boot CD does not show C drive

I just got a laptop with Windows Vista, so I moved up from Acronis 8 to version 10. I made a backup after removing all the junk that DELL pre-installs so I can get back to a good point in the future without using DELL's restore system and going back to all the programs that start up every time.

I then booted from the new bootable CD to make sure it was working. The CD does boot and Acronis loads, but it does not see my C drive, so I would not have a way to restore the backup in the future. Out of curiousity, I placed the CD in my desktop (also a DELL for whatever good it does to say that) and the C drive is seen, although that is an XP computer.

Has anyone ever heard of the C drive not being seen by the Acronis program on some computers after booting from the CD Acronis made? Any ideas how to force it? I should mention that my external USB drive (the one with the backup image) is getting seen as the C drive. If I boot without the external drive, Acronis says there is no hard drive. Maybe Vista partitions differently, but I would think Acronis 10 would understand the concept.

 

Seems like I have read about other users in this predicament ... don't recall the solution though. Are you using the latest build (4940) of ver 10? Another thing to try is making a BartPE cd, boot with it and see if it sees your C drive and the external drive. If it does, then you can make a BartPE cd and include the True Image plug-in.

 

What does the recovery CD see. Is there anything listed at all?

F

 

I am now seeing some other posts added after mine with the same problem. People are suggesting a BARTPE CD, so I'll have ot figure out where ot get one. I have an old one that I went through a million steps to compile a long time ago, so I'll have to poke aroudn adn se how I did it.

In the meantime, I will answer yor question. The recovery CD sees a C drive, but it is my external USB drive that contains the backup image. If that is not plugged in, it says I do not have a hard drive at all. We are running the latest Acronis, so it is not the build version either. The other forum posts mentioned something about certain motherboard chipsets causing this problem and that ACronis fixes them as it dscovers them, so maybe this is one of those cases. I'll work on getting the BartPE done and see if that works.

 

Did you try the Rescue cd from your old version 8? Just a shot in the dark ...

 

We have same problem on a new Compaq VISTA desktop. We were using the demo V10. We were planning to get three licenses but have decided to pursue other options given this problem and the fact that others are having the same problem. The only drive showing in our case was the CD drive for the boot. Looks like the product needs some testing on a larger variety of hardware. Our C drive is a S-ATA.

 

Just on the outside chance you didn't know, drive letters change when you boot with the TI Boot Disk. So, it is possible that your original "C:\ drive" is there but hiding under a different drive letter. This is why it is often recommended that you "Label" your drives/partitions for easy recognition, especially the one where you are storing your backup image(s).

Re: BartCD, although I have not personally had any luck whatsoever using this very popular item, it is my understanding that at the present time it is not compatible with Vista; only 9.x versions of Windows.

You also have to be sure to power on your external HDD before running True Image either in Windows or booting with the Boot Disk, otherwise it will not be recognized.

 

Hello ron_morris and cburch3,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please try booting with "acpi=off noapic" parameter as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

If the issue persists, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

Please create Acronis Report and Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please also collect the exact vendor and device names of the hard drive in question.

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
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Marat Setdikov