16GB OCZ ATV and True Image 11

I searched through the forum for a while to see if anyone else was experiencing the same issue... Here's what I have done for a long time now, and not sure why it won't work with this new USB flash drive...

I use Acronis True Image 11 and Disk Director 10 regularly. I use the "Rescue Media Builder" and choose the drive letter of the USB flash drive I want to use. I have done this using many other brands and sizes of USB drives and they all work just fine, except for now, it won't work with the new 16GB OCZ ATV drive I bought...

When I boot up a computer it sees the drive as being plugged in by the bios, and when I go to the boot menu it gives USB device as an option, however when I choose the USB device option, it follows up quickly with "Missing operating system". I was confused by this so I tried my other drives to make sure it wasn't the computer itself... I remove the ATV 16GB drive, and put in one of my other USB drives, reboot the computer, choose USB device from the boot menu, and it loads into Acronis just fine...

I did find that some have used PeToUSB and apparently resolved some issues, however I am getting errors and it is not able to format my drive...

How can I make my new 16GB ATV drive bootable with Acronis?? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Kevin

 

What version of Windows are you using?

Are any of the other flashdrives you're using as bootable devices larger than 2GB?

 

There is a lot about flash drive booting that I still don't understand. A few months ago I purchased an 8 GB flash drive and, for the life of me, I could not get it to boot after using the following Windows tools: Acronis Disk Director, Windows (XP and Vista), HP USB Drive Format Utility, PEtoUSB. Finally, I used Linux tools (PartedMagic) to create the partition table and format the drive and then everything started working properly. Now the drive boots on all of the PCs that I've tried it on.

I wish that I understood why.

 

Windows XP Pro SP3 - I have been using this method for quite some time on various drives that range from 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and most recent was an 8GB. All of those drives (various manufacturers and sizes) have worked just fine using FAT32 and able to install the Rescu Media just fine. I am running the most recent versions of all software and drivers included. (I'm fairly anal about keeping up to date)

But since I bought this new OCZ Technology ATV 16GB USB drive, I have not been able to use the same process as I have on the previous drives. The 16GB drive works fine for transferring files around, and I can do anything else I need it to do with the exception of making it bootable with Acronis...

NOTE: I am able to use the Rescue Media Builder to install to this drive, and it completes without errors. I can also see the acronis files on the drive as well. However when I try to boot off of this drive, it says "Operating System Missing".

Thanks,
Kevin

 

I downloaded this, but not sure how to use it... It seems very confusing to use. Is there any similar tools that might do the same processes that this application does?

 

I posted in another thread, that some flash drives report themselves as HUBS, rather than as Mass Storage Devices. Apparently some versions of Linux have problems recognising these drives, more so than Windows, which in most cases can and does ignore the descriptor sent.

Corsair and Shintaro flash drives I can vouch for as reporting themselves as hubs.

Colin

Colin

 

This is an error message from the MBR of the flash drive and it indicates that the boot code is unable to locate a bootable partition.

One thing that you can check is to look at the flash drive with Acronis Disk Director and make sure that the partition containing the recovery version of TI/DD is marked as "Active". If so, when viewed in Disk Director you should see a red flag on the icon of the partition. If the partition is not active then use DD to make it active.

PartedMagic is an open-source knockoff of PartitionMagic and was derived from the Gnome Partition Editor, gParted. This tool is available in most Linux distributions, so if you have a PC running Linux you can just plug in your flash drive and run gParted. If you don't have access to a Linux PC you can download a Live Linux distribution (like Ubuntu or Knoppix) and burn it to a bootable CD. Boot the PC from the CD and once Linux is up and running, plug in the flash drive and run gParted.

Then again, if this is all confusing and you haven't used Linux before, try the above suggestion with Acronis Disk Director first.

 

This is the funny part. It is active, and shows appropriately with the flag. Windows Disk Management also lists the drive as (Active) too. the drive works and operates and appears in all the management tools EXACTLY like the others, except it will not allow me to boot from it. I'm really confused, however the following comment makes sense...

So... If that is indeed the case... Is there any methods for checking / changing this? Or can someone recommend a high speed 16GB drive like the OCZ ATV that will allow me to do what I need it to do?

The idea behind this is to have a single drive with 2 .tib images on it for different XP builds. Have the drive bootable, as well as include some drivers for printers and a couple other useful utilities. A single solution in a very portable manner to re-image and fix machines at over 200 locations I travel around to. I know I can do this, just need a bootable USB drive. lol

Thanks!
Kevin

 

Kevin,

I've been working in my Vista DISKPART and Grub4DOS bootable flashdrive guides and have them posted on my website now. I have not tested a flashdrive larger than 8GB (I don't have one). I suspect the problem you're having is either the MBR code used doesn't like the larger sized flashdrive or there is something a little non-standard about the partitioning.

To use the Vista DISKPART method, you'll have to have access to a computer running Vista.

If you try either method, please post back and let us know how it goes.

Create a Bootable Flashdrive using Vista's DISKPART Program

Create a Bootable Flashdrive using Grub4DOS