Acronis TI 10 and SATA drives

My PC has two SATA drives, one external in a cradle on top and is therefore removable. When in Vista I can use Acronis True Image 10 Home to backup the internal drive to the external drive, but I also have a USB external drive which I would like to be able to backup to, but Acronis can't hack it.

If I start Acronis from CD in Full mode it can see the optical drives and all removable drives, including the USB one, but can't see either of the two SATA drives. If I start it in Safe mode it can see the two SATA drives but can't see any of the external drives. This is ridiculous, even my old Ghost 9 can see all the drives no problem, but it can't run in Vista, so I'm having to maintain an XP system on the PC simply so that I can backup the SATA drives to the USB drive

I doubt there is any answer to this conundrum, but you never know ....

 

Are you using the latest build of TI 10 (4,942)?

Can your computer boot from USB hard drives? If it can, and you have the USB hard drive plugged in before you reboot or start the computer, then the Safe Mode version of TI may find it. It does on my newer computers.

Have you tried the quiet acpi=off noapic option detailed in Section II of the PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST thread?

Have you considered creating a BartPE or VistaPE cd with TI and the necessary drivers (if required)?

 

If you are happy backing up from CD I would definitely look into Bart PE if I were you. It serves as a very powerful tool in its own right in that you can run other remedial applications from its environment.

However, first, as MudCrab suggests, make sure you have the latest build of V10.

F.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I've now downloaded 4942 and hope to try it tomorrow.

 

Yes

The first boot device is described as External, which I assume means USB though I haven't ever tried booting from it, or even making it bootable. It is plugged in at boot but Safe Mode does not see it, it only sees the two SATA drives.

Yes, it didn't change anything

I've just downloaded the beginner's guide from http://www.mechrest.com/plugins/BartPEGuide/BartPEGuide.htm. My first reaction to reading it was that I don't have either the time or the patience and maybe I should get an up-to-date version of Ghost, as that doesn't have any of these problems. I just want something that works.

Thanks for taking the time to reply though

 

Understood. Obviously trying another product is one option, but that is not really what this forum is about.

If you want to get True Image working (and it will) I suggest you consider the following two routes in parallel.

1. Raise a support request with Acronis. They will work with you until the problem is resolved. They may even give you an intermediate ISO of a CD image which will work, until they fold the fixes into the next build. One word of warning, after you raise a support request it can take in the region of 2-7 days before a human gets back to you.

2. Bite the BART PE bullet. This is a useful tool for your toolkit anyway in case you have other problems with your system. Note that the reason this is usually a viable workaround is that the CD version of True Image uses Linux and problems such as your are usually caused by the fact that device drivers for Linux lag ones for Windows by many months. BartPE is Windows, so the same drivers that you use to access your drives from Windows will be available from BartPE. I agree it looks like a daunting time consuming procedure, but in reality it really isn't that bad. The most important thing is that you have a copy of your Windows installation CD to hand.

Good luck.
F

 

That's a considered response. ATM I can still boot into XP and Ghost my drives to any other I choose. However I want to remove XP from the system and this Acronis problem is the only remaining obstacle, so if I want rid of XP I'm going to have to get it working, like it or not

 

Well I did what you said, and although the BartPE route didn't solve my problems I'm very pleased to report that Acronis (and a little help from others here) did. I am now finally able to recover any image from anywhere and restore it where I like, either from Windows or booting from the Rescue CD.

Your faith was justified, mine was severely tested (and even now is still a bit wavery - it was a bumpy ride)