Boot Disks & SATA Drives

I saw a post here about a week ago about TI boot disks not working with SATA hard drives. Is anything being done about this? I just purchased a new computer with three internal SATA hard drives. I wouldn't like any surprises if I find it necessary to rely on the boot disks.

Thanks

Dell Dimension XPS Gen 4
1GB Ram
P4 3.4Ghz
Win XP Home

 

The fact that your new computer uses SATA hard drives doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a problem. However, if you've set any of them up as a RAID array then it could well be.

For those of us not familiar with Dell hardware, what is the make and model of the chipset that your HDs are connected to?

Regards

 

Why isn't there some kind of warning posted on Acronis website. If I can't use the boot disks none of it is any good to me. It seems kind of deceptive to take money in exchange for a product that may not work with certain setups without posting some kind of caveat.

No RAID. I have a C, D and G hard drive. C is 80GB Raptor 10,000RPM system drive. D, the data drive, is 160GB 7,200RPM. G is 37GB Raptor to which C is cloned. All data goes to which ever hard drive it is written. Drives are all different sizes and not combined to give the appearance of a single large drive.

Chipset? I do not know without consulting Everest.

Will the boot disks work with this combination?

 

I discontinued using TI8 (build 771 at the time) for that very reason as well as when attempting an online restore. In both cases, it couldn't find my drive (although it found it just fine when creating and verifying the image)!

I don't know if more recent builds have solved this problem, but I certainly agree that Acronis should clearly state any and all restrictions/limitations in using their products.

Fwiw, my C-drive is a WD360 (SATA) connected to an onboard Promise 378 controller (mobo uses i875P chipset).

 

I'm guessing your did the create and verify in Windows.

 

Maybe we are due a refund from Icronis for selling us a product with a known issue. What about Norton's Ghost? Is it having similar problems?

 

Sure.

Do you have an actual problem? I couldn't tell from your previous posts whether anything has actually been tried yet.

 

Yes, I use WinXP Pro.

The thing that irratated me the most was that since TI8 reported that it was successful in creating and verifying the image, I was given a false sense of trust in its ability to perform a restore... Imho, it's a sad state of affairs if you have to attempt an actual restore in order to find out if it will work when needed!

 

Zintar, "sure" what?

I don't have a problem yet, but according to information on this forum I might have if I ever need to boot into TI with the set of boot disks. I do not want to try it to restore an image if it is not necessarily. I just trusted Icronis that it would work if and when I need it. Now it appears that there is an element of doubt. That certainly does not give me very much faith in the reliability of the product.

 

Sure as in "yes", "you bet", "affirmative". In response to the quoted question about Norton Ghost having these issues. I have several versions of each handy. Everyone has problems keeping up with all the new hardware.

In my opinion, not doing at least one full backup/restore cycle on a new platform is just nuts. No offense - it's just that these sorts of problems have been around since I did my first computer backup in 1975.

 

Actually with Norton Ghost 9.0 you have the option to load third party drivers during the recovery boot process. This is the same as the Windows loader.


With that being said, I love Acronis but had a similar problem with the SATA RAID controllers now commonly installed on MANY MANY motherboards. I upgraded to 8.0 when I had the problem and this was fixed for at least one of the brands of RAID controllers. The trick is to make sure you create the emergency boot disk when the controller is in the correct state (RAID 1, 0 or JBOD) otherwise you will not be able to boot correctly and find the disks.

Regardless, I wish Acronis had a way to specify third party drivers during boot. This is becoming a requirement more and more as SATA becomes the standard on most motherboards.

Acronis how about it? Any tips to help us out! I love the product, it's much faster and easier than Ghost, especially when doing multiple machines over the network.

 

The images most likely are fine. But the set of drivers available on Windows and Linux don't have 100% overlap.

I would like to see a full list of drivers on the Acronis site, however, rwinegar has indicated that he doesn't know what chipset he has anyway and a list would only help people who know.

Perhaps Acronis could make an executable available like MS does to determine whether your machine is compatible with Windows XP.

 

if you have a sata drive, you might do well to check out www.terabyteunlimited.com

i finally gave up on acronis and got terabyte's "image for windows".
it works great and has saved my bacon a bunch of times.
its not as user friendly as acronis and requires you to create a boot disk/cd. but, if you are half way computer literate, you should have no problem.

and...it is dirt cheap!!

 

Hello all,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

Let me clarify this situation.

First of all, Acronis True Image does support all SATA hard disk drives. ALL OF THEM.

This problem is concerned not with SATA hard disk drives but with hard disk drive controllers installed on a motherboard.

Acronis True Image does support all controllers under Windows.

Acronis True Image standalone version (Acronis bootable rescue media (full version) and Acronis Startup Recovery Manager) is based on Linux and uses linux drivers to operate with all hardware devices. Our Development Team add support for all new hardware devices as soon as possible.

rwinegar, your Dell Dimension XPS Gen 4 uses Intel® 925EX Express chipset with ICH6R SATA hard disk drive controller integrated into it. We have already added support for this controller in the 786 build of Acronis True Image. There shouldn't be a problem regarding this controller.

If you have a problem with Acronis True Image standalone version please follow the instructions given at https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=55317 and send diagnostic information to support@acronis.com. We will do our best in order to help you to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

Thank you.

--
Andrew Berezovsky

 

Thank you Andrew for that reassuring response. When I get home tonight I will check my version of TI to see if it is build 786 or later. I downloaded it about three months ago.

 

I am glad I started this thread.

Last night I checked my build number. Although I downloaded the program only last month, it was already out of date and did not support my chipset. I would have been in serious trouble if I relied on the set of boot disks to restore an image. I downloaded the most recent update which was only about two weeks old. Uninstalled the old version and reinstalled the update. I also made new boot disks and created a new image.

I still got to tell you that if I ever need to use the boot disks, I'll be sweating bullets throughout the entire process.

 

Can we take it that you've carried out a "Check Image", then booted from the rescue CD and gone through the motions of restoring your image as far as (but stopping short of actually clicking) the "Proceed" button? If it's o.k. up to that point then that's all the confidence you can hope for without completing an actual restore.

Regards