More usb questions

Hi,

I am a new user and trying to use Acronis True Image to back up my Dell computer to an external USB drive.

Yesterday I created a full backup to the external drive and made a bootable CD to use in case of OS failure.

I was unsure if I would be able to see that USB drive in the even of a main OS or main drive failure, so I decided to test it out this morning and boot from the CD. Sure enough, I can't see that USB drive. The only drive I see is the main drive.

I'd appreciate any advice on what I should do to make my backup system more useable. The way I have it set up now I would not be able to do any restores if the main drive or main OS becomes corrupted.

Thanks for any feedback,
Steve

 

Is your USB drive connected to the computer via a hub or directly to the port?

What make and type is your USB drive?

Which version of TI are you using?

Forgot to say - BartsPe might solve your problem as it uses Windows drivers and not Linux ones.

Colin

 

I have noticed with some USB drives that the drive does not always initialise first time. This even happens under Windows. If the drive has a power switch then switch off, wait a minute then switch back on. Usually at the 2nd or 3rd attempt the drive will initialise.

Other ways to get the OS to "see" the drive are:

* Plug the drive into a USB port that connects directly to the MOBO, these are the ports at the back of the PC.
* Switch the drive on and then unplug the USB data cable. Wait a minute and then reconnect the USB data cable.
* Boot into Windows, start the drive and make sure that you can navigate the drive from Explorer. Then restart and boot into the Acronis Linux interface.

 

Hello Steve,

If your external is not seen from rescue environment, try the following workarounds in connection with booting into rescue environment:

- apply the "quiet acpi=off noapic" parameter as detailed in the Please Read Before You Post sticky;
- disconnect every unneeded USB device;
- don't use an USB hub, plug the external direcly, possibly to a rear panel port;
- connect and power up the external drive before booting from Rescue CD;
- wait for a minute on the selection screen to give time to the external to initialize;
- boot into the Safe version of TI instead of the Full.

 

bVolk makes an important point that's often overlooked by new users.

However, if the system BIOS is set to boot from USB-HD before CD-ROM and can't be changed then the external drive needs to be connected/switched on after seeing the "Starting Acronis loader" message but before reaching the "Acronis loading, please wait..." stage. I could have said it needs to be connected/switched on before choosing which mode to boot into at the Recovery Media selection screen but that would only apply to TI 9.0 Home/TI 9.1 users.

Regards

 

Hello there Menorcaman,

You are right, of course. I overlooked the possibility that the USB-HD could be on top of the boot order list. Thank you for pointing that out.

With TI 7 and an external HD that took an eternity to initialize I used to perform this trick: during the initial booting stage I pressed F11 to access the Linux command line (as if I wanted to add a parameter, which I didn't) and waited there for two minutes before clicking OK to proceed with the default quiet parameter only.

 

Menorcaman wrote...

That is an interesting comment. I have not yet encounted a PC that did not allow the "F11 - Boot Options Menu".

I am interested to hear more about systems that "cannot be changed" as I may encounter one sometime.

 

Hi Tabvla,

Apologies, I should have made my statement more clear. By "can't" I mean as in the case where the USB-HD has to have boot priority over the internal HD in order to boot TI from a USB flash drive (as I often do). In this case the external USB HD has to remain switched off or disconnected until the flash drive has had time to kick in.

Regards

 

Ah.. now I understand.

Yes, that makes sense, but as you rightly say it could catch one out if you did not think of it at the time.

Thanks

 

Hello njsteve,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

I am sorry for the delayed response.

First of all, please make sure that the bootable CD is created with the latest build (3677) of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home. You can find the build number in the Help -> About dialog (it should be a 3 or 4 digit number). To get access to updates you should first register your software.

If the issue persists with the new build, please try booting with "acpi=off noapic" parameter as it is described in Acronis Help Post. Also try workarounds mentioned by bVolk (post #4).

If the issue still persists please create Acronis Report and Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post. Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov