Mustang's Plugins For TI9.1 Corporate Family Available

Yesterday, Acronis released True Image 9.1 for their corporate family. The new versions are based on a new "engine", as Acronis puts it. The most noticeable thing about the new "engine" is that the format of .tib image files has changed. This means that older TI8 versions of the program, including plugins, will not recognize the new image format. The new TI9 versions of the programs and plugins will work with both new and old image file formats.

I have uploaded three new versions of TI9 plugins to my Webpage. They are for True Image Enterprise Server 9.1, True Image Server for Windows 9.1 and True Image Corporate Workstation 9.1. Make sure you download the plugin that corresponds to the version of True Image that is installed on your system.

Please report any problems you encounter when running the Get-Files commands. If there are any problems with copying files or registration info, I will correct them.

Image mounting is not working in the new plugins due to a change by Acronis. The new versions of TI9 allow you to mount an image in read only or read/write mode. The work around methods for image mounting used in my TI8 and existing TI9 plugins do not work with the new format. If anyone figures out how to mount an image with the new format please let me know. Luckily, since TI9 allows you to restore selected files from full backup images, the loss of image mounting in the plugins is really not that important.

I look forward to the release of the new True Image 9.1 Home edition. It promises to be a great improvement over the existing version of TI9. When it comes out, I will release a plugin for it.

Good luck,
mustang

 

I have updated the three TI9 plugins for the Corporate family of True Image 9.1. You can download them from my Website.

They now include the new Universal Restore optional feature. You can use the new versions with or without Universal Restore installed on your system. The plugin will automatically detect if Universal Restore is installed and include it in the plugin.

I have not been able to get a successful test of Universal Restore. I have run it from Windows, the Rescue CD and from my plugin. In all cases it fails with an error that it can't find "ADVPACK". Advpack.dll is the only thing I can think of. It is present in the System32 directory of all the images I have tried to restore. I can't figure out why I am getting this error. The good news for my plugin is that it acts the same as running Universal Restore from the Rescue CD.

I have only tested the Workstation version of the plugin. If anyone has a problem with the copy files or license info section with the Server or Enterprise Server versions, please let me know.

Good luck,
mustang

 

Another improvement has been made to the Corporate TI9.1 plugins available on my website.

Image mounting is now working. However, it is not quite perfect. You need to use a workaround.

Image Mounting Workaround:

To mount an image, take the following steps:

1. Start True Image and attempt to mount an image.
2. Wait one minute for the error message about not being able to assign a drive letter.
3. Hit the OK button to close the error message window.
4. True Image will try again to assign a drive letter on its own.
5. Immediately close the main True Image window.
6. Start True Image again. At this point, image mounting will work as expected.
7. Un-mounting an image will work as expected.
8. After the first time, images will mount as expected on the first try until the next reboot.

It required removing PartMgr from the "Upper Filters" line in the inf file. That has had an unexpected side effect. You may see a drive letter getting assigned to hidden partitions while running under BartPE. Don't worry, when you boot back to normal Windows, no drive letter will be assigned to the hidden partitions.

You must delete the z_UpperFilters folder from your plugin folder before you run the XXX-Get_Files+Lic.cmd. If you do not, the upper filters values will not be changed.

Good luck,
mustang

 

I have uploaded new versions of the Corporate family TI9 plugins for builds 3625 and up to my website.

Make sure you download the correct version for the build of TI9 installed on your system.

If you have Universal Restore, make sure you download the latest version from the Acronis website at the Registered Products page. Universal Restore does not show on the Products Update page. You should uninstall Universal Restore and then install the latest version.

mustang

 

Thanks once again Mustang

Its working fine here - wrong thread perhaps.. I meant the latest 3633 Home plugin

Mvh

 

I have the direct DVD writing fucntion working in my plugins as of today. You can restore backups made on any type of media that worked in normal Windows (including DVD+R and DVD-R).

Just download the latest version for you build from my website.

mustang

 

How slick, you've solved another problem for us!

 

Hi Mustang:

Your BartPe works fine with Acronis True Image Workstation 9.1.3633, however, the Universal Restore results in a non bootable drive.

Any suggestions?

Many thanks,

 

You haven't provided enough detail for me to know, but there is some chance you only need to repair the MBR. Look at the Please Read Before You Post thread at the top of page one. It will tell you how to proceed.

mustang

 

Hi Mustang:

Sorry for not providing more detail. Here is the scenario:

I created a Reatogo boot disk using your latest plug in. I have True Image Workstation 9.1 v3633 plus the latest Universal Restore just uploaded a few days ago from the Acronis site. I did a test restore on my wife's laptop and it worked perfectly. She had RollbackRx installed, and the FixMBR option worked and it booted perfectly.

Then I backed up my laptop using the same method above. I have FD-ISR on that machine and I disabled the preboot option before the backup.

I then tried to do a Universal Restore on my wife's laptop, which has different size partitions than mine. The restore went fine, except it just would not boot. I tried the Acronic FixMBR and the Windows Recovery method from my Windows XP Pro SP 2 disk. Neither of them worked. Thus, my previous question.

Can you tell me where I have made an error in my method? Many thanks to all of you for your help,

 

Pardon the intrusion but does the number of partitions have to be the same on source and destination computers?

Regards

 

Still not enough detail.

How many partitions are on each machine? Are any of these hidden OEM patitions?

How did you backup your laptop? Full disk or partition only?

How did you restore your laptop's image on you wife's machine? Full disk, partition only or partition only with MBR?

What did boot.ini look like on both machines before you started?

In the users guide, Acronis recommends that you do not restore the MBR when you put an image on a different machine using Universal Restore.

I can't help FD-ISR. I know nothing about it.

mustang

 

Hi Mustang,

Rather than going thru all of the steps you suggested, I just used the Acronis build disk to do a Universal Retore on my wife's laptop and it worked perfectly. I tried the same restore from your plug-in using both BartPe and Reatogo and it would not boot, even though it went thru the process about 15 minutes faster (I am restoring about 27.3 Gb's).

It appears that you may have some problems with the Universal Restore feature of your plug in. I used your plug-in with success in a plain full restore and also with cloning a new hard drive.

I will use your plug-in for restores and cloning and use the Acronis Linux Media Disk for Universal Restore until you get it fixed.

I really appreciate all of your hard work on this plug-in. It does restores and clones much faster than the Linux build disk from Acronis.

Thanks for your help,

Silver

 

Well, that's very interesting. I don't see anything about Universal Restore that can be fixed. The entire Universal Restore feature is built into TrueImage.exe. When you install Universal Restore, it mearly puts a license code in the registry to activate the feature in True Image. The only other thing the UR installer does is to provide three extra files needed to build a Recovery CD with Universal Restore and to install three registry entries telling True Image where the three files are located.

mustang

 

Your plugin for "True Image Enterprise Server 9.1 3625 & Below" doesn't seem to work properly with build 3602. Two issues arise:

1) The license information is prefixed with several uneccessary spaces, causing a licensing issue when you run the product from Windows XPE. I fixed this by simply removing the spaces in the registry entry in XPE.

2) When I run the product from XPE using your plugin, the product reports no drives were found. However, if I create a normal recovery CD using the appropriate Acronis wizard, the recovery CD finds the drives with no problems. Yes, the appropriate RAID drivers have been added to the XPE image, so at least Windows can see the RAID volumes. I also updated the Acronis drivers to their latest versions before running your plugin.

Any ideas how to resolve the second issue? (the first should be an easy fix)

 

Hi imageguy,

Are you sure the local drives are visible with Windows Explorer under BartPE with the TI9 plugin installed?

The most likely cause for not finding hard drives with the TI9 plugins is an Upper Filters problem. This has become a difficult problem to manage. XPE will overwrite the Upper Filters line in the TI9 plugin. This is why the z_UpperFilters plugin is being used. Following is how the inf file should look in the z_UpperFilters plugin:

Code:

[Version]
Signature= "$Windows NT$"
[PEBuilder]
Name="Force UpperFilters to be processed last"
Enable=1 
[SetupReg.AddReg]
0x7,"ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}","UpperFilters","snapman"
0x7, "ControlSet001\Control\Class\{71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}","UpperFilters","snapman","timounter"

Please check this. You should also run regedit under BartPE and make sure the "Upper Filters" are correct. Look at HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and HKLM\System\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F} and confirm the values match the above code.

If "PartMgr" is included in {4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} and "timounter" is included in {71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}, as they are in normal Windows, all the local hard drives will disappear in BartPE.

Sorry I don't know why your license info was not picked up properly. I haven't seen that before.

mustang

 

You are correct. For some reason the UpperFilters registry entries are not making it into the XPE ISO image. The z_UpperFilters plugin is (and has been) enabled, so I'm not sure why they aren't making it in there. If it matters, I build my XPE ISO using an OS installation source for Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 slipstreamed. I find RAID controller drivers are much easier to find for Windows Server 2003 than Windows XP.

 

Please double check to make sure the z_UpperFilters plugin has the values "snapman" only on the first line and "snapman", "timounter" on the second line. If a previous version of the plugin exist (with different values), the Z_UpperFilters plugin will not be recreated when you run the ---Get_Files+Lic.cmd. If there is a difference, you can just manually set the values in the z_UpperFilters plugin.

If the values are correct, it must mean the Upper Filters lines are somehow being overwritten. It should be a simple matter of forcing the UpperFilters plugin to process last. Try renaming it to zzz_UpperFilters or zzzUpperFilters.

Things can certainly be different with how TI9 acts in BartPE when building with W2K3. The diappearing hard drive problem first showed up in the TI8 plugin but only when building with W2K3. When TI9 came along, the problem showed up building with XP and W2K3. I don't test with W2K3, so I rely on reports from users to identify problems. Would you please report back with your results after you get the Upper Filters to show up properly in BartPE.

mustang