Rescue Environment does not see DVD drive

Hi,

I try to restore of full disk image created on one PC to another PC using the bootable version of Acronis True Image.

Both PC's are identical: it are brand new Latitude 6400's with XP Home SP2 pre-installed. I "screwed one of the systems up" trying to get XP Pro SP1 installed over XP Home SP2, and I'm trying to resolve the mess I caused...

I installed Acronis TI Home 9.0 (build 3.633) on the "good" PC, and I created a back up of the entire disk:
1. Back up type: Entire disk or partition
2. Check Disk 1 (containing 3 partitions) to be backed up
3. Selected DVD drive to store the backup file (.tib)
4. Check "Create new full backup" for backup mode
5. In the Options/Media Components, check "Place Acronis TI Home (Full Version) on the media.
6. Created the backup

Next, I try to restore the data on the "bad" PC:
1. Boot from the backup DVD; message "Starting Acronis loader..." appears
2. After a short while, the Acronis Rescue Media menu is displayed; it has TWO options: "Select Acronis TI Home (Full)" and "Windows";
Click "TI Home"
3. The Acronis TI splash screen appears for some time, to be replaced after a while with a complete black screen, with the word "Acronis" in white letters
4. After a short wait, 3 messages are displayed:
Loading, please wait...
ide0: ports already in use, skipping probe
ide1: ports already in use, skipping probe
5. The Acronis TI Home menu displays, select Recovery
6. The "Archive Selection" panel doesn't show the DVD (My Computer only shows the hard disk and the USB stick)

PS: I also tried to first boot XP, and run the "normal" version of TI Home on the "bad" PC. That version DOES RECOGNISE THE DVD, and allows me to select the backup file, but as I select to recover the entire hard disk, I get the message that this will require a reboot. The reboot launches the Acronis Loader, and from there, everything is exactly the same as described above.

According to XP device manager, the DVD drive is a "SONY DVD +- RW DW-Q58A" (this is a 8x DVD +/- RW recorder), and I'm using 4x DVD +RW discs (I didn't manage to find any 8x RW discs yet in the shops).
To give you all possible information on my PC, I'm attaching both the requested Linux sysinfo as "sysinfo.txt", and also the Windows System information as "WinXPSysInfo.nfo"...
Hhhmm, I can only attach one file, and ".zip" doesnt seem to be allowed
Haha... Zipping both files to LinuxWinSysInfo.zip, and renaming the file to LinuxWinSysInfo.txt, so I can attach it. NOTE THAT THIS IS A ZIP ARCHIVE

If you need additional info, pls ask...

Regards,

Juul

 

The only information you didn't provide was what DVD media you used. The direct to DVD imaging in Windows can be done to any DVD disk, but recovery in the Linux environment only works currently with DVD+RW or DVD-RW disks. Images on DVD+R or DVD-R disks cannot be read. (This will be fixed in a later build of TI.)

Furthermore, if the image spans more than one DVD, use DVD+RW disks to avoid problems. New disks are certain to work, but erased disks may not work.

I hope this is the source of your problem.

 

Hi John,

Actually, it's only DVD-RW media that currently works properly when imaging direct using Build 3633. DVD+RW has a problem if the option to validate the image after backup is selected, albeit the image can be successfully validated after the event via the Archive Backup Validation Wizard.

Regards

 

Thanks for the correction.

By the way, after noticing how much time you spent on this DVD problem, are you sure you're still married? Have you looked for her lately?

 

Umm, saw her about 2 days ago so I suppose I'd better go and check

Cheers

 

jvanp,
Any chance you have access to an external hard drive?
Copy the "tib" backup files from the DVD to the external.
Attach the external to the bad system.
Use the Bootable CD to boot and do a restore from the external to the bad drive.

Remember, you cannot have the same version of XP running on two different computers?-- or perhaps I am not understanding correctly.

 

Thanks to all for the quick reactions...

My original post does mention the type of discs, but it was perhaps a bit burried in the mass of information:
According to XP device manager, the DVD drive is a "SONY DVD +- RW DW-Q58A" (this is a 8x DVD +/- RW recorder), and I'm using 4x DVD +RW discs (I didn't manage to find any 8x RW discs yet in the shops).

I'm under the impression that the Linux O/S (which seems to be used by the Rescue Environment) simply doesn't have the proper drivers for the DVD drive; because my PC doesn't have a floppy, I had to copy the sysinfo.txt to USB (as documented in https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=678565&postcount=5). Part of this procedure is to list the drives using proc/partitions command; this command only lists the hard disk (with 3 partitions), and the USB stick (with 1 partition); there's no mention at all of the DVD drive...

For completeness: the backup just fits on a single DVD (it's just over 4GB), and I used a brand new disc. As mentioned, I'm using 4-speed +RW discs, and didn't have any problem creating the backup file (I did not select the option to validate the backup).

I unfortunately don't have any external hard drives, but one more thing that I could try if I manage to find a null modem cable, would be to connect my two PC's this way, and to access the hard disk from the "good" PC via "Computers Near Me". Would this work?

Regards

 

Hi jvanp,

More likely that the Linux environment is failing to detect the IDE controller chipset that the DVD drive is connected to.

Probably a longshot in this case but have you tried dropping into the Linux kernel command line and adding the commands acpi=off noapic as detailed in the Acronis sticky titled <PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST> and seeing if it makes any difference?

Regards

 

Hi Menorcaman,

Yes, I did try to add the commands acpi=off noapic to the Linux command line; this didn't make any difference...

The problem could indeed be related to Linux not recognising the IDE controllers... Remember the 2 messages I get at startup:
Loading, please wait...
ide0: ports already in use, skipping probe
ide1: ports already in use, skipping probe
I also noticed that the proc/partitions command only shows scsi devices...

Regards,

Juul

 

Hello Juul,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

I'm afraid that this issue is probably related to your DVD-ROM which is not supported by the current version of rescue media.

Please submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files which you have provided in your first post and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread.
Your information will be forwarded to our Development Team which will assist you as soon possible.

We apologize for any delay you might experience in the meantime.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Hi,

After some difficulty getting the real 3666 downloaded, I managed to create a full disk backup to DVD (4x +RW), and to restore the entire disk image. I was doing other things in the mean time, so I didn't really time the things, but my impression was that backup went quite fast (less than 15mins to backup around 8GB of data, in 3 partitions on a 60GB hard disk, using normal compression). Restore however took a lot longer (perhaps even up to an hour), but afterwards everything was just clean...

Note however that there are some contradicting threads out there on restore from DVD (see a..o https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=136444 and https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=136405).

And as a last note: wading through a number of threads on this forum, I ran into quite a few negative remarks; I can only say that my - be it limited - exposure to Acronis products and their support, gives me a fairly good feeling. True, they're not perfect, but that he who is without sin...

Good luck to everybody,

Juul