Universal Restore and BartPE

Hello,

after installing the universal restore option you can create a new Rescue Disk with universal restore enabled. How about the BartPE Plugin? How do you enable the universal restore feature in the plugin? I took a look at the plugin folder. there seems to be no change through the installation of ur, so the plugin still seems to be without ur..

Help please..i need ur in BartPE.

Volker

 

Hello Volker,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

I'm afraid that BartPE plug-in for Acronis True Image 9.1 which is included into the installation file does not support Acronis Universal Restore. It will be probably implemented in the future builds/versions of the software.

However, we would like to note that Mustang's plug-in for BartPE supports Acronis Universal Restore. His BartPE plug-in automatically detects if Acronis Universal Restore is installed on the computer and includes it in the plug-in. Please take a look at https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=124338&highlight=mustang

Please be aware that Mustang's BartPE Plug-in for Acronis True Image is not official one and it does not supported by Acronis Support.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Thank you for the quick response, but in the thread it says:

So it sounds like you cannot use universal restore from mustangs plugin. UR is one of the best features in trueimage 9.1 and the use of it from within BartPE is essential due to the BartPE support for windows SCSI/SATA drivers.

Greetings

Volker

 

Hello VolkerNadolski,

You can use Universal Restore from my plugin. The problem with the ADVPACK error was fixed by Acronis in the latest build (3567) of TI. I now have a successful test. Universal Restore should work exactly the same from Windows or from my plugin.

You can download the appropriate version of the plugin for your version of TI from my website.

mustang

 

I think I give it up for now...
I'm using BartPE 3.1.10a and a german Windows XP Professional with SP2 and XPE 1.04. Not even the acronis original Plugin (Build 3547 - latest German) works. The PE-Environment doesn't see the harddrives...

I have to remove the following line.....

"txtsetup.sif", "HardwareIdsDatabase", "STORAGE\Volume", """Volume"",{71A27CDD-812A-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}"

after that the Acronis Plugin "sees" the harddrives again. Mustang's plugin closes immediately..

I think i will have another try after the german version is updatet to a newer build.

Volker

 

The hard drive error you are getting with the Acronis plugin is because XPE overwrites the "Upprer Filters" line. All you have to do to correct this is to name the plugin folder starting with the letter z (something like z_Acronis). This will force it to process after XPE. My plugin creates a separate z_UpperFilters plugin to solve this problem so you do not have to rename the plugin folder.

Do not remove the txtsetup.sif line from either plugin. It is important. My plugin has been tested with BartPE 3.1.10a and XPE 1.0.4 and should work well. Please explain what is happening and I will try to help you.

mustang

 

Many thanks for your help offer.

Here is what I found out:
1. I never disabled the z_UpperFilters plugin. (it was enabled for your DiskDirector 10 Plugin)
2. Due to the usage with TrueImage 8 I enabled UpperFilters from within the XPE-Plugin (found it in 911-Forum), but without the "storage" line.
3. With the Storage-Line in the plugin PE doesn't see any harddrives.
4. Deleting the storage line brings up the following result:
a) BartPE sees the Harddrives
b) Acronis (original Plugin) works
c) DiskDirektor 10 and TrueImage (your plugins) start up and close themselves immediately....
5. I still have a CD with your plugins (DiskDirector 10 Build 2089) and TrueImage (Build 35?? not 3547-orignal Plugin "Storage disabled) and this works fine

my goal is:
DiskDirector 10, TrueImage (Original - because of Support) AND TrueImage (your plugin - because of UR) on one CD.....

any help would be appreciated....

Volker

 

You've given me enough info to see what might be going wrong. The Upper Filters data vales are very fussy with these plugins. Each version that comes along seems to need different vales to work properly. One of the problems is that my plugins that generate a separate Upper Filters plugin do nothing if it already exists. You should delete the z_UpperFilters plugin and run the TI9 setup again. To do this, run the TI9 ResetPlug.cmd and the TI9-Get_Files+Lic.cmd.

You can also manually set the z_UpperFilters values if you prefer. You want to end up with them as follows:

Line 4D36E976--- "snapman" (Remove "PartMgr")
Line 71A27CDD--- "snapman","timounter"

If you made any changes to these lines in your XPECustom.inf, you can leave them as they will be overwritten by z_UpperFilters.inf. You should run regedit in BartPE to be sure they end up this way.

I have run a test with the Upper Filters values set as above with my DD10 plugin, my TI9 Corporate Workstation plugin and Acronis' TI9 Corporate workstation plugin all on one disk. They all worked properly.

Please keep the txtsetup.sif line in. You will not be able to do an individual files/folders backup or restore files from an existing files/folders backup without it.

If you do this and my plugins are still shutting down, there may be a conflict with one of your other plugins. Please try disabling as many plugins as you can to see if that works. If you do have a conflict, I would greatly appreciate it if you could pin it down. That way I could put the information in the help file for others who may have the same conflict.

Good luck,
mustang

 

Thanks for your help...i found another error (in my PE Environment)...

finally I know downloaded a fresh copy of XPE (to delete the old stuff of TI and moved the z_Upperfilters to the root of plugins folder. Then I deleted the second upperfilters.

Now PE sees my harddrives...even with the normal txtsetup.sif. Upperfilters are only set by one plugin, but still TI (Acronis) works and TI (Mustang) crashes.

The solution was: I enabled another plugin for dynamicdisk support (found in the 911-forum) and that seems to make the trouble. I doublechecked and as soon as i disable this plugin everything works fine..

Thank you for your support

Keep up your excellent work

Volker

 

I'm glad to hear you got it all to work. Thanks for letting me know.

I have two questions:

1. Did you set the name of the plugin that is controlling the Upper Filters to start with the letter z? If you did not, XPE will overwrite the line with 4D36E967 and put it back to "PartMgr". Did you run regrdit in BartPE to verify the Upper Filters?

2. What is the name of the dynamic disk support plugin that you were using? BTW, I understand that the new version of TI supports dynamic disks. Please let me know if that works.

mustang

 

Sorry for my late answer ;-) i first must power on the virtual machine....

now to the answers:

1) I followed your naming and so the plugin is called z_UpperFilters and both Registry-Keys are ok.

2) It is the generic dynamic disc support plugin. After activating this plugin your machine calls itself "windows codename whistler". The product-key is switched vom workstation to server and so the server software raid0, raid1 and raid5 options are available within PE. I tried it with a virtual server machine. The software raid1 looks like 2 dynamic harddrives (TI supports dynamic disks), but the mirror is "down" (plugin disabled) or correctly like one harddisk (plugin enabled).

; PE Builder v3 plug-in INF file
; Created by Bart Lagerweij

[Version]
Signature= "$Windows NT$"

[PEBuilder]
name="[General] Windows XP - Dynamic Disk Support"
Enable=0

[SetupReg.AddReg]
0x1, "ControlSet001\Control\ProductOptions", "ProductType", "ServerNT"

[Default.AddReg]
0x0, "Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Setup\Welcome"
0x4, "Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Setup\Welcome", "srvwiz", 0x0
0x0, "Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\srvWiz"
0x1, "Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\srvWiz", "", "0"


Again...with the plugin enabled acronis ti functions, but "your" ti crashes.

Volker

 

Thanks for this info.

OK, I did a search on the 911-CD forum and found the Dynamic Disk Support plugin. The following quote accompanied the plugin:

This is probably why True Image shuts down under my plugin. I am using the TrueImage.exe that comes with Windows. The Acronis plugin uses a TrueImage.exe they modified for BartPE. This explains why their plugin did not shut down.

Keep in mind that I offer separate plugins for the Workstation, Server and Enterprise Server versions of TI9. If you use my Server or Enterprise Server version and build your BartPE on the system with the corresponding True Image 9.1 installed, you will be running a Server version of TI9 under BartPE.

mustang

 

Now to something very spacy...

I made a BartPE build with Server 2003 SP1. In this build i modified the three files which are for the usage of raid5 in Windows XP (c't magazine in 2004). The modified BartPE says winnt (so acronis doesn't crash) AND has full access to dynamic disks. I tried a VM with 7 harddisks including raid0, raid1 and raid5 and the only annoying was the explorer saying "%FOLDER_DIRECTORY%" instead of "Directory" and a lot of drive letters ;-)

A 3 drive raid 5 shows up with 3 drive letters BUT works fine. Even a corrupt raid restores itself in the PE.

Through the MMC plug-in for drives you can create and manage existing raids and after the next "normal" boot the system may run a chkdsk on the system drive. After that the system bootet up correct and all raid-arrays were working perfectly.

Volker

 

Hi Volker,

Thanks for letting me know all that info. That's very good. Sounds like you are having a lot of fun with the plugin. Keep up the good work.

mustang