# Solved: Acronis Trueimage 11 Boot CD



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

My Acronis TI 11 boot disk consistently hangs at the 'Loading, please wait..........' message. Despite many attempts by Acronis to solve this problem I'm not getting any further. Just wondered if anyone here is having a similar problem or just might know a workaround. All other kinds of boot disks are OK it's just the Acronis one which hangs. If you're the genius who knows the answer then please tell, thanks in advance.


----------



## dick471 (Oct 27, 2004)

If I select the TI-11 "Safe" mode it doesn't hang long. If I select the "Full" mode it hangs for a few minutes finding all of the scsi/ide/promise/usb drives. So what! It still works perfectly.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

dick471 said:


> So what! It still works perfectly.


Mine doesn't. When I say 'hangs' I mean it would remain like that as long as I left it. In other words it doesn't work at all


----------



## dick471 (Oct 27, 2004)

Check with Acronis Tech Dept. There is a way to modify the program to stop this.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Thanks, they are trying to solve the problem but have had no success yet. I am waiting for their reply to my latest report and I will post the solution on here if there is one, watch this space!!


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Plantsman said:


> ... watch this space!!


OK .. You're on my watch list 
I know mine takes a really long time ... How long have you waited so Far ??

Running Acronis from the HD is even longer ... So I've removed it.
That also took forever.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with my twin (bootable) drives (external not shown) and all my Data ..


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Noyb said:


> ... How long have you waited so Far ??


Well, I once left it on for about ten hours, so if it was going to work after that time I wasn't interested. Acronis have been very good about it and have given me about 6 different CD ISO's to try and solve the problem. One of the Cd's just gave a running verbose display rather than a GUI to show what was happening and then hung like always. They are at the moment studying a digital camera snapshot of my computer screen so I am hopeful when they see what is happening a solution will ensue. I should know by tomorrow or the day after, so fingers crossed till then.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

10 hours  .. I give up after about 30 minutes.

It seems Acronis has a problem ... have you seen this ??
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=193154&highlight=freeze

My problem seemed to start after replacing my 250 gig HDs with 320's a couple months ago ..
But, I have the nagging feeling that a Windows update may be involved.

I'm still operational (slowly) from the Boot CD ... 
but one of these days, I may want to mount an image as a Virtual drive


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Well I got the new CD ISO from Acronis, it went a bit further this time but eventually hung again, so I'm now waiting for another reply. By the way this is their 9th attempt. I'll withhold any further comment for now but will write back in due course in about a day or so.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

I'd like to say this is an update, but there's nothing to tell yet. Acronis are still battling with this one, all to their credit of course but you would think they could make a boot CD which booted, after all other CD's boot on my computer with no probs. I only post this to show this issue is ongoing and I will keep my promise to tell if the problem is resolved and will post the solution if any.


----------



## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Plantsman said:


> I'd like to say this is an update, but there's nothing to tell yet. Acronis are still battling with this one, all to their credit of course but you would think they could make a boot CD which booted, after all other CD's boot on my computer with no probs. I only post this to show this issue is ongoing and I will keep my promise to tell if the problem is resolved and will post the solution if any.


You have much more patience than I do. Been 2 1/2 weeks since your first post and you had already contacted them with no luck.

What are we looking at? A month?

You can learn to use this distro faster than that, then do the same thing for free! ( No need to learn anything more than changing to any other OS, less in most cases.)
http://spout.ussg.indiana.edu/linux/pclinuxos/pclinuxos/live-cd/english/preview/


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

............they promise they are still working on it zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........................................ but in the meantime I found an alternative. Not going to let this go though........ maybe sometime next year.........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Oh! Thought I'd just mention that R-Drive Backup does exactly the same thing...'hangs' so beware of that as well, so at least Acronis don't need to feel they're the only ones who've got it wrong!


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Wanna share the secret of your Alternative ??

I only have a problem on my main computer .. the others work OK ... last I checked.
For my main computer .. I don't have ATI installed, but just use the boot CD for my backups.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Hi Noyb, Paragon Drive Backup works OK for me and I'm also currently experimenting with Ghost 14.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

P.S. Is anyone using Storagecraft's Shadowprotect backup software? I've been reading it tops ATI in reliability and fuss free use.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Well now I've tried quite a few backup softwares, I've come to the conclusion most of them are a pain in the butt in one way or another, but still having faith I found two sterling performers. The first, HDClone is very good but with one big drawback for me. If you don't create a partition first to hold the backup image it claims the whole backup disk for itself, for example a 250gig hard disk will only be seen as a 30 gig size disk by windows if that was the size of the image you saved to it.

However the one which deserves to take the crown from Acronis is Storagecraft's Shadowprotect. In fact if you've used Acronis you will find it has a very similar interface so you can feel right at home immediately.

One important difference is you can't create a boot CD from within the software but you download it as a separate ISO from the website. The reason is this CD is Vista rather than Linux based which is one over on Acronis for a start. The backup speed is impressive too with a 50gig image made in 33mins and reduced 40% in size.

Though it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Acronis (who needs them?) it does have its own impressive features which are more pertinent to doing backups IMO. This is very very good software and I could go on, but why not read all about it at the website. One more thing, you can download a trial version but you don't get to download the boot CD but at least you can see what the software is capable of. Check it here for the Desktop edition.

http://www.storagecraft.com/products/ShadowProtectDesktop/

.....and a review

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2254465,00.asp


----------



## bp936 (Oct 13, 2003)

have Acronis 10 but had the same problem, laptop crashed, couldn't find "system". I read Acronis CD boots without Windows, NOT SO, it just hangs, also for hours and nothing--- I ended up reinstalling XP, (naturally lost all updates), installed Kaspersky again, registered, update etc. just what I thought Acronis will prevent that I would have to do.

Then I did try Acronis to "restore" my computer. It did, BUT since XP registry was clean, many programs don't run, some lost even the exe files. So I am not impressed with Acronis 10. Now I hear from you guys, version 11 isn't any better.
Still reinstalling fromCD and backup zips.

and just for FYI, I didn't even get to DOS or any prompt, was completely dead ( still don't know whodunit), so I wonder if Acronis only work when an OS is installed.
So the claim, to boot without an OS is false.


----------



## dick471 (Oct 27, 2004)

Why thrash a dead horse. True Image works for 99.99% of people. Sounds like you have a "system problem-not acronis"... Give up on it for your system and try something else. Try Norton's Drive Image!


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

dick471 said:


> True Image works for 99.99% of people.


Sorry, but I just wondered where you got this statistic from.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

If you read the ATI forum .. That number looks "about" right.
I have run ATI 10 & 11 in several computers, and all work great .. except for my main Computer.
It seems to hang indefinitely while examining my drives.
Thinking this may have been a problem with the software, I restored it .. (Not a solution)

I'm now thinking my main computer may be too complicated for ATI ... 
Since it has twin bootable drives, each with a separate Data partitions.
Sometimes 3 drives (6 partitions) if I turn on my eSATA external .. (with Vista in it)
Or could it be my Core Duo ??

Anyway .. I can run ATI from the Boot CD ... in my main Computer ...
as long as I disconnect the "Other Drives" ... 
And plan on a very long break while it examines my drive/partitions.


----------



## dick471 (Oct 27, 2004)

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65

Here is everything on Acronis True Image. I've used TI since version 7 with 11 scsi drives installed & 5 usb drives and never had a problem; except the first boot disk had to have "ECHO" silenced.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Hi Noyb, I can understand you having problems with that setup but I can't understand the problem on a 'vanilla' PC. You will find this is a problem quite a few people have if you do a Google search. It seems more and more the trail is leading to the Linux boot CD. Compare that with ShadowProtect which uses a Vista based CD. I'm not finding anyone who has trouble with that so why can't Acronis do the same? The answer has got to be they don't want to pay for the licence. Also after my experience I don't think they care how it affects the end user but would rather fob them off with excuses, fake fixes and remarks like 'we are still working on it', and guess what? They still are (NOT). 

Now they don't contact me unless I contact them first and they've run out of excuses because they just repeat the old ones. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if they can't make a boot CD which just boots to the interface regardless of what happens afterwards, well that's just sloppy. Anyway they have lost this customer permanently. Shadowprotect is now the only one I can trust and at last I'm happy again.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

dick471 said:


> I've used TI since version 7 with 11 scsi drives installed & 5 usb drives and never had a problem.


I'm a long term user also from TI6 and never had trouble and have recommended it widely but not anymore. We can only judge from our own experiences and I judge they have got sloppy or lost the plot. Instead of focussing on the 'engine' they've just tarted the thing up, which looks good but it won't win the race in the end. Give me a simpler interface on top of rock solid software, does it for me every time.


----------



## dick471 (Oct 27, 2004)

Just a note about the TrueImage bootdisk. If your bootdisk won't boot, borrow any TI bootdisk from someone else that works. If this won't boot you have a SYSTEM problem. It doesn't matter if their version is different than your version, it will still boot. I have boot CD's from NT/W2000/XP/Server2003; from version 7 thru 11, and they will all boot any of my systems including Ubuntu 7.10. But only do a "Restore" from a different version bootdisk, NOT a backup. Do a backup with TI while in the operating system; except Ubuntu must have a backup made from the bootdisk since TI won't install in Ubuntu except thru WINE. All of this is on the wilderssecurity forum.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Hi dick471, I only have a 'SYSTEM' problem with Acronis not with any other boot CD. So in my view it's Acronis not the SYSTEM which is the problem. As for using different TI boot CD's, that I've tried and your other suggestion. 

I'm sorry but I'm past the point of caring on how to make Acronis work for me when it's their job to do that. Thanks for your input anyway but now I've found something better, much much better. However I still intend to badger Acronis till they come up with some other 'fix' which I will post on here as promised, please don't hold your breath though..........


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Acronis have decided to stop responding to me altogether so I can give no further updates here. Beware then if are considering purchasing this software, there's a good chance it won't work for you either and if so you may find you've wasted good money which will not be returned. You've seen the track record so heed or unheed it at your own risk. This thread will now be marked as solved.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Hmm i have noticed that too. I think my old beige desktops dont like my ati 11 boot disk but all of my laptops work fine with it. A couple have a long delay at that "loading please wait..." screen but if left for a couple of minutes, the interface loads and works fine. I beleive that the problem does not lie in the kernel they use, its the drivers. What they should probably do is make the discs computer specific and use bartpe to make a windows based boot cd and modify it with acronis. And it should look for the video drivers for your pc. Not try a generic one.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Hi new tech guy. It seems to me the only one who has got their boot CD spot on is Storagecraft, I gave the link in an earlier message. Most of the other disk imagers have issues too like taking 15 hours to restore a backup (Paragon), needing to create a partition to hold a backup (HDClone), failure to boot CD (Acronis, R-drive), Can't find source drive (Ghost), so for me at least only Storagecraft's Shadowprotect remedied all of these. If one company can do it properly what excuse do the others have? I'm starting to rant again I think but now my problem is solved I'll just leave it to rest and let others make their own decisions, I'm glad that I have finally.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Sorry for slow reply, was on a senior class trip all week but in any event that last post put an idea in my head. Its a wild shot in the dark but worth it. If one downloaded bartpe or had an existing regular pe disc, i wonder if i either find a way to add the acronis files to the disc or copy them to another and execute them from the cd if the program will execute. If it does, there is an avid workaround to the issue. Just need to intergrate acronis true image files with the pe disc and all is well.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Yes I have considered that route but not sure if you could just copy files over to a PE disk and execute Acronis, might try that, though I suspect it may be necessary to make Acronis portable first via a program like Thinstall. It all seems more trouble than it's worth now but would be an interesting experiment if only to help others make the thing work. I reckon someone may have already done it but haven't responded or aren't aware of this thread. I hope it can be done just to show Acronis even amateurs can fix something they can't. I relish the thought, perhaps when I have some spare time..............................!


----------



## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Here's an article at the Acronis site about Acronis plugins for BartPE.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/bartpe/


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

As a matter of fact, i do have a pe disk. I could copy the acronis files to a flash drive as a simple test i suppose and try to run the program from the flash drive.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Stoner said:


> Here's an article at the Acronis site about Acronis plugins for BartPE.
> 
> http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/bartpe/


I did notice that but i thought that merely had to with disc drivers for acronis flavored cds.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Surprise, surprise! Acronis contacted me the other day with a link to download another CD ISO which I promptly burned and then booted my computer with it, but no surprise here as it hung again. I didn't reply back straight away and they must have got worried about me (how nice) and asked me to reply to say how the new ISO performed. I could only reply again with another screenshot to tell them it had failed.

I'm only keeping this thread going for the benefit (if any) of the forum as there may be a slim chance there could be a fix eventually which hopefully will be included in a future upgrade of TI. It's just curiosity with me now as I'm high and dry with Storagecraft but for those of you who it may concern check this thread occasionally, just in case.....................


----------



## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Thanks for posting your continued efforts.
You really go the distance.....:up:

Perhaps you could list your hardware specs to see if anyone with a similar configuration has had the same issues?


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Hi Stoner
Philips Freevents X59 Laptop with Vista Home Premium 2gig RAM Intel Duo Core processor, 160 gig HD. Nothing exotic at all but TI won't boot with it. My desktop computer does though, thanks for the input, will report later if something else happens.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Im working on a BARTPE disc with it, it is slow going with development but will tell you when done so all can use it.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok, THE BARTPE disc is all set!!! If you want to try that plantsman, let me know and we can figure out a way to transfer the iso and i will provide instructions on starting acronis from it. Same goes for anyone else who would like it. Notify me in a PM and i will send. If i cannot do this due to legal reasons, moderators can feel free to let me know and remove this post. BTW, it is acronis version 10, not 11 but for basic image making/restoring i dont think there will be a problem.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Thanks new tech guy. You can upload to Rapidshare for free here
http://rapidshare.com/ then just post the link to this thread if as you say it's allowed on this forum. You may have to ZIP or RAR it into separate chunks if it's over 100MB.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

I dont know if the zip would help because one would need a batch download and i dont know exactly how archive splitting works or if there is any automated way to put the file together after extraction. I may post it up somewhere, i do have an ftp service provided by speakersrock so if i can get a possible dmz area in my account and host the file there i may do so that way. Although i would need a mod to let me know if this is ok to post here, if i do put it up it will be in zip as i will provide instructions and an iso burner.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Hi new tech guy, if you have WinRAR it is a very easy procedure to split a file or ISO into separate chunks and still have them related to each other when they are extracted, it's automatic and no trouble at all. RAR files are superior to the ZIP variety as they can handle much larger files without problems. You may be able to get a trial version of WinRAR if you don't have it, but it's very well worth having anyway if you're thinking of doing this kind of thing more than once. I'm not sure of the limitations of the trial version but here's a link if you want to try it.

http://www.soft32.com/download_175.html

and here are some snapshots of the interface

http://www.soft32.com/Download/free-trial/WinRAR/4-175-3.html


----------



## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Plantsman, building a BartPE seems easier than the hassle you guys are going through, and there are likely to be plugins you might want to add later on.
I built a BartPE from my install rather than a CD/DVD and the process seemed easy.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Hi Stoner
Yes you are correct. I have made a BartPE disk in the past, it's just that new tech guy has done the legwork and wants to share it, so I'm just trying to help. Pity if his efforts can't be shared amongst us all and I suppose there are those who never have or don't want to learn about slipstreaming. I know I've forgotten more than I can remember and don't have a good enough reason to do it, my interest now is merely passive and more power to new tech guy's elbow. If he's pulled it off then another Goliath has fallen. If so Acronis will surely know via my pen ( no sources mentioned).


----------



## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I held off saying anything, but I think I should point out that technically, a BartPE is only legal on the computer that generated it.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#licensing


> This also goes for BartPE. In practice this means that the user may not use, for instance, a single license installation on one computer while simultaneously using a BartPE installation (created using that license) on another computer.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Stoner said:


> I held off saying anything, but I think I should point out that technically, a BartPE is only legal on the computer that generated it.


Point taken. In that case perhaps new tech guy can tell us the steps to creating our own which shouldn't be too difficult for the average computer user. Thanks for the info.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok sorry about that, i wanted to find that out before i broke a rule and now that you have pointed that out i will provide instructions. I do not have images as when i created mine i was testing and configuring so im going to give text and yes plantsman, the procedure is very simple.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Thanks new tech guy, that's something to look forward to and many thanks for taking the trouble to help us.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok, here are the steps:
What you will need:
1. A blank cd. Can be found pretty much anywhere
2. Make sure your pc has a cd burner or if not have a way of transferring the the iso file.
3. A cd burning application that can handle image files. If you don't have one you can download [email protected] burner here: http://www.ntfs.com/iso-burning.htm . 
4. A windows xp install cd (either home or pro, if your pc is store bought you might not need it but you could just borrow a friend's setup disc just in case).
5. Acronis trueimage setup file/cd (may/may not be needed.)

Now for the fun part, making the image.
1. Make sure you have the bartpe files in your acronis install. If not sure this is the time to run the setup file/cd that you used to install acronis and when you get to the uninstall,repair, modify screen, click modify and make sure bartpe is set to be installed. This will add a directory in the Acronis program folder called BartPE. This you will need later to remember the location.

2. Go ahead and download and install pebuilder from here: http://www.nu2.nu/download.php?sFile=pebuilder3110a.exe
Just click on the nearest geographic location to you to download the application then go ahead and install it.

3. Once in bartpe go ahead and have it search for possible windows install locations. If it finds one without you having to insert the windows install disc, you should be in good shape. If not, go ahead and put the windows xp disc into your computer and then go to the source menu>search. This will cause it to search again and it will find the necessarry files on the cd.

4. Now its time to inject those BARTPE files into the program that we set up from the acronis setup disc. You want to browse to the acronis folder in your C:\program files directory of your computer and in there after jumping into the folder of your Acronis product you should see a folder marked "BartPE". Now open another explorer window and browse to your BartPE program folder (by default it is just in C:\ . Once in there go to plugins. Jump back to the other window and just rename the BartPE folder to something like acronis. Then copy and paste the renamed BartPE folder into Bart's plugin folder. At this point i would recommends you restart bartpe. Once done, rename the copy of the folder in the acronis directory back to its original name. Leave the other copy as is.

5. Once back in bartpe, make sure your source remained, if not have it search again and find your xp cd and make sure you leave it in the cd rom drive. Now click on plugins and make sure your trueimage product is listed and marked as enabled. Once this is done close out of the plugin folder and at this point if you have a dual drive pc go ahead and load up the blank cd into the burner drive. If not in bart you can select to have it spit out an iso and set the .iso somewhere where it is easy to find. Your desktop should do the trick. If you have to shuffle the discs around in your pc be ready to once again have pebuilder find the new drive by letting it search for windows files again.

6. Now with whatever option you selected, have pebuilder build the iso. If you had it set to burn the cd on the spot when it makes the bartpe setup it will burn immediately, if not it will make the iso then copy it to your desktop. If you made the cd right away your done at this point. If you have the iso you can go ahead and burn it using the image burning option in your own burning utility or if your unsure how to do this or just don't have a utility use the link i previously provided to download [email protected] burner. That utility is pretty self explanatory.

7. Now go ahead and test the disc by rebooting and after making sure your BIOS is set to check your disc drives in the front of your boot order it should either prompt about loading the disc just like when you boot to a windows disc or just begin loading the disc. If it does this all is well. On a further note, when you get to bart, to launch acronis you want to start by launching A43 which is under the programs menu of the go button. Once that is open to go the bartpe cd in the drive and go into the programs folder. Now in there you should see the folder that acronis was renamed to originally. At that point after browsing that, you should find the renamed version the BartPE folder that we originally found in the acronis directory on your computer. Open that up and go ahead and fire up the program executable and your program will start up and run just as if you were using it from within normal windows. (I would note that down and keep it with the cd for future reference. At this point go ahead and return to windows.

8. Time to clean up. You can just delete the [email protected] burner exec as it is just a standalone file. For acronis just go back into the setup file/cd and remove the component for BartPE. You can make sure the file is gone and if its not simply go ahead and delete the folder. You can go ahead and uninstall pe builder as well by running the uninstaller located in the program's directory and then simply delete the folder if it still exists.

That is about it. You are done! You have a nice bootable cd and it has acronis trueimage and finally, it eliminates the problem of the special boot disk not loading on some pcs.


----------



## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

new tech guy.......:up:

I don't need an Acronis plugin for BartsPE as my Acronis boot disc works for me.......but I'll save your tutorial for a possible future use.

Nice!


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Awesome, thanks new tech guy, will try A.S.A.P. watch out Acronis..........


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

We should probably get a moderator to sticky this....


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok here is the scoop, im gonna make some more edits to it then im gonna give a final to a moderator to post as a sticky.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Hi, new tech guy. I don't seem to have the option to install BartPE folder in TI 11 build 8053. Looks like the option has been removed. This is the version which I need to use so maybe it's a no no for me. Acronis must have disabled the option, I surely can't find it but then maybe it's just me. If you know better please inform me. Thanks.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

I have version 10 and when i load the setup utility, (you must use the cd, you cannot do it from add/remove as that will only uninstall the appication) you need to click on the modify option. In there you should see Acronis Trueimage, Rescue media builder, BartPE. You want to select BartPE. I find it odd that version 11 would not have it. If you still cant find it if it is again legal i can provide the version 10 files.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

I have V10 also but it's supposed to be incompatible with Vista so I need to make sure of that before proceeding. I did what you said with V11 but no joy so I'll check V10 compatibility again and get back here later.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

I run version 10 in xp and vista without any trouble. My vista machines are even equipped with sp1 and they run fine.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

OK, I'll try with v10 later.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Also with the acronis account, you can download the files off of the acronis website.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

OK, TI v10 gave me the option to install a BartPE folder, v11 definitely doesn't so the plugin has been dropped from TI now. The BartPE CD booted fine and Acronis worked great. Still not tested it on my Vista machine but will do tomorrow. 

I'm still reading tales about TI v10 not creating a usable backup for Vista though. I'll have to bite the bullet and try for myself but making a disk image with Storagecraft first just to be sure. I'll be in touch to report success or failure but at the moment I'm summoning up the courage to actually do it for real. If I succeed I'll do an image verify first to check it out before I take the plunge and do the restore


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Well I tried the BartPE boot CD on Vista and everything went fine, loaded up Acronis, clicked on the Backup option then it started to scan for drives and came up with a message to the effect ' can't find Acronis on any drives' and wouldn't proceed. I don't know what that's all about as it shouldn't be looking for itself on the drives. It's supposed to Backup/Restore a disk image without doing that.

In the meantime Acronis have sent me not one but two new ISO's to burn and try. I've wasted about 12 CD's already doing this but as even BartPE has failed I'm thinking to let the whole thing go. I'm feeling a strong compulsion to head banging right now, so I'll leave it for a while till maybe I'm tempted to burn the new ISO's as a last attempt. If these fail I'll leave it to others to carry the torch, if they succeed....... well, I'll let you know either way. At the moment I'm feeling I've lost the war though.


----------



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

I did not ever see acronis do that before, then again i do install it on my pcs so it could simply be run from within windows. Why you would get that error, i do not know but to let you know the plugin files are also availible from the acronis site. i should try this on my linux/win98pc to see if i have the same result.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

The two new ISO's I spoke of from Acronis failed also, so that's me finished with playing this game. I should have known better and just let it be when I discovered Storagecraft's Shadowprotect. God knows how many hours I've wasted since December 2007 with Acronis's 'fixes' and now BartPE adding to the angst. I hope somewhere along the line Acronis come to their senses and produce a proper Windows based CD, not likely though is it.........?


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Just thought i'd mention another cracking disk imager in [email protected] Disk imager which also uses a WindowsPE Vista boot CD. Therein seems to lie the answer with these programs i.e. a Windows based boot CD rather than a Linux one.


----------



## Styler (May 7, 2008)

Hi,
I've been following this thread since i was having problems booting ATI on newer systems, specially with the new Intel 33 & 35 Chipsets.

I have got Storagecraft's Shadowprotect now.

The thing i miss from ATI in Storagecraft's Shadowprotect is the ability to create a secure zone kind of partion, and the F11 option to boot the software from the HDD instead of booting from the CD everytime.

It was very useful to boot the ATI software by choosing the F11 option, before windows starts. 

Is this kind of thing possible in Storagecraft's Shadowprotect ?

On first look i didn't seem to find it.

It boots through the CD without hanging though, although it is much slower than ATI

Styler


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Styler said:


> Hi,
> I've been following this thread since i was having problems booting ATI on newer systems, specially with the new Intel 33 & 35 Chipsets.
> 
> I have got Storagecraft's Shadowprotect now.
> ...


The secure zone option is not available in my version 3.1.0.3 and I don't miss it personally. I see no speed advantage in ATI over Shadowprotect, though it may depend on what compression you are using, I always use Standard (recommended). I imaged a 50gig (data content) in 33 mins compressed by 40%. That's speedy enough for me. Also it's being improved all the time and perhaps the secure zone may be a future addition. Storagecraft's forum makes interesting reading with some new things being promised for future updates. Glad it works good for you anyway, and just what I expected.


----------



## Styler (May 7, 2008)

I miss the securezone, and F11 option to boot ATI from the HDD, because i am in the hardware business, and we used to make this recovery option for all new laptops on which we would install windows etc. It would become similar or faster than the recovery system of IBM / HP preinstalled recovery system. Moreover clients would be able to recover or backup simply using the F11 option. With shadowprotect we would not be able to give that option, as it has to be booted of the CD.

When i said Slower Speed of Shadowprotect, i meant slower speed to boot. The time for backing up is pretty fast, as fast as ATI.

Styler


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

Yes, I'm wondering because this is WindowsPE Vista based there is some licensing problem for Storagecraft or extra costs would be involved in allowing a secure zone. I would put it to Storagecraft and await their response, you're sure to get information or explanation why it hasn't been incorporated yet, and who knows? Maybe they will promise it for a future update.


----------



## Plantsman (Jan 20, 2008)

FANTASTIC! Acronis have finally come up with a fix which actually works. Using the latest of their special ISO's they gave me a new line of commands to type in and I finally got to the GUI. Everything seemed to work as expected but I haven't done a backup/restore yet. Here are the instructions mailed to me. If you are having boot problems and have already obtained an ISO from Acronis then these instructions might work for you also. Here is the email they sent to me: -

Probably we have find a solution, could you please boot from the TrueImage11.8082_Standard_english.iso and try the following parameters:

1) Boot from the Acronis bootable media
2) Hit the ESC key when "Loading ramdisk.dat...." string appears.
3) You will get the "boot:" prompt. In the prompt type the following parameters as shown below:

kernel.dat initrd=ramdisk.dat ramdisk_size=60000 sdhci=off 8139too=off

4) Hit Enter key and you will see Linux kernel output strings.
5) Wait for command prompt "#" to appear.
6) Type "/bin/product" command (without quotes) and press Enter

Please let us know if you are able to get main window of the product after entering the /bin/product command.


----------

