Full system backup and restore to USB

Papagaj, welcome to these user forums.

Quick answer to your problem - you cannot boot Windows from any external USB drive - this is a Microsoft restriction not anything down to Acronis.

Thanks Steve for the answer, then I will try tomorrow to install my external hdd in the PC /sata/.

Ideally, the HDD should be connected to the same SATA controller and port as the current drive that boots correctly.

Let's start again:

The main PC from which I made backup: SSD 120GB, no RAID, Windows 7 64bit. Nothing special.
I am trying the most simple task: I want to restore my current system to an another PC.

I restored the system to a new HDD (300GB), swapped in a new PC (laptop) and tried to boot. Failed. So I ran Universal Restore, there was one driver missing: VEN_8086 DEV_2929, so I downloaded the corresponding driver:

iaAHCIC.cat    iaAHCIC.inf    iaStorA.sys    iaStorAC.cat    iaStorAC.inf    iaStorF.sys

and ran Universal Restore again, it was ran without any error at this time.

Reboot, tried to boot into Windows: boot screen, loading files...and all I get is the Windows startup repair tool. At the end it is saying that the repairing is impossible.

Then I searched more and I found information to set SATA  controller mode in BIOS to IDE, then load Windows and install the AHCI drivers. It is not working, the IDE mode is not helped me.

So whats next? I am trying to do a simple backup - restore process for which is Acronis for, but it is failing at this step.

Papagaj, sorry but you have just changed the whole scenario for this topic from how you described in your initial post.

Restoring your backup from your main PC to another PC is not the most simple task, as you have described it.

What type of PC is your main PC, what type of BIOS does it have, how does Windows boot on that PC?

How does this compare with your laptop PC that you are trying to restore the OS to?

Hi Steve,

Re-checked everything and I found that on my old machine I have SATA controller mode set to IDE. After setting laptop into IDE mode and with fresh restored backup (without Universal Restore) I was able to boot up into Windows. Great. :-)

Papagaj, glad to hear that you have got this restored OS working on your laptop, thanks for giving the feedback on how this worked for you.

I have had issues a couple of times over the years seeing a usb drive that I wanted to restore to. 

In recent days I think I have figured out why. 

I started a restore operation booting from the recovery cd.  The usb attached drive I want to restore to was a windows 10 laptop internal drive with the 4 or 5 partitions commonly seen on a windows boot drives in recent years.  This drive was used to create the backup I wanted to restore using the full disk option.  I backed it up as an attached usb drive.  (note I needed to do the backup and corresponding restore we are talking about on machines where I have acronis licensed.  I was working on someone's pc that was not an acronis customer)

What made it visible to the recovery operation was that I mounted it on a working windows system and made it non bootable.  Only the C: drive showed bootable  I did that with these commands to just the C: partition on the drive I wanted to restore to:

    open a command prompt  (might have to be opened as an administrator)
    Type in diskpart  and press Enter.
    To identify which disk you need to work with. Type the command:  list disk.
    This will list all the drives connected to your computer.
    To select the disk enter the command: select disk n
    "n" will correspond to the disk # for the drive you are referring to.
    To list all the partitions on the disk enter the command: list partition
    To select a partition use: select partition n   (the big C: partition)
    Substitute "n" correctly and it will select the particular partitions on that drive.
    To see the partition info type:  detail partition
    To unmark the current partition as active use the command line: inactive  (or the opposite, active)
    Note, active means bootable
    Exit the command prompt using command: exit

The bottom line is I was working on a third party pc.  I did a usb in / usb out full backup of the drive removed from this pc, plugged into my main pc.  I put the drive back in the pc and after hours of work decided I wanted to start over.  I attached the third party hard drive to my main computer to do a restore.  I could not see the drive as stated above.  After making the c: partition on the drive not bootable, I was able to restore to it in my main pc.  I put the drive back in the third party pc and started using the pc again. 

Lynn, thanks for sharing your experience / findings here.

One word of caution that you may already be aware of, which is the need to match the boot mode of the Acronis rescue media (CD or USB) to the boot mode used by the Windows OS being restored. 

If you do not match the boot mode, then there can be a migration from MBR to GPT or reverse as ATI will match the recovery to the boot mode of the system being used.

KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

I have to post a correction to the 04/30/2020 post above by myself, Lynn Sattler.
I have since learned my real issue is because the 2015 version of the stand alone linux recovery cd subsystem does not recognize seagate usb 3 drives (usb3 enclosures actually).

See the below post that is very irritating to me about Acronis.  I have spent hours on an issue that in early 2015 they knew about.  I don't believe they ever fixed the 2015 software.  Maybe I am wrong but the more I work with this software the more I am getting driven to another vendor's product.

Read this:
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2015-forum/2015-resc…

Lynn Sattler

Add on comments for Steve to his post of 5/1/2020.  I am not following you here, or don't agree with what you are saying.

During this recent testing, I was booting from a 2015 stand alone linux acronis recovery disk.
The backup I was working with was a gpt (not mbr) full disk backup of like 4 or 5 partitions from a windows 10 system.  I did the backup on my regular windows 8.1 machine using ti 2015.
I had a test 750 gb disk available to restore to.  I put it inside my licensed toshiba laptop to do the two restores, but was booting from cd.

For restore 1, I had the 750 gb drive formatted gpt.  The restore ran.  I booted the machine to prove all was ok.  The drive ended up being a gpt drive.

For restore 2, I had the 750 gb drive formatted mbr. The restore ran.  I booted the machine to prove all was ok.  The drive ended up being a gpt drive.

I could boot ok with these restored disks because it just so happened that the back came from a win 10 older toshiba system.  The machine I used to restore on and then booted on happened to also be a bit newer toshiba system.

So does this conflict with your "concern" post above or are you addressing something else.

05/07/2020, further followup.

I just realized I was using the base TI 2015 (6525 ver) during my testing posted above on 4/30/2020 and 5/7/2020.  I just booted up the standalone for TI 2015 (6613 ver) and I can see a seagate usb3 drive that was not visible with 6525 version.

Thanks, Lynn Sattler

For restore 1, I had the 750 gb drive formatted gpt.  The restore ran.  I booted the machine to prove all was ok.  The drive ended up being a gpt drive.

For restore 2, I had the 750 gb drive formatted mbr. The restore ran.  I booted the machine to prove all was ok.  The drive ended up being a gpt drive.

Lynn, the above will work fine when migrating from MBR to GPT on a computer that supports booting in both Legacy and UEFI boot modes.

The caution from my earlier post was if doing the reverse, i.e. restoring a GPT drive on a MBR booted system which would not have worked after the GPT drive was converted to MBR.

See forum topic: Restore EUFI to MBR where this has been discussed previously.

Steve,
I think I see what you are saying, let me confirm.
You are saying when you do a restore acronis sees what type of system it is running on (gpt vs mbr) and decides to build that type of disk when doing the restore.   It does not care what type of disk drive (gpt vs mbr) was originally backed up.
Do I have that right?
Lynn Sattler

Lynn, yes, correct. ATI will follow the partition scheme of the system it is booted on unless the rescue media is used to boot in the correct mode to match the scheme for the disk being restored.

KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

Steve,
I still don't understand you or what you are saying does not match a test I did today.
I took a 6 year old toshiba and set the bios to be csm (mbr I believe) not guid (gpt I believe).
I took a backup of a whole gpt disk that I wanted to restore (4 or 5 partitions of a win 10 system). 
I took a drive to restore to that was formatted gpt.
I booted the 2015 acronis standalone cd and started a restore.
When that restore was done the restored to drive was still gpt.
If I am not following what you are saying please give me a scenario to test out that would prove your point.
Thanks,

Lynn Sattler

Lynn, if the restore resulted in a drive as GPT then your CD was booted using UEFI mode rather than Legacy / CSM.

Please look in the ATI User Guide at the Migration Method section which has a list of different scenarios and the outcomes. (The link is to the ATI 2020 guide but the detail has been the same for most previous versions too).

Steve,
First, I know for sure my bios setup said "csm".  I changed it back after my testing to uefi.

Second, I think I know what you are saying, but let me try to clarify again.  If I booted the cd with the bios set to csm and ran a full disk restore, the resulting restored disk should be a mbr disk.  Is that what you are saying?

Third, if that is what you are saying I don't find that information in the documentation you have sent me to.  I do find this in the link you posted:
With Acronis True Image 2020 you also can convert BIOS to UEFI systems. For more information please see Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.

Then in opening the link, at the bottom of the page it says:

To migrate a system using Acronis Media:

1. Boot your system from an Acronis media.
2. Select Acronis True Image 2020 (Full version) in the boot menu to continue booting from the media.
3. Navigate to the required wizard (Restore or Clone) and follow instructions.

To migrate a system in UEFI-based operating system:

1. Boot to an UEFI-capable Windows operating system.
2. Run Acronis True Image 2020, go to the Backup and recovery tab, click Recover on the toolbar and follow instructions.

    

I see this doc saying you can go from mbr to uefi.  But it does not clearly say to me you can go from uefi to mbr.

So maybe your position is more of a case if some of you systems you are managing are mbr and some are uefi, and you need to restore a system that is mbr, you need to run the restore on an mbr system.  Maybe even on an active windows system running off a mbr hard drive, (not booting from cd).

It just sounds in the two web pages you referenced that the leaning of a restore is toward uefi, the new architecture.  Maybe it is downright hard to get a restore to end up with mbr. 

From my just recent testing I did not see an mbr disk created.

Lynn Sattler

Lynn, I am not sure if ATI was perhaps a little more flexible with older versions such as your ATI 2015 in this area, but there have been lots of posts & complaints with the later versions for users wanting to recover a MBR disk but who only have UEFI boot systems, where the restore migrates the disk from MBR to GPT.

It is definitely best to do any MBR restores on a MBR / Legacy / CSM boot system to avoid any migration to GPT.

GPT allows for drives greater than 2TB size whereas MBR is limited to a maximum of 2TB so it wouldn't be possible to restore a large GPT drive on a MBR boot system for this reason.