Acronis True Image 2021 is released!

Everyone!!!

Please be aware that version 2021 upgrade is causing a lot of issues with many users. I upgraded to 2021 from 2020 and Acronis locks my WD My Passport Ultra external drive which is password protected and the only way to eject the drive is to restart Windows. I have now uninstalled 2021 and gone back to 2020 and thankfully my portable drive functions as it should.

Cheers

Heich,

Have you updated the drivers for your USB controllers?  That is often the cause of external drives seemingly being locked.

Another option you have is to use Windows Disk Management to Eject the drive.  Open Disk Management, click on the USB drive to select it, then right click to bring up a menu.  In the menu select Eject.

Bob, the drive eject issue has been reported by lots of users including myself and for me at least, only impacts on drives which Windows recognises as being Mass Storage devices!

The only method that I have found of being able to safely eject my own 2TB Seagate external USB drive is to set it Offline first, then I can eject the base USB adapter (with no drives shown).

Regular USB sticks are able to be ejected just fine.  This has only happened since ATI 2021 as indicated by Heich in his post where the issue goes away when reverting back to ATI 2020.  I was hoping that Update 1 #30480 would fix this but it did not!

I use Powershell to set my own USB drive offline and on again when needed.

get-disk | where BusType -eq USB | Set-Disk –IsOffline $True

Get-Disk | Where-Object IsOffline –Eq $True | Set-Disk –IsOffline $False

The first line finds the USB drive and sets it offline, the second line looks for any offline drives and set online again as is needed because the offline status is remembered!

I have a small Powershell script that tests the above and cycles the USB drive offline then waits 10 seconds and cycles it online again.

Hi Steve,

Yes, the PS method and your script are the power user way to go.  Disk Management technique for the less knowledgeable is the best solution.  Have you tried using Disk Management as I suggested above without taking the drive offline first?  I am curious if that works or not.  I have not found the issue myself yet.

As mentioned earlier, I have no trouble ejecting the drive from Explorer as long as it shows up there with a drive letter.

I have also found that there are a number of free utilities to remove USB removable devices. I have not tried any of them.

Enchantech wrote:

Hi Steve,

Yes, the PS method and your script are the power user way to go.  Disk Management technique for the less knowledgeable is the best solution.  Have you tried using Disk Management as I suggested above without taking the drive offline first?  I am curious if that works or not.  I have not found the issue myself yet.

Bob, there is no eject option shown in Disk Management for my 2TB USB external drive so is not possible to use this path!  The other factor that may be involved is that this is also a Survival Kit drive with a 32GB FAT32 boot partition on it that I had no issues with doing a Safe Removal prior to ATI 2021.  There are no options in Explorer to do this action either for the USB drive.

Using the normal Safe Remove tool just gives as reported by the other users:

Thanks Steve, same problem with USB Seagate 2TB with Survival Kit.

I don't have any issues when running version ATI 2020 i can eject normally in ATI 2020 it's only when running ATI 2021 that I have the issue. I'll just keep using ATI 2020 until Acronis comes up with a solution or I'll dump ATI and find a Backup program that does just that Backup and Restore!

Cheers

All,

I had seen the previous posts discussing this issue but could not reproduce it.  Today, I was able to do so.  I confirmed that the Eject has been removed from Disk Management for any drives not reporting as Removable.  It is possible however to still use Disk Management to eject the disk.  First open Disk Management and locate the disk in the list in the bottom pane.  Look to the left of the graphical representation of the disk and you will see a square box titled Disk # where # is the disk number.  Left click in that square to select it then, right click and choose Offline to take the disk out of service.  Now call up the Safe Removal Tray icon in the task bar and select Eject......  You will now see the message that it is now safe to remove the USB Mass Storage Device.  The down side of this approach is that when you reattach the drive it will still be in Offline service so you must open Disk Management again, repeat the steps outlined above except this time you will select Online to place the disk back in service.

The above suggests a problem with drive formatting.  Case in point, I have two WD USB external drives, both are 2TB, both are My Passport drives.  One reports as a USB device and is formatted as ExFat.  The other reports as WD My Passport and is formatted NTFS.  Both report in Device Manager as USB Mass Storage Devices.  The NTFS formatted drive can be Ejected using the Safely Remove Tray icon from the task bar.  The ExFat formatted drive produces the error reported in this thread.  I see reports on the net where some USB flash drives exhibit this same behavior, some do not.

Steve, I see that your Survival disk is formatted NTFS with a FAT32 partition.  In my experience I have not had issue with FAT32 format and drive ejection but have not tried it with TI 2021.  I had not had the issue discussed here until I used the ExFat drive.  The ExFat drive is an older version of the My Passport series of drives as well.  I suppose it is possible that there may be a drive firmware issue at play here and if so suggests that Windows drivers have a role as well.  With this thought in mind I found that the WD SES driver was not up to date so updated the driver but this had no effect on the issue, the drive still could not be ejected using the Safe Removal Icon in the Windows Tray.

I decided to test the theory of disk formatting being the underlying cause of the issue.  I ran a chkdsk /r on the disk prior to formatting to eliminate the possibility of corruption.  This problem disk had only a few backup files on it so I moved them to another drive temporarily so I could format this drive to NTFS.  I chose to run a full format rather than a Quick format to eliminate the possibility of leftover files on the disk from WD were not in play as I had found that blame on certain WD files could cause this behavior.  That procedure took a number of hours even though the drive is a USB 3.0 drive.  I can report at this time that after the formatting to NTFS was completed the drive can now be successfully ejected using the Safe Removal Tray icon.  This suggests that filesystem format, at least in part, has some responsibility in this issue.  It is also true that TI 2021 has some fault as well.  I know this because before formatting the disk I attached it to a machine still running TI 2020 and it was possible to eject the disk via the Tray icon.

I must say however that there are many reports on the net of this condition where ATI is clearly not part of the equation suggesting that Windows may also be partly at fault to the condition.  In conclusion, if you as an ATI user find that your external USB drive cannot be ejected and you are not using the drive as a Survival Kit drive, check the filesystem format on the drive.  If the format is FAT then changing the format to NTFS will likely fix the issue, just keep in mind that formatting the disk will delete all data on the disk.

Bob, I do not have any exFAT drives - all are NTFS unless they have a second FAT32 partition present to allow for survival kit operation.  I have far too much data stored on this 2TB backup drive to even consider reformatting it, especially when the drive has been ejecting fine right up until installing the new ATI 2021 release versions.

The issue with not being able to safely eject USB drives has come up in past versions of True Image over the years. The solution was that Acronis needed to rewrite the driver files for disk enumeration (snapman.sys and fltsrv.sys). I have no doubt that is the problem with TI 2021. We just need to wait for a new version and hope for the best.

Steve,

I agree, I wrote my post to reflect just that.  I only offer a solution that I found to work for those who wish to do so.

I have a thumb drive that was failing. I turned off everything in ATI 2021... disabled all services and startups such that nothing was running. Rebooted, verified it was all gone, and then tried the thumb drive. Failure.

Next I uninstalled ATI 2021. Immediately after the uninstall, without rebooting, I tried again and this time I could eject the drive.

I'm going to have to back Paul's assessment that the problem must be in the drivers used by ATI 2021.

Bruno, I did the same tests short of actually uninstalling 2021 and got the same result.  I too agree with Paul that this comes from one of the Acronis system level drivers being used.

Anyone knows if True Image 2021 is able to clone disks without having both connected ??? I want to clone 2.5" IDE disks (different sizes), but have only one adapter to connect those old disks to my MacBook Pro... no way to connect both disks simultaneously... Any suggestions ??

Philippe Annet wrote:

answering to myself...  ;)

In fact ATI can't do that (which is stupid !! why can't disk images be used as a source for cloning ?????)

So only solution is cloning IDE -> SATA (got a SATA adapter as well...), then back from SATA -> IDE on the target disk... pretty stupid ;-

Philippe, I believe the issue here is around the terminology used, i.e. cloning!

Cloning by definition in all applications I have used requires a Source and a Target disk to perform the operation.

What you are wanting to do is no different to what many other users, including myself, need to do for a variety of reasons. 

The answer here is simply to use Backup & Recovery.

Make a Backup image of the source original drive to an external backup drive.

Swap out the original drive and replace by a new / second drive.

Boot from the Acronis Rescue media and Recover the backup image to the drive.

This is the method I have used for NVMe M.2 drives, eSATA card drives, PATA drives etc where I do not have any adapters to hold a second such drive for cloning purposes.

I looked at adapters for NVMe M.2, eSATA drives and found so many variations that I would need a drawer full of them, whereas using B&R worked just fine and perhaps more importantly was safer because the original drive was put aside away from any mistakes, finger trouble or senior moments!

Having backup images on an external USB 3.x fast drive does the trick just fine!

Steve Smith wrote:

Philippe, I believe the issue here is around the terminology used, i.e. cloning!

Cloning by definition in all applications I have used requires a Source and a Target disk to perform the operation.

What you are wanting to do is no different to what many other users, including myself, need to do for a variety of reasons. 

The answer here is simply to use Backup & Recovery.

Make a Backup image of the source original drive to an external backup drive.

Swap out the original drive and replace by a new / second drive.

Boot from the Acronis Rescue media and Recover the backup image to the drive.

This is the method I have used for NVMe M.2 drives, eSATA card drives, PATA drives etc where I do not have any adapters to hold a second such drive for cloning purposes.

I looked at adapters for NVMe M.2, eSATA drives and found so many variations that I would need a drawer full of them, whereas using B&R worked just fine and perhaps more importantly was safer because the original drive was put aside away from any mistakes, finger trouble or senior moments!

Having backup images on an external USB 3.x fast drive does the trick just fine!

Thanks for the feedback Steve !! Can't recall whether B&R can also resize (incl. shrink !!) during restore ?? I had a B&R license a while ago (11.5 or 12.5 I think...). And did B&R also make a bootable disk out of the target ? Sorry for the maybe stupid question... but you're right, I'd probably be better off if I had an image of each disk I use (we're talking about test instruments here, mostly running XP) in a central library, rather than disks in a drawer...  ;-  

Philippe, I don't have any experience in using the Acronis business products such as Acronis Backup or the new CyberBackup which supersedes it, so all my comments are aimed purely at True Image users.

Please be aware that recent versions of ATI are no longer tested for working if installed on XP systems given that these were dropped by Microsoft back in around 2014, so if running ATI within those XP systems, best to keep with any older versions you have available!

Backup & Recovery by ATI can certainly deal with changes in disk size and adjust the partitions automatically for being recovered to either a larger or smaller drive (within reason for the latter!).

If you are recovering a backup image of a bootable disk to a new drive, then the end result should also be a bootable disk.  The one caveat is that when booting the system from the Acronis Rescue Media, this needs to match the BIOS boot mode of the system booting from the disk. 

See KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media - using the incorrect boot mode can result in migration of the target drive from MBR to UEFI (GPT) or reverse!  Migrating from UEFI (GPT) to MBR is unlikely to be bootable!

Thx for all the info.

I actually don't run ATI on XP, I prepare/migrate the disks from my Macbook (with many Windows VM's, all flavours but not XP...). The problem being proprietary motherboards, for which I'm very unlikely to find any suitable post-XP drivers...

Steve Smith wrote:

Enchantech wrote:

Hi Steve,

Yes, the PS method and your script are the power user way to go.  Disk Management technique for the less knowledgeable is the best solution.  Have you tried using Disk Management as I suggested above without taking the drive offline first?  I am curious if that works or not.  I have not found the issue myself yet.

Bob, there is no eject option shown in Disk Management for my 2TB USB external drive so is not possible to use this path!  The other factor that may be involved is that this is also a Survival Kit drive with a 32GB FAT32 boot partition on it that I had no issues with doing a Safe Removal prior to ATI 2021.  There are no options in Explorer to do this action either for the USB drive.

Using the normal Safe Remove tool just gives as reported by the other users:

Hello everybody,

After several emails with support, you still do not believe that your created Survival Kit partition is the cause of the conflict when Acronis 2021 is used on the device.

Addendum; After the last status we close the ticket.

Edit;  Text ersetzt.

Is there a page with release note for new versions, bug fixes, changes and download link ?

Ilan Lev wrote:

Is there a page with release note for new versions, bug fixes, changes and download link ?

For more information, please read full Release notes: EN, DE, RU, JP, CN

Download links are available either on the main Acronis.com page or else via your Account login page if you have registered ATI to the account.

Also see the Acronis Product Updates webpage which has links to the release notes of the various versions shown.

Thanks for the links.

The Webfilter is a pain in the ass.. It blocks nearly all traffic via http/https.

Try to reinstall Corel Video Studio 2021. With Webfilter set to on I get always Message: MD5 error. With Webfilter set to off, it works.

What the hell is that Webfilter about?

Ist there any recommendation to install programs with setting ATI 2021 Virus area to off?

Anyone similar problems with antivirus section? 

Karl

Karl, the new protection features are badly broken. I have never had issues with the Webfilter module as it is disabled automatically since Norton 360 deals with such risks.

May I suggest that you send feed back outlining the problems you are having (Open AT click on help than select Send feedback - it may be an idea to make sure that send system report is selected as it may assist in fixing the problem in a future build.

Ian

At the risk of repeating myself 'Acronis is Broken'

What happened to Acronis? a simple and easy Backup and Restore program which it used to be with very few issues to this behemoth that's making life HELL for a lot of us.

Acronis!!! Sit Up and listen to your users otherwise you'll end up like all the other good apps that have fallen by the way side because of trying to dominate the world with their huge Ego's.

We all have Antivirus software good or bad, we have the choice of using or not using them at will. My Antivirus software doesn't try to backup my system or lock my hard disks or delete items is deems fit. So Acronis, please give us the choice of using or not using your built in utilities. NOT A HARD ASK!

Cheers

Hi all,

all I can say is that I have removed every piece of this terrible software and replaced with others.

In former times this happened only in the opposite way.

So for me as a long-time customer this is definitely the end with acronis products.

Have a nice evening

Karl

Heich wrote:

........... So Acronis, please give us the choice of using or not using your built in utilities. NOT A HARD ASK!

 

Not only the option of not using it - I don't want it physically installed, even if it's sitting idle!

I can't understand the thought process of a company that has  turned a great backup and partition management tool into a "we want to own your entire PC" bloatware product. By all means, feel free to develop and market a separate anti-virus product  but don't try to force it upon us when we already have our own chosen solutions.  I have used various versions of True Image for many years but there is no way that I would buy or install this latest dinosaur of a product.

I have been following the posts in this forum, mostly as just as an observer, hoping to see some evidence that Acronis is listening to what users have been saying about the ATI 2021 issues. I was reading through reddit and found this post(Sept 01, 2020)  from someone who I believe works at Acronis. I don't think it is an official statement, but I am now a little more confident that management is aware of the concerns posted here and there will be updates to resolve the issues.

Only time will tell if the updates will come soon enough.

https://www.reddit.com/r/acronis/comments/idc5xm/acronis_true_image_202…

I will also do a downgrade to True Image 2020.

2021 is not good at all. At least we should have the option to install the security features

Even the uninstallation of Ati 30480 freezes.
I should renew my subscription. 

The True Image is becoming more and more a wonder bag. 
 

I bought the ATI 2021 license but it seems that I will stay with my ATI 2019 (I need the .tib file type  and ATI 2020 had other bugs).

Hope I can get a refund if ATI 2021 isn't fixed (removal of the A/V part...) in future updates.

I stuck to 2019, never did install 2020 since it took away so many features. I'll keep watching until the issues calm down, However I do have a question. The upgrade to the perpetual license states, in the attached, under "what's new" that Data Deduplication is included. I haven't been able to find it in the latest documentation or searching forums. Can someone point me to where it is described.

Thanks

Richard

Richard, the only mention that I can find about 'Data Deduplication' is on the main sales page for upgrading from an earlier version.  There is no mention in the user guide or KB that I can find!!

Could it be a garbled reference to the Replicate process?

Ian, I wouldn't think so, data deduplication as I understand it is the process of eliminating duplicate copies of the same file(s) being captured by the backup process by comparing file signatures, checksums, sizes etc.

Deduplication can be done in more than one way (as you probably know) for example at the block level or the file level. It's conceivable that it is done on differential backups which inevitably contain a lot of the same information in multiple backups. I'd just like to know.

I know I am referring to old software but Microsoft WHS V1 did a fantastic job with deduplication at the block level both across backups and server file storage. It could keep backups from the last x days, last y weeks and last z months on much smaller space than ATI - which is understandable. I know that bird has flown but it still works in a 3-2-1 process.

No answer from Acronis. Seems odd to flag a feature as new then never mention it in manuals.

Richard,

To my knowledge the deduplication feature is not an added feature.  I really think the term is borrowed from the product Acronis Backup Advanced which is a business grade network based product thus why I believe that Cloud backup in True Image is where the reference to deduplication applies.

Since you show interest in this topic I am providing a link below to a whitepaper on the subject from Acronis.

Backup Deduplication

Thanks for sharing the document. I think what they mean by "deduplication" is that if a backup has to be restarted the data is not duplicated. E.g. if you're halfway through a backup and the computer reboots, when the backup is restarted the data already backed up will be used as part of the backup rather than duplicated.

Why Acronis can't tell me that when I ask for support, at a time what I have full support included, I have no idea.

Richard

I uninstalled True Image 2021 and just reinstalled True Image 2016 to get rid of new 2021 endless Windows Services that can't be stopped.

The last update of Acronis 2021 is terrible. On the three computers it is installed, the delete old backups fails although the option is selected. To add insult to injury, there is no warning that the backups failed due to the fact that there is not enough place, meaning, I could end without weeks of backups if I do not check manually whether automatic backups were successful or not.

In addition, the anti-ransom protection gives now so many false positives that even the most famous trading platform MT5/MT4 gets blocked. What will be next ? Windows 10 will get detected as a ransomware and will get blocked at startup ?

I bought a backup software, not a security one. I need a solution that backups my OS flawlessly, not a solution that blocks aggressively any software that it doesn't recognize due to its poor database. I already have a security solution and I don't need Acronis to act as second one, specially seeing how many false positives I get.

I am seriously considering looking for alternative to Acronis True image that will focus on its prime objective, backing up my system, not acting as an aggressive malware detection while failing its main purpose.

Hi Gab,

all I have to say is that I totally agree to your statement. What have they made out of a real well working backup solution? It is a mess.

For me, I am using now O+O Diskimage, not the fastest one, but a reliable one and in addition Ease Backup Home.

Regards,

Karl

Acronis 2021 has brought my system to a crawl even when I disable the security protection 

Richard, welcome to these public User Forums.

Check the ATI 2021 GUI > Protection > Settings > Vulnerability scan option isn't still enabled as this can impact on performance if it is scanning lots of files / disks.

Hi Steve,  i just checked and see under protections / activities my system is being scanned  .  how do you turn off?  I don't see an option 

I found it,  no need to respond