True Image 2014 won't boot up on ASUS T100 notebook PC
Has anyone had any success creating and/or booting up on a rescue disk on the ASUS T100 Windows 8.1 tablet? I created a 2014 rescue disk on a flash drive and when I attempt to boot up on the flash drive the tablet steps over the flash drive and uses the normal windows boot loader. I have verified that the flash drive is configured in the system bios as the first boot device, but it just doesn't work. The convertible tablet is running the new Intel Atom Z3740 Bay Trail processor if that helps anyone. The USB port is a 3.0 port using a XHCI controller. I have also disabled the XHCI controller and enabled the USB 2.0 EHCI controller, but it didn't make any difference. I am very pleased with the tablet and would be ecstatic if I could get ATI 2013 or 2014 to work on the device.
Michael, you may be right. I have tried booting off of other bootable discs from a USB DVD drive and they don't work either. It may well be a UEFI issue or a Windows 8.1 compatibility problem or it may have something to do with the onboard storage of the tablet having a Embedded Multimedia Card (eMMC) instead of a conventional SSD drive.
Have brand new Toshiba Satellite s75t A7215 with Win 8.1 preinstalled. Using an Acronis 2014 build 6614 boot disk, the Laptop does not see the CD - it goes straight to Win 8.1.
Have disabled UEFI boot, but still no joy. Once in a blue moon, it sees the Acronis Boot disk, but, I have to enable and disable it to work each time. When I disable UEFI boot, it sticks (i.e still says disabled when I open "BIOS" settings) but, the CD is not seen until I re-enable and then disable a 2nd time. This is a royal PIA - is there any known workarounds? Is this a Toshiba thing or an Acronis thing?
Hank
I think it's a Windows 8.1 thing that has to do with UEFI, but there has to be a way around it.
I have created 2014 bootable backup on a cd. and I have tried to boot this cd on 2 computer. one with window 8.1 and window 7. both did not boot the cd. what am I doing wrong?? I want to do a backup and restore a partion or put in a new hard disk.
Donn, You didn't say whether or not your system bios was configured to look at the CD ROM drive first before accessing the hard disk. Some computers present a boot menu at boot-up where you can specify to boot from the CD drive or USB drive others do not requiring you to go into the system bios and change the first boot device to the CD ROM drive. If your computers are not configured to attempt a boot from the CD then it will always ignore the boot disk and boot up on windows.
There is also the possibility that you did not set the option to boot up True Image by default when you created the rescue disk and you are not selecting True Image menu selection within the allotted amount of time. If you didn't set the timeout option then the boot disk will boot into windows if you don't select the option to boot into True Image quickly enough.
As to your other question, while it is true that you could make a full disk backup Disc Mode) of your hard disc and then do a restore to your new hard disc it is much easier to clone the primary drive to the new disc and then simply replace the old disc with the new cloned disc.
Good luck with this because the rescue disk is a life saver should you have to do a complete recovery to your hard disc or a new disc.
This post might be of help.
This post might be of help.
Colin, the ASUS T100T tablet contains a built in usb 3.0 connection on the keyboard. I can create a windows 8.1 rescue disc and boot from the disc with a CD drive or a Flash drive. I am able to create a rescue disc using Acronis True Image 2014 to either a USB CD drive or a USB Flash drive, but I can not get the system to boot off of the rescue disc created with the Media Builder utility. The ASUS convertible notebook PC does not have a port replicator and I do not see why I should buy one simply to see if True Image will boot up off of it. From the sound of the post at the link that you provided, the port replicator method works with the Surface or Surface Pro tablets. The ASUS product is a full fledged windows 8.1 system with a somewhat different configuration than the Microsoft product.
I got it working after I figure out how to boot a cd on window 8.1.
I was test to see if it all worked for I need it with a down computer.
thanks to all
Has anyone been able to get TI 2014 to boot into an ASUS T100 Windows 8.1 Tablet (See Post by Virgil Britt). I have created a Bootable USB Drive with TI 2014 Software. I can see the USB device in the BIOS and select it as the primary boot device. When I select it as the boot device it just goes back into the BIOS or boots into Windows (Depending on if I have the Secondary boot device set as in the BIOS Disabled, Windows Boot). I have disable Secure boot and still the same. I have tried changing the USB device setting to EHCI from XHCI to test and still the same. I have also gone through the process in the Windows settings and going into the rescue setting and selecting the USB device for rescue but has the same results. I have Conducted the steps listed in another post on how to get a Surface 2 Pro to boot into TI 2014 and was able to use the same USB bootable drive and boot into TI successfully. I was also able boot into a another laptop with the USB device with success so I know the USB drive is formatted correctly. I have the same problem with the T100 and Windows PE boot. Contacting ASUS support yielded very little help on the subject. I am still in a trial mode of Acronis and plan on purchasing if I can get this resolved. Any help on the subject would be great since I am running out of ideas.
The only solution that I have found for this issue was to use Windows 8.1 to create a recovery disc on a USB key. Then I used Windows 8.1 file backup to create an image of the T100 to a external disk. The T100 will boot up on the rescue disc and from there you can restore the image that Windows 8.1 created. I could not get TI-2014 to create a bootable disc that would work on the T100 tablet no matter what I tried.
I was able to install ATI and create a full backup to a external hard disk, but that was it. I was not able to to get the T100 to boot off of the USB flash drive or a DVD that I created. Finally I just gave up and am using windows for the backup of the ASUS T100 tablet.
Thanks Virgil, I have been reading a lot trying to solve the rescue from a USB problem. Its hard to follow the dates well enough to decide what has been tried and what failed. So far as I know, no one can solve it. I have a dell inspiron 3874 - windows 8.1 - UEFI boot and I have altered the boot sequence to make USB #1 and DVD/CD #2. I can boot using my acronis windows 7 rescue CD but cannot get a USB mem stick to boot however I havent tried the above. Have there been any more tips to try since this interaction?
Charles, I have not seen any solution for this problem. The windows backup works fine and the mem stick works fine as well, but I was never able to get True Image to work. Perhaps on the next release, if they allow me to beta test again, I can submit this as a issue and get it fixed.
Virgil
I just totally shut down my computer....waited a full minute and pushed the start botton with the memory stick I prepared using ATI 2014 from a blank stick and what to my wondering eyes would appear but a black screen with options in the upper left hand corner. Upon pushing the #1 it opened the rescue program and made available the rescue program we all know and love. The trick for me was to just start from a totally shut down computer. You might give it a try.
You may wish to review this new video on creation of Acronis Bootable Media to make certain your attempt at creation was done correctly.
Nice video, for PCs that are 10 years old and UEFI was an unkown word :(
You know what UEFI is???
The forum is full of posts with problems of UEFi boot and i have the same problem with an Netbook (Medion P2211T) that only can boot UEFI.
Why is Acronis unable to make an UEFI startable Boot media?? I spend lot of hours to find an solution but nothing works on "only" UEFi PC´s.
I buy the family pack three days ago and thing it was better to spend the money for ... what ever :((
For what i need an backup program when this program is unable make bootable medium??
shame about the money.
You have 30 days in which to request a refund of your purchase for time of purchase.
Yes I know what UEFI is. The point here is are the posters to this thread following the correct procedures when attempting to first, create boot media and second, run that media. I will tell you that some do and some do not. It is my opinion that many users download the boot media file from their Acronis account and then use a third party app to create the physical boot media. There are countless apps out there that claim to be able to do that, some good and some bad. Most of the posts I see on this topic are focused around creation of a USB boot media which is by far the most problematic. The video shows that a USB media can be created using the creation tool built into the Acronis app which is in all likelihood the best and most successful way to do so for most users. For these reasons I posted the link.
If you yourself are a more advanced user and can create USB or CD/DVD boot disk that's great! Feel free to do so. You do not state if in fact you have had issue with this task yourself, did you? If so you might want to give the procedures outlined in the video a try, you never know it just might work for you. If not then you can post back to the Forum or since it appears that you have only owned the app for a few days you can contact Support which has a link at the top of this page for assistance from the Acronis support team.
Enchantech,
I think you have me confused with the other person that posted a comment because I have had and used every version of ATI from version 8 on and I am not interested in any refund. I am also going to overlook the comment and link to the YouTube video showing how to create a rescue disc using the rescue media builder or downloading the ISO file because you never know who is on the other end of the posted comment, but I must tell you I felt like my intelligence was insulted.
Just for your information I created both a bootable DVD of ATI 2014 and also a bootable copy on a flash drive that was formatted as FAT32 using the rescue media builder utility in the ATI application. ATI 2014 completed the task and told me that the Bootable media has been created successfully. Next I went into the system bios of my ASUS T100 transformer convertable tablet running windows 8.1 and made the LEXAR flash drive boot option #1 and the Windows boot manager option number 2. When I attempt to boot the tablet up I see the LED of the flash drive blink a number of times like the system is looking at the flash drive but the next thing that I see is the welcome screen of windows 8.1 and the desktop since I am using Classic Shell on the tablet. It will not boot off of the flash drive. Next I plugged in an external DVD burner and the bootable rescue disc (DVD) and checked the system bios again. The T100 tablet shows the HP DVD writer as the primary boot option and the boot manager as the second option. Yet when I attempt to boot up on the recovery disc the system goes to the welcome screen and ignores the rescue DVD. I take the same USB flash drive and plug it into my laptop and the rescue disc works just fine. The principle difference between the two is that my T100 tablet has a Sandisk 32GB eMMC disc and windows 8.1 and my laptop has a OCZ 240 GB Agility 3 SSD drive and windows 7. I have tried everything that I can think of and ATI will not boot up on the rescue media on the ASUS T100 tablet. Essentially, ATI 2014 is pretty much useless on my ASUS T100 Transformer tablet.
When I create a rescue disc on my T100 tablet using the same flash drive and the Microsoft Windows 8.1 backup application it works fine and the ASUS T100 boots up on the recovery screen just like you would expect. So it would appear to me that Acronis True Image has a compatibility issue either with the eMMC drives or with the ASUS T100 Transformer tablet.
If you have any suggestions that I haven't already tried please let me know.
Virgil,
Did not intend to insult you or your abilities, my comments were directed solely to the previous poster that followed my video link post.
I will say here that some time ago another poster had issue with the same problem you have. Different machines, same OS and most importantly, the same processor. After some investigating it was suspected that the Atom processor was at the root of the problem. It was suspected that because the Acronis boot media is based on a Linux kernel the Atom processor was not supported by the Linux distro used to run the boot media disk. I say suspect here as the thread ended with a suggestion to attempt using a WinPE bootable media disk instead of the supplied Linux based version. There was no follow up post after that suggestion so have no idea where it went from there.
Given your details, I would suspect the same is true here for you. If a Windows based boot disk works then a WinPE disk with media add on should work as well. Be advised if you don't already know, you need the premium version of TI 2014 in order to create a WinPE with media add on disk.
I did read in this thread a post where a WinPE disk failed as well, not sure if that was you or another poster however, you can prove it does or does not solve the problem by creating a WinPE disk if you are able to do so.
There are many respondents to this post which I would suspect have a varying degree of abilities. If even one of those benefits from my video post then the post was well worth the effort. I therefore stand by that posting as reasonable and relevant to this thread.
Virgil, here is an excerpt from an Acronis online knowledge base that applies to your device. It isn't very promising.
*********************************************************************************************************
There is a limitation on using Acronis products on devices with 32-bit UEFI. It is possible to protect only non-system, non-locked files, partitions with Acronis software on 32-bit UEFI devices. An example of such devices are tablets with Intel® Atom™ Processor Z2760, which is 32-bit only.
Any other operation that requires reboot or using Acronis bootable environment will fail:
1) booting from Acronis bootable media, Acronis PXE, Acronis Startup Recovery Manager
2) recovering a system partition, system, or other locked files from Acronis product running within Windows
However, you can still backup and restore files, folders and partitions that are not locked by the system or other applications. It is possible because such operations will not use Acronis bootable environment.
The reason for the limitation is that Acronis UEFI loader is an x86_64 UEFI application and requires 64-bit UEFI environment to run in.
*********************************************************************************************************
You have 30 days in which to request a refund of your purchase for time of purchase.
I doenst found any information for german user to request a refund and no infrmation on german acronis side.
I can only say for me: Acronis 2014 is unable to make bootable medium on only UEFi hardware.
My Netbook has no option in bootmenue to change UEFI and legacy boot and it is fact that non of the Acronis boot medium will boot here.
And the Netbook is an x64 device and every x64 boot medium work fine, only Acronis doenst work
I make an bootable medium like this : http://forum.acronis.com/forum/54130
now it boot but Acronis wont start with an side-by-side error .
Sorry but i want spend more time for this "program"... i download yesterday Paragon test version, make a boot stick and voila, boot on my netbook with no problem! Cost me 10 min of time...
Torsten,
I believe that if you contact the Acronis Support they will help you in getting a refund on the product. I find of interest your comment about the side by side error. This is the first reference I have seen for that related to this issue. This error usually occurs when the Visual C++ files between applications and those contained by the OS are not identical. The recommended fix for that is to delete the Visual C++ libraries and reinstall them. This is interesting because as you say you were able to get Pxxxxxx version to work for you. You had no such luck with the X64 Mustang WinPE so I am assuming that the ADK used to create the ISO package must contain Visual C++ libraries that are not the same as what they are in Win 8. I am not a developer so I am speculating here with that. It does make me think there could possibly be a workaround to this problem though.
Thanx for your help but i think, it can not be that i must spend a lot of hours to get one essential thing: A boot able medium.
And Acronis write in big letters, 2014 was fully Windows 8.x compatibel but the program isnt be able in easy way to make a boot able medium on an new PC.
I test two other backup and imaging programs and the have no problem to make an boot medium.
On older PC without UEFI or the option UEFI or legacy Acronis boot medium worked but not on only UEFI PC and some new Notebooks/Netbooks have only UEFI boot.
I will write to support about refund but i think my money is lost...
I understand completely. Maybe it will get some attention soon.
Torston,
I also have that model - it won't boot from anyones USB environments - I have tried all Acronis' competitors - Raxco, O&O, Paragon etc, Eset and Kapersky recovery environments and no matter if they are Linux or WindowsPE based, the stick is recongised, read and then nothing else happens. I can force a boot where I get a certificate error message. This I suspect is the problem, Windows 8.1 (in this case) and the UEFI are tied to this certificate, I suspect if I were to delete the certificate, external recovery environments may well work.
As I've only had the thing for two weeks, at $599.00 I'm loathe to experiment in case I can't get the Windows it comes with to behave itself again.
Just as a note, I've also tried formatting the USB device as a GPT UEFI device, FAT32, NTFS even exFat and no joy at all with any vendors recovery environments.
Hi Colin,
as i wrote before, Paragon boot Stick : No Problem, Macrium Reflect no problem, self made BartPE, no problem.
Only acronis cant boot on "UEFI Only" bios.
I cant understand, why acronis is unable to make a boot able medium! All the other can...
I buy now Macrium Reflect Pro and it worked like a charm. And my Acronis disk go to trash . I write to german support a few days ago, no answer.
The 2211 has only problem with mixed boot devices, when i make an UEFI only stick, i have no problems. I make a BartPE Stick and it worked fine . I have tryed to integreat Acronis in my self made BartPe Stick but it doenst work.
For me, the topic acronis is done. Shame about the money.
I respectfully request Acronis to get into this and see why people are having problems. It seems well worth their time. Nothing I have seen from them is much help. Not even the upgrade to 2014. As for me I am good. Both disk and stick are working now.
charles,
Thanks for posting. So you were able to overcome an issue with non working boot media by cold booting your machine with boot media attached and machine setup to run that media on boot correct?
The list of errors and circumstances seems to grow each day with respect to the non working boot media issue. It appears that these issues differ between manufacturer, Lenovo acts one way, Asus another, care to share more about your machine and your experience for others reading this thread? Maybe someone else may benefit from your experience.
Virgil,
Did not intend to insult you or your abilities, my comments were directed solely to the previous poster that followed my video link post.
I will say here that some time ago another poster had issue with the same problem you have. Different machines, same OS and most importantly, the same processor. After some investigating it was suspected that the Atom processor was at the root of the problem. It was suspected that because the Acronis boot media is based on a Linux kernel the Atom processor was not supported by the Linux distro used to run the boot media disk. I say suspect here as the thread ended with a suggestion to attempt using a WinPE bootable media disk instead of the supplied Linux based version. There was no follow up post after that suggestion so have no idea where it went from there.
Given your details, I would suspect the same is true here for you. If a Windows based boot disk works then a WinPE disk with media add on should work as well. Be advised if you don't already know, you need the premium version of TI 2014 in order to create a WinPE with media add on disk.
I did read in this thread a post where a WinPE disk failed as well, not sure if that was you or another poster however, you can prove it does or does not solve the problem by creating a WinPE disk if you are able to do so.
There are many respondents to this post which I would suspect have a varying degree of abilities. If even one of those benefits from my video post then the post was well worth the effort. I therefore stand by that posting as reasonable and relevant to this thread.
Enchantech,
I created a WinPE boot disc and confirmed that it did not work either. So for whatever reason the Acronis True Image emergency boot disk will not work with the ASUS T100 Transformer tablet running Windows 8.1, 32 Bit. It doesn't matter if you create a bootable USB Flash drive, a bootable DVD disk (USB DVD drive), or a WinPE disk, nothing seems to work. Every one of the recovery disks I created works with other desktop or laptop computers so it has to be something unique to the ASUS T100 tablet that isn't compatible with Acronis True Image 2014.
As I said earlier the only thing that works is to use the backup and recovery tools that come with Windows. Then you can create a bootable recovery flash drive and it works fine on the T100.
Virgil
Virgil,
Thanks for confirming that, I started a new thread yesterday here : http://forum.acronis.com/forum/56605.
This thread contains a link to another discussion which talks about bootable media and the T100, don't know if you have taken a look at it or not and it probably will not help the situation here but is interesting reading and may help in understanding at least in part why this is a problem.
Virgil,
I'm curious. Is the working bootable recovery flash drive created for Windows backup WinPE? Does the flash drive have a folder called sources with a file called boot.wim inside? If it does, what happens if you replace the boot.wim file with boot.wim from the WinPE disk you created with True Image?
I am running a dell inspiron 3847 which came from the factory with win 8.1 set to boot with a "secure boot" UEFI and I haven't messed with that because of the dire consequences some have mentioned. I installed ATI 2014 and made a recovery memory stick and tried many things but never strayed into changing the UEFI or the secure boot. I went to F2 and changed the boot order so that USB was #1 and made modest changes by tweaking after booting by holding the shift key down while I clicked on restart and using the options on advanced startup options on my computer. I couldn't say whether these were dell or by microsoft but I suspect the latter. After doing this for quite a while and trying many different options then restarting, I did the cold start I mentioned and it worked. Since that time, however, it has succesfully booted up to the resque options which included Acronis I mentioned before even on a restart basis. I am far from the accomplished user that some of you are but this worked for me. Happy Easter everyone.
'
charrles,
Thanks for sharing your experience.
For those using a UEFI only machine it would be useful to not only know the model number but whose UEFI firmware is being used. My Medion tablet uses the Phoenix Securecore system, and as I stated above, absolutely no USB or SD card will boot my system from anyones recovery environment apart from the one built in to the UEFI by PowerQuest (which is original OEM OS recovery only).
On the other hand, my Lenovo Edge 420 has no problem booting anyones USB based recovery environment, both Linux and WinPe, which is not locked to Windows 8 or 8.1 and does not use security certificates.
A look around many forums and chat rooms will reveal a number of people having problems with these new firmware based booting systems, due to the fact they allow the OEM to implement different security features from each other, and of course Microsoft require W8 and 8.1 systems to lock the OEM Windows product IDs to a firmware installed certificate.
Hi Colin,
you write you have the same Medion as i . But alle the P2211T or P2212T have the same bios.
Why i can boot from many Stick or DVD (but not Acronis) which is fully UEFi compatibel and your are not?
On your other PC´s, have you a choice to boot in which way, UEFI or normal when you go in the boot menue?
I don't have an answer for you on that Torsten, mine is the P2212T (MD99360) it recognises the USB sticks (Sandisk and Patriot ) it even reads them and then goes straight to the Windows 8.1 boot manager.
The Lenovo is a dual UEFI/BIOS, and automatically decides which to use, but the UEFI enabled USB sticks boot on it fine.
The Linux sticks use RMPREPUSB and Grub to boot ISO's, but as I mentioned I also have some external laptop drives that have a boot partition and they also are read and then ignored at boot time.
Is your UEFI in German or English?
What version number is it?
Mine is the latest one that is on the Medion website.
Macrium tech claims that to boot to a 32 bit UEFI, the stick MUST be formatted fat or fat 32. I have a Dell Venue Pro 11 Baytrail model (with Atom processor) and have never been able to get it to boot to Acronis TI 2014. Linux environment won't work with 32 bit and too many other variables that don't work. Like many of you...I can disable UEFI but do NOT have an option for Legacy boot. There is actually a video on Youtube of a gentleman who booted into Acronis with a Venue Pro 8...I have no idea how he did it...not supposed to work...
Just to add to what you stated, I have also found that the USB stick must be formatted as FAT32 to be able to create a Acronis bootable recovery disk from the Media Builder. However, if you have the USB stick formatted as FAT32 then you will experience problems copying files to the USB stick if the file size is 4GB or larger. Plus, the maximum formatted size for FAT32 is a maximum of 32GB.
Virgil
Hi Colin,
after spend a lot of hours to boot from stick and have a working Acronis, i found a solution :)
I found a tool called "Win8PE SE" it based on "WinBuilders" like BartPE, but this tool has many,many features.
Here the forum: http://theoven.org/index.php?action=forum#c1
First i test Win81PE but after boot on Desktop i have no mouse and keyboard. So i test Win8PE and now it works, with one error:
The key "Fn" is allways activ so icant type letters who has numbers down the letter (like L,K,J etc) and i cant deactivated it with the "Fn" key.
So i used an extern keyboard and that worked, ok, not optimal ;)
And this Win8PE has a feature to integreat scripts and on this site: http://theoven.org/index.php?topic=676.0
is a script that works.
Now i have an boot able USB Stick and an working Acronis on my Medion.
I only have an german side with an stepbystep manual, how it works.
You write that you cant boot any stick or DVD. PLease take a look into folder "x:\boot\efi" of your medium.
Is there a file "bootx64.efi"? When not, you have not make the right medium.
The Medion boot only from x64 devices and it must be formated with FAT32. I have no luck with NTFS formated devices, the wont boot.
Take a look at the Win8PE, it is worth! But have time, it takes a long time to make an boot able device
Thank you Torsten, I am sure that many users here will find your discovery most valuable, myself included along with Colin I'm sure. We really appreciate your time in finding this resolution. As Colin has stated however, since each manufacturer has the ability to use a variety of security techniques when configuring the UEFI boot configuration this drama is probably far from over! The question now that I have, since workarounds are obviously possible at least in one case that we know of, if manufacturers, when releasing update/upgrades, will make changes that render a workaround invalid?
Again, great job on your work!
Thank you!! but it's not my merit ;)
Even if I am repeating myself, i cant understand, why Acronis isnt able to make a working boot medium for every PC (other can do it). Because the base is allways the same (for windows pc) otherwise others could not boot an orig. Windows install medium. And so is my opinion, that something in the script, that makes the Acronis BartPE boot medium is wrong. But iam no expert.
Yesterday i got my new Asus Trio Transformer Netbook TX201LA that can boot only UEFI too.
I will make a new Boot USB stick from Acronis and take a look if it works on the Asus.
I have been reading up on Microsoft Technet and MSDN, apparently OEM systems are required to use the PKA certificate and database - the OEM enters into the database all bootable devices that are approved by the OEM. The end user cannot alter or update this database only the OEM and Microsoft (when they bring out a new OS), other devices are entered into this database such as SD card reader, fingerprint sensor etc. On systems that are only UEFI capable the boot EFI file is stored in the database and as this contains the default boot and recovery parameters it cannot be overridden permanently by the user, especially the allowable booting devices.
If the PKA certificate is deleted, the installed Windows will no longer boot (according to Microsoft) and they are unclear whether a 'vanilla' copy would be bootable if installed, as the database isn't deleted when the certificate is.
The Linux community seem to have varying degrees of success when Linux is installed and there is a UEFI shell package available to, I believe, update the UEFI database.
Microsoft have designed this system to only allow the Microsoft imaging system to recover drives. The UEFI database contains enough firmware to bring up the WinPE recovery WIM file. You will note that if you go into PC Settings\Recovery - it allows you to select either an external device (doesn't work on my system) or an external CD/DVD which will allow you to recover a Microsoft Backup made system image from external media. The point being that that to get to the external media, you need to run the UEFI based recovery option which only recognises the OEM or Microsoft made backup/images.
Well written Colin, what we see here is the result of software piracy no doubt. The Windows Product Key is also stored in the EFI file. This I think explains why the Microsoft imaging system must be used to recover, otherwise a recover without the product key to authenticate the OS install would fail.
Looks like the landscape has changed heh!
Colin,
From your post I assume you can't make Windows Recovery media on USB, but you can on a CD. If this is correct you can replace boot.wim on the CD with boot.wim from an Acronis WinPE media. Then see if the resulting CD will boot on your system. If it will not boot, I'll give you instructions on how to add True Image to the existing boot.wim that does boot on your system.
Mustang,
I haven't tried the CD route yet as I don't have access to an external CD/DVD device. I'm just thinking that this might work as optical drives report themselves differently to a system. Interestingly, I tried making a GPT based USB stick and W8.1 reported it as a CD rather than as an external removable hard drive device.
I have also followed the Microsoft note on making a UEFI based bootable Windows Installer on a USB flash drive - still no go. I have even added the USB stick to the BCD as a booting device and although it shows up in the W8.1 tile style boot page it is not recognised, only the default boot partition on the internal ram chip.
Perhaps that is a clue, these tablets use soldered in eMMC chips as the boot and OS drives, they have an SDcard slot (which is not recognised until after the boot) and a standard 500GB data hard drive which holds the recovery partition. Maybe they are hardwired to only boot from the fixed SSD in the same way my SBC's are 'hard wired' in the uP to only boot from SD/MMC cards.
I think, your last suggestion might be the way to go, embed TI or ABR into the boot.wim of the existing system, I hadn't thought of that myself.
Colin, Mustang,
Been doing a bit of reading myself and I believe you are on to something with placing TI on the existing boot.wim. It sounds to me like from what I have read that there are a number of options in advanced bios settings menus for a whole bunch of things like export of the existing UEFI and upload of same.
Colin,
It is essential that you get a Recovery Disk created by Windows from Control Panel/Recovery. This is creating a WinPE media that is produced from the Recovery partition on the computer. This is what is giving the WinPE what it needs to get past the built in security of the motherboard/BIOS. I think the most likely place for this security is in the efi boot code in WinPE rather than in the boot.wim file. I suppose it could be possible that the security is in a combination of the efi boot code and boot.wim. We won't know until you try. The first step is to build the Windows Recovery CD and swap the boot.wim file for the one created by either Acronis or MustangPE. Modifying the boot.wim file will almost certainly work, but that requires some new programming. I'd like to try swapping the boot.wim file first.
There are some complicating factors involved. Windows will produce either a 32 bit or 64 bit WinPE based on the requirements of the BIOS. True Image is a 32 bit program. If the Windows Recovery CD is 32 bit, a simple swap of boot.wim should work. If the Windows Recovery CD is 64 bit, then 32 bit application support needs to be added to the boot.wim file for TI to run.
As for USB booting, that is a more complicated issue. The motherboard needs to support USB booting. It is likely your motherboard does not support USB booting and that is why you can't create a USB Windows Recovery. I can give you an example from my experience. I am able to boot USB if the device is attached to a USB port on the motherboard. In the same computer I can't boot from a USB device attached to an add in PCIe card that has both SATA III and USB 3.0 ports. The card does support booting from a SATA port, but not a USB port. I was never able to find a PCIe card that supported USB booting.
I think your only chance of booting a recovery disk is to use a CD.
Paul.
The system is 64 bit UEFI, I'll give your solution a try. Theoretically the Phoenix Securecore Tiano firmware does allow USB booting, though this can be reprogrammed by the OEM (Phoenix publish a list of 'c' functions for use in their development environment). As I mention the UEFI recognises and lists the USB device as number one and as my Sandisk stick has activity LED, it flashes like mad as the stick is read and then ignored.
As you say though, it is quite possible that Medion have deliberately curtailed this ability (perhaps they intend to have their own external device which already is listed in the device database for sale at a later stage), though there are a number of these newer tablet/laptop combinatiosn that use the same Phoenix UEFI and are also reporting the same problems. Later when I'm bored, I may well delete the certificate and test to see if my theory is true. I have other legal W8.1 unused vanilla copies of W8.1 which I was saving for my new Tangopc when it arrives in August.
Good news, I've managed to get the system to boot an external USB flash stick. I will investigate further and report how easy it might be to include TI or ABR into this.
Colin,
Just curious, was the WinPE produced by the Windows Recovery 64 bit based? I think I remember reading that it would have to be in order to run the UEFI.