2015 Rescue Media does not see my USB3 external hard drives

YOu might want to test whether the 2014 recovery can recover the 2015 backups (this case is typically not supported/tested by Acronis, but forward compatability works in many cases).

Thank you for this thought, Pat!

However, I have backed up my operating system, using the Recovery media, with both 2013, and 2014; and I can recover using both these options!

I do like the simplicity of 2015, compared to previous versions, but there is no point in upgrading 2015, if it doesn't perform it's basic function!

The point of this message, is, hopefully, Acronis, will look into this anomaly, and take some action!

Sadly, the time I can seek support, from Acronis, free, has expired!

As a postscript, I would add that I have tried downloading/burning an ISO image, to a CD, hoping that this might rectify possible errors, in producing a CD, from within Acronis 2015 - No such luck

Acronis 2015, Build 6525

Hi,
Just put the latest service patch onto 2015 to see if this will cure the problem. Alas no, my 2015 recovery Acronis will not detect external USB hard drives whereas the earlier versions (I tried 2013) work fine. This has worked in all version of Acronis way back, so do Acronis intend to put this back, is it a mistake or a conscious downgrading of the product.

Regards

ChasR

Good Afternoon,

I created the 2015 True Image bootable CD today from the image I just downloaded today (12/17/2014) from Acronis (AcronisTruiImage2015_en-US.iso). I also have the 2014 True Image version of the CD. I can boot from the 2014 CD and see my external Seagate 5TB drive, and the backup works fine. However, when I boot form the 2015 True Image version CD, I don't see my external drive.

Has there been any progress/resolutions with seeing external drives with the True Image 2015 recovery CD?

Sincerely,

Lance

Lance....

I had the same problem as you. Technical support tried to say that it was because my Seagate drive was over 4TB in size. When I told them that my 2014 recovery disc recognized the drive...they never got back to me. Long story short...I got a refund on 2015 and still use 2014. Not a great long term solution, but I don't like broken software...and they seem to be taking forever to restore the most basic functionality.

Me also. Deeply irritating.

I have Acronis 2015 and it cannot recognise my newer USB 3.0 external drive, which I am using to create a backup of a laptop.

I am using Acronis also a long time with the same problem under discussion.
Have now found when I, even my external USB 3 drive is detected my computer with my original purchase DVD boats (5017 build) and manages a full backup of the recovery. Yesterday successfully tested. With the build 6525 does not work. Please try and see if it works for you with the original Acronis DVD. Please specify the build number.

My operating System: WIN 8.1 pro

Just a few thoughts here:

Users with drives over 4TB in size: Linux support for such drives may not be supported in the rescue media Linux kernel used for the rescue media. Suggest create WinPE disk for your purposes.

Users with 4TB drives and smaller in size: Windows security enforcement may be at work here especially with Win 8.1 in that because you are using an application that is attempting to perform disk level functions to an external device. Windows may interpret that as a security policy violation and simply not allow the action to continue. Again suggest you create a WinPE disk using the latest SDK from Microsoft and try that to see if this makes a difference.

Enchantech...

Incorrect statement. I have a 4TB external Seagate HDD and TI 2014 recognizes it and backs my system up to it fine! TI2013 also recognizes it. You might want to double check the statement. I was told that by Acronis Tech support as well, until I sent them a photo of the 4TB HDD and TI 2014. Attached is a screenshot from inside TI 2014. My 4TB Seagate drive is there

I have the same problem with my Acronis 2015 trial, but my 2014 rescue media worked fine. Win 8.1 x64; Device Manager shows Texas Instruments XHCI Controller, Texas Instruments USB Root Hub, (4) 4TB Seagate External USB3 drives; I installed a Rosewill RC-229U4 installed using the Rosewill drivers that support Win7 (the native Win8.1 drivers aren't compatible, if you are running Win8.0 the native drivers were OK). Will have to go back to 2014 version or see if I can restore using a USB2 connection.

My understanding is that the 2015 Rescue Media uses Linux just like the 2013 and 2014 Rescue Media which work fine on recognizing my (4) USB3 Seagate drives. Where does Windows enter into this problem?

I have the same problem with ACTI 2015 my external Seagate 2 TB BUP drive is seen when creating the backup< trying to do a restore from the
backup the backup image is not there to restore from. I have spent 28 days trying to sort this.
I employed an It consultant to resolve this issue as I am unwilling to use my new PC without being able to do a restore
IT consultant report. Acronis does not recognise the external USB 3 drive to restore from from, there is an incompatibility
with USB 3 and Acronis 2015.
They where able to use a USB Flash drive format Fat 32 which could see the created backup image and restore it.
After 28 days and no sleep I am so pissed off.
I have now bought a External USB 2 drive and it works ( not what I wanted to do but need a backup as we all do)
All of my hardware and software are brand new purchased 12-12-2014

Your IT consultant doesn't understand what is going on. The Acronis recovery media is based on Linux. The Linux kernel being used doesn't contain the proper drivers for your USBB 3.0 controller. You need to create an optional WinPE recovery media and add the proper drivers for your USB 3.0 controller. See MustangPE here https://forum.acronis.com/forum/71918 .

Hello Mustang,
what you write is not correct.

With ATI 2015 build 5017 it works. With ATI 2015 build 6525 does not work. The problem is not the Linux kernel, but the programming. I think there Acronis has yet to provide an update. The problem is well known by Acronis.
We understand that already.

Hello Mustang,
what you write is not correct.

With ATI 2015 build 5017 it works. With ATI 2015 build 6525 does not work. The problem is not the Linux kernel, but the programming. I think there Acronis has yet to provide an update. The problem is well known by Acronis.
We understand that already.

Hello Mustang,
what you write is not correct.

With ATI 2015 build 5017 it works. With ATI 2015 build 6525 does not work. The problem is not the Linux kernel, but the programming. I think there Acronis has yet to provide an update. The problem is well known by Acronis.
We understand that already.

If Acronis TI 2015 can see the drive in Windows, it should see the drive in WinPE. It will be using the same Acronis drivers (fltsrv.sys and snapman.sys) in WinPE as are used in Windows. If WinPE itself can't see the drive it is because of missing Windows drivers (such as USB 3.0 for your controller) that can be added to the WinPE build.

You have nothing to lose by trying WinPE. If you wait for Acronis to fix the Linux Recovery Media, you could have a long wait.

Hi all,

I'm slightly reassured that this problem isn't restricted just to me! I have been using TI 2013 for quite some time, but recently upgraded to TI 2015 and have now lost the ability to restore from my Seagate 5TB USB3.0 drive using the TI Recovery Media. I'm also very upset that they have discontinued the Try and Decide feature that I found so useful in TI 2013 (Acronis say that it's easier to do a full backup, try something on your PC, then restore the backup if you don't like it - that takes over an hour for me to backup and restore to a USB3.0 drive, while Try and Decide only took a few minutes.) Absolutely shocking attitude from Acronis. Anyway, I digress, so back to the point in hand - using Recovery Media to restore a backup from a large USB3.0 drive. Here is some testing that I have done using three very different PC's with various USB types and TI 2013/2015 Recovery media:

Unbranded desktop PC with Asus P5D motherboard and USB2.0 sockets integrated onto the motherboard:
TI 2013 works, TI 2015 doesn't see the drive
Same PC with PCIexpress to USB3.0 card:
TI 2013 works, TI 2015 doesn't see the drive

Sony VAIO laptop with integrated USB2.0 sockets:
TI 2013 works, TI 2015 doesn't see the drive
(no USB3.0 sockets on this laptop)

Acer Aspire V5 with integrated USB2.0 sockets:
TI 2013 works, TI 2015 doesn't see the drive
Same PC with integrated USB3.0 socket:
TI 2013 works, TI 2015 doesn't see the drive

Now, you really don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that there is a common theme here - TI 2015 does not recognise my 5TB USB3.0 drive on any of my PC's, whether it's connected to a USB2.0 or USB3.0 socket, but TI 2013 does recognise the same drive on USB2.0 and USB3.0 drives, even on a plug-in USB3.0 adapter card!

Acronis, please address this issue. It's clearly a feature that has been removed or it's a software bug on the latest version of TI 2015. Please don't tell us that it's a windows driver problem, it clearly isn't. My Recover Media doesn't have any USB drivers on either the 2013 or 2015 versions, but 2013 works, even on my Renesas plug in USB3.0 adapter.

And please don't instruct us to spend hours researching how to make and test a WinPE disk. Whilst this may get around the problem, it doesn't help those poor people that have bought TI 2015 thinking that they are safe to back up to a USB3.0 drive. Unless they actually run a Recovery Media test, they won't find out that they can't restore until it's too late for them. Thankfully, I and a few others who have posted this problem on here have tested and recognised that TI 2015 Recovery Media is flawed.

Personally, I will do extensive research and will try and make a WinPE disk. If this allows me to restore my TI 2015 backups, then fine, but it's a hell of a lot of work that shouldn't be needed to be done by any of us. TI 2015 is clearly not being sold as described and is not fit for purpose. If the Windows version wasn't a lot easier to use than TI 2013, I would most definitely be downgrading back to TI 2013 and insisting on a full refund of my TI 2015 three machine license upgrade that I recently bought.

p.s. Does anyone on here know whether Acronis support read these forum posts? I'm knew to this forum and would like to raise my issue with Acronis and would like to help them appreciate the scale of this problem and hopefully find a suitable resolution. But if they don't read these posts, then I will need to email them a link to it and request that they look into this problem

But if they don't read these posts, then I will need to email them a link to it and request that they look into this problem.

If I were you, I would send them some feedback directly.

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/feedback.html

https://kb.acronis.com/atih2015/winpe

It doesn't take extensive research to build the WinPE, just follow the instructions in the link above. It is a little more work than the default Linux bootable media, but it is a much more complete solution. I use the WinPE exclusively. Acronis is always breaking the Linux version, and there are always numerous reports of computers that the Linux version won't even boot on. I wish they would stop using it all together. The WinPE creation process has been greatly simplified in 2015.

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/contact-us.html

Since you are within the first 30 days of purchase you have free professional support. I recommend that you use it. Use the link above and select the live chat option. Create and submit a system report with the problem USB HDD attached to you system. This will aid in isolating the driver issue in the Linux kernel. If they ask you to build the WinPE, ask them to instead provide you with a build 5539 ISO file to burn to a cd. Build 5539's bootable media did not have this issue. If a new build isn't released before your 30 day refund period is up, request a refund.

Hi Joey,

Thanks for the info. This morning, I successfully built a WinPE CD with TI 2105 build 6525. I found quite a useful post in these forums which uses Mustang PE to assemble the CD image, which I then burnt to disc and tested on all three PC's. I didn't need to add any drivers for any of the USB3 devices, it just worked as is. This really confirms that the current Acronis Recovery Media isn't failing due to bad or missing drivers. The problem with using Mustang PE is that I've had to install lots of other software that I really don't want cluttering up my Windows 8.1 laptop. It needs to stay installed as any new release of True Image will need to be rebuilt into my WinPE CD.

I'll definitely do as you suggest and submit a system report to Acronis. I only upgraded to the 2015 3-machine version a few days ago, so I'll make use of their tech support. Will I ask for a refund? Probably not. Although the software doesn't perform as advertised (or as you would expect - you really should be able to restore from Recovery Media with USB3.0), thus making the software unfit for purpose and eligible for a replacement with working features or a refund, I prefer the new Windows interface compared to TI 2013. The only downside is that if I ever need to use any Recovery Media, then it will need to be from a WinPE disc, which I will need to update with every minor release upgrade.

Anyone experiencing the problem of USB 3.0 drives not being detected when using the Recovery Boot Media should try this:

1. Start by unplugging your USB 3.0 external drive from your machine.  You should do this with the machine completely shut down. 

2. Restart your machine and boot to the Recovery Boot Media.

3. Once the Recovery Media loads and True Image has started, plug in your external USB 3.0 drive.

4. Wait several minutes (3 to 4 should be sufficient) and see if you now have access to the drive.

Essentially what you are doing here is this:

Since the Recovery Media is based on a Linux kernel it is quite obvious that this issue has to do with the USB drivers of that kernel.  Most Linux distros use a generic USB driver and those drivers for USB 3.0 run in xCHI Mode whereas Intel based motherboards use ECHI Mode for the installed USB 3.0 ports.

Modern Linux kernels support hot plugging of USB 3.0 devices so in attaching your device after the Recovery Media is running should trigger the Linux kernel driver to make a takeover call to the USB controller on the motherboard and once that request is honored the Linux kernel can load the appropriate xCHI driver which should in turn allow access to your drive/device.

I have not tested this myself but my investigation into this issue says that this has a very good chance to work so those of you whom are willing to test it out please do so and let us know your results.

Enchantech,
I tried your recommendation and it didn't work.

I don't think the issue is solely related to USB 3.0. I have other USB 3.0 drives that the Linux rescue media has never had any issue accessing. One is a Samsung 2TB D3 Station and the other is 1TB Toshiba HDD in a Sabrent USB 3.0 enclosure. The only external drive the Linux rescue media can't access is a 3TB Seagate Backup Plus. It isn't even detected when plugged into a USB 2.0 port. Skimming through the older posts I have noticed a common theme. All of the problem USB 3.0 drives that were identified were Seagate external USB 3.0 drives ranging from 500GB to 5TB.

Has anyone had issues with any USB 3.0 drives that weren't Seagate?

Joey,

Thanks for testing, I also noted the Seagate theme, Is your machine capable of running the USB ports in xCHI mode? Some machine bios have the option, I have one but I do not have any external USB 3.0 drives to test with, Seagate or otherwise.

I am wondering if this might be a firmware issue on the Seagate drives? Anyone reading this whom can provide a Seagate Serial Number?

Joey, you might have a look on the Seagate site and check for a firmware update for your Backup Plus.

Enchantech wrote:

Joey,

Thanks for testing, I also noted the Seagate theme, Is your machine capable of running the USB ports in xCHI mode? Some machine bios have the option, I have one but I do not have any external USB 3.0 drives to test with, Seagate or otherwise.

I am wondering if this might be a firmware issue on the Seagate drives? Anyone reading this whom can provide a Seagate Serial Number?

Joey, you might have a look on the Seagate site and check for a firmware update for your Backup Plus.

It has nothing to do with Seagate drives. I have a 4TB Seagate external USB 3.0 HDD. TI2015 does NOT see it. TI2013 and TI2014 DO. It has been stated that the recovery media for 2015 doesn't contain USB 3.0 drivers. I have connected my drive to both the Asmedia and Intel and nothing. However, the older versions work like a charm.

Bob M,

You state that it has been stated that the recovery media for 2015 does not contain USB 3.0 drivers. That is unlikely. Linux distros have had USB 3.0 support for a few years now and such drivers are standard fair for the Linux kernel distros available now. Additionally, the testing done by Joey confirms that not all USB 3.0 drives exhibit this problem.

I concur with Joey that the problem appears to be Seagate drive specific so the question is why only those drives?

All external drives utilize various features through firmware to control drive function. Advanced Power Management (APM), Advanced Acoustic Management (AAM), head parking, USB 3.0/2.0 switching, etc. These drives being external and prone to shock and movement due to the pure nature of these devices cause manufacturers to use head parking and idle power management extensively. Given that it appears that for some reason the Seagate drives are not able to be initialized once in idle/head park state by the Linux based recovery media. Question is why?

Apparently it is possible with some of the Seagate models to change head parking and APM of certain drive models by using the Seagate Dashboard Utility. It is also apparent that this only applies to certain drive models not all external Seagate drives. I suppose that for some users here it might be worth the effort to download the Seagate Dashboard and attempt to change the behavior of their drives with respect to these features setting them to a disabled state if possible while using the recovery media to see if that would help. It just might do the trick.

Another factor in this is user machine specific and deals with the mode in which the machine is set to handle USB. These modes are again xHCI and EHCI. The difference in these modes is fairly simple. If the subject machine bios is set to xHCI enabled then the USB 3.0 ports are routed to the xHCI controller before booting to OS. If the xHCI mode is disabled then the USB 3.0 ports are routed to the EHCI controller before booting to OS.

Enter Intel, those folks say that xHCI must be enabled for USB 3.0 support and EHCI mode set to hand off for USB 3.0 to work in an Windows environment even though the OS has USB 3.0 drivers. The reason is that Windows does not support USB 3.0 natively which is something that from all I can tell Linux does natively. There are also differences in how all this is handled between the various motherboard makers. For example, the xHCI mode standard has various abilities such as AUTO and SMART AUTO. Some Gigabyte boards use these features to control the handing off of controller function to the OS rather than using an EHCI controller to do this and the EHCI controller on such boards must be set to HAND OFF mode for the ports to work at all.

So now the question becomes, are user bios settings contributing to this problem? Could very well be. Only way to find out is by testing. In theory since Linux supports USB 3.0 natively the xHCI mode should be set to AUTO which depending on motherboard and bios would allow for either hand off to the EHCI controller for enabling USB 3.0 or would pass control on to the OS itself dependent on implementation of the USB 3.0 standard by the bios.

As a side note most motherboard makers have issued updated USB 3.0 drivers for the xHCI and EHCI controllers and users whom have not updated those drivers may experience failures as well due to that fact alone.

So what is the remedy? You be the judge but personally I do not think this issue is the fault of Acronis nor the Recovery Media.

I've been reading all the post on this issue.

I've also upgraded from 2012 - 2013 to 2015 and lost the ability to reference external hard drives. My drive is only a 2TB drive.

Though slightly technical I shouldn't have to build custom boot DVD to address a major issue in the project. The whole point of the software is to backup and restore your images easily and in a complete working package.

Why hasn't Acronis not just addressed this in a patch... this is crazy that support for such a clearly basic and required aspect of the application is missing - not to say anything about their QA process missing this glaring issue.

I've tried the process suggest above (create the WinPE)
https://kb.acronis.com/atih2015/winpe

I created first the DVD then a CD - both images fail to boot. I just get the Windows logo and it hangs?

So .. if this 'easy' process fails to work how do I create the WinPE version that will boot?

Christian,

What is the make and model of your external drive?

The WinPE takes longer to load into memory than the Linux rescue media especially from slow DVDs and CDs. Try mounting the ISO file and copy its contents to a USB flash drive. It may take a few minutes to load. If you continue to have problems try MVP Paul's MustangPEBuilder. I used it to build WinPE containing True Image, Disk Director, and Universal Restore all in one media.
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/71918

Enchantech,

There are no new firmware updates for my Seagate Backup Plus and I didn't see any xHCI settings in my UEFI menus. Build 5539 Linux rescue media and build 6525 WinPE rescue media have no issues accessing the Seagate drive. I have attached screenshots showing the results of booting with the various 2015 rescue media. It appears that the Linux kernel used in the latest rescue media has a compatibility issue or is missing controllers to communicate with Seagate USB 3.0 enclosures. Other USB enclosures may also be affected but there haven't been any other examples posted.

Joey is correct, the WinPE CD takes for ever to load into memory. I guess if you are using this to recover from a hard drive disaster, the amount of time it takes to boot isn't too important, but I would much rather have a working Acronis Recovery Disc.

Enchantec has posted a very informative article, but fails to spot the real problem: previous versions work with USB3.0 and Seagate drives, but TI 2015 doesn't. This really doesn't point to the problem being caused by Seagate or by users not setting their BIOS correctly. He's suggested trying the Seagate Dashboard Utility to see if any Seagate settings can be changed. I'll try this and report back. Please also note that in a previous post on here (http://forum.acronis.com/forum/76154#comment-251432), I have tried TI 2015 and TI 2013 on three different PC's all with radically different USB types: a homebuilt PC with integrated USB2.0 ports and a plugin USB3.0 card; a Sony laptop with integrated USB2.0 ports and a plugin ExpressCard USB3.0 adapter; and an Acer laptop with both USB2.0 and USB3.0 integrated. On all three PC's, TI 2015 doesn't see the USB drive, even when it's plugged into a USB2.0 socket, but TI 2015 (edit - TI 2013) sees the drive even when it's plugged into USB3.0 adapters, which really surprised me. How can anyone not conclude that there is a problem with the TI 2015 Recovery Media? Whether it's caused by a bug in the Acronis software or whether it's caused by a problem with the Linux distro that it's using isn't our problem. Acronis should investigate and correct it.

One thing that I've noticed, on my desktop PC with a pre-USB3.0 motherboard, the Seagate drive initialises while the BIOS is going through it's routines. I can even choose to boot from the Seagate drive when it's plugged into a USB3.0 adapter card, so the BIOS sees this as a working drive. But as soon as the TI 2015 Recovery Disc boots, the Seagate drive light stays lit and doesn't ever flash to indicate that it is being accessed. It looks like the drive is entering a sleep state and the TI 2015 Recovery Media doesn't wake it up, but the TI 2013 media does.

An update to my post above and to some of Enchantec's suggestions:

I've checked the Seagate website for firmware updates and there are none available for my drive.

I've installed the latest Seagate Dashboard and there are no settings that affect the operation of the drive except for a power saving feature which was already set to "Never". Screenshot attached....

Some further investigations:

I've just plugged both my 5TB USB3.0 Seagate drive and a 500MB USB2.0 Seagate drive into USB3.0 sockets. While booting from the 2015 media with both drives connected, the USB2.0 drive light flashes as the recovery software access it, but the USB3.0 drive light just stays continuously lit, indicating that it isn't being accessed. So although my PC BIOS successfully accesses the drive at boot time, TI 2015 recovery media doesn't. If I boot to the 2013 recovery media, then both drive lights flash as the software interrogates them and they both show up as valid drives.

I've just created an Acronis system report with the USB3.0 drive connected. I'll submit a support request and will submit the system report and a full description of events to Acronis for their investigation. I'll post any responses here. Hopefully, they will take the matter seriously and investigate.

Some comments. It's clear the fault here is with the Linux recovery media for TI 2015. There are basically two possible causes. First, Acronis could have switched and/or recompiled the Linux kernel since TI 2014. Second, Acronis may have updated the Linux version of the snapman driver. This driver, along with the fltsrv driver, is responsible for enumerating the hard drives TI can use. Either way, the problem is an Acronis problem that needs to be fixed. I can remember a past version of TI many years ago where the snapman driver actually caused USB drive to disappear in Windows. The problem was fixed when they released a new version of snapman.

I would suggest that everyone experiencing this issue download the TI 2015 Users Guide and look at section 9.4 about requesting a customized recovery media. This would help in getting Acronis to address the issue faster.

The Linux recovery media has been a disappointment for a very long time. I learned way back in TI 8 days not to rely on it. So, I started to work on a BartPE plugin to run TI and DD. Back then Microsoft would only release WinPE to its OEM partners. BartPE was the best we had. Nobody could make it work. Acronis even released a BartPE plugin the didn't work. In the end it turned out to be a problem with the snapman driver. Acronis released a new version of snapman and ever since all new versions of the driver have worked in BartPE/WinPE.

Problems and limitations with the Linux version of the recovery media are not about to go away any time soon. It's just that sometimes the problems are worse than at other times. It just happens that now is a particularly low time. I highly recommend the everyone create a WinPE recovery media. I gave up on the Linux version many years ago and have never looked back. That's why I spent so much time developing MustangPE. I wanted to make it very easy for everyone to build a WinPE recovery media for Acronis products that worked.

Thankyou Mustang for your comments. It's reassuring that I'm not the only one who has come to the conclusion that the problem lies with Acronis, whether it's their software or the Linux compile. I didn't want to make a WinPE disc, as I have tried unsuccessfully to make a BartPE disc a few years ago, but I tried your MustangPE and it worked first time. The only drawback is the installation of Microsoft Assessment and Deployment Kit, add-ons and the MustangPE software, all of which I'd rather not have cluttering my drive, but I guess that's a small price to pay for reassurance that I have made a WinPE boot disc which loads TI 2015 Recovery software and allows restoring from my backup drive. I know I could uninstall all of this software, but the build procedure involves a fair degree of work, made easier if you follow your processes here.... https://forum.acronis.com/forum/71918. If there is a minor update to TI 2015, I will need to build a new MustangPE disc and leaving everything installed will greatly simplify this.

Forgot to mention that I've received acknowledgement from Acronis that my support case has been received by them. As I only upgraded a few days ago, I have a month free support. I made an Acronis System Report, but couldn't attach it to my support request as it was too big, so I've requested that they give me details of how to upload it to them. Report size (zipped) is 6.5M, Acronis support request maximum file size is 5M. How disappointing is it that their own support procedure can't upload their own support file?

Graham,

Up until TI 2015, MustangPE was easier than the Acronis method to create a WinPE media. In TI 2015 the Acronis process has been made much easier. Unfortunately, they made it TOO simple. You no longer have the ability to add drivers (a very important feature.)

The ADK is large. You may be able to install it on you external USB 3.0 drive. I've never tried that, but I think it could work. I don't recommend running MustangPE from any other location than the root of drive C. However, you could copy the entire MustangPE folder to your external drive and then just copy it back when you need to build a new CD or USB flash drive.

Hi Paul,

That's very useful to know. Can you confirm that the MustangPE software is just a collection of files and no other system files or reg settings are installed when I installed MustangPE? If so, then I can backup my MustangPE folder and then delete it, with the option of just copying it back at a later date if I need to make a new disc.

It might also be helpful if you could give a few pointers when it comes to installing the ADK. By default, it installs more than we need for the MustangPE ISO creation. I don't remember exactly which options I left ticked at the installation phase, but I remember there were two that I thought may be important. I unticked the remaining options, which didn't appear to cause any problems with MustangPE.

Incidentally, when I made my TI 2013 Recovery CD, I don't remember having any difficulties burning a Recovery Media CD. I'm sure it was a one-click process which worked without adding any drivers. TI 2015 appears to be very similar, except for one important difference - it doesn't work with Seagate USB3.0 drives! Of course, there may be other drives out there that don't work, but this thread is mainly about this type of drive.

Graham,

MustangPE does not rely on the registry. It is just, as you say, a collection of files. It uses the system tools provided by Microsft as part of Windows and the ADK. My goal was to keep it as close as possible to a standard WinPE anybody could produce from the command line using the ADK tools. It does have a few minor tweaks to improve it, such as editing the registry to change the wallpaper and allowing file extensions and hidden files to show in the A43 File Manager.

I only install Deployment Tools and WinPE when installing the ADK.

The Linux recovery media does not and has never allowed the addition of drivers. In past versions of TI, the ability to add drivers to the WinPE media was provide by Acronis. In TI 2015, that was eliminated.

Thanks for your clarification. I'll backup my MustangPE folder so that I can delete it and restore it at a later date.

Many thanks for your assistance and for creating MustangPE in the first place.

Graham Tolhurst wrote:

Enchantec has posted a very informative article, but fails to spot the real problem: previous versions work with USB3.0 and Seagate drives, but TI 2015 doesn't. This really doesn't point to the problem being caused by Seagate or by users not setting their BIOS correctly. He's suggested trying the Seagate Dashboard Utility to see if any Seagate settings can be changed. I'll try this and report back. Please also note that in a previous post on here (http://forum.acronis.com/forum/76154#comment-251432), I have tried TI 2015 and TI 2013 on three different PC's all with radically different USB types: a homebuilt PC with integrated USB2.0 ports and a plugin USB3.0 card; a Sony laptop with integrated USB2.0 ports and a plugin ExpressCard USB3.0 adapter; and an Acer laptop with both USB2.0 and USB3.0 integrated. On all three PC's, TI 2015 doesn't see the USB drive, even when it's plugged into a USB2.0 socket, but TI 2015 sees the drive even when it's plugged into USB3.0 adapters, which really surprised me. How can anyone not conclude that there is a problem with the TI 2015 Recovery Media? Whether it's caused by a bug in the Acronis software or whether it's caused by a problem with the Linux distro that it's using isn't our problem. Acronis should investigate and correct it.

One thing that I've noticed, on my desktop PC with a pre-USB3.0 motherboard, the Seagate drive initialises while the BIOS is going through it's routines. I can even choose to boot from the Seagate drive when it's plugged into a USB3.0 adapter card, so the BIOS sees this as a working drive. But as soon as the TI 2015 Recovery Disc boots, the Seagate drive light stays lit and doesn't ever flash to indicate that it is being accessed. It looks like the drive is entering a sleep state and the TI 2015 Recovery Media doesn't wake it up, but the TI 2013 media does.

Graham,

To clarify your statement that I fail to spot the real problem is not correct. I fully recognize the fact that previous versions of the recovery media work yet 2015 recovery media does not. The information I provided and the steps recommended were not about that fact however but offered as troubleshooting strategy in attempt to get at the reason 2015 does not work and a possible solution or workaround.

Since Joey has tested the 2015 recovery media with USB 3.0 drives from makers other than Seagate and found that those drives work with the 2015 recovery media logically would indicate that the problem being discussed here is not solely the problem of the 2015 recovery media. Rather, it does appear that the Seagate drives are at this point the sole problem devices. That being the case it is logical then to assume that the Seagate drive controllers may well be where the issue lies at least in part. In the later part of 2014 there were a number of Linux users having issue with add in USB pci cards using NEC controllers exhibiting similar problems that we are seeing here. I have no idea what controllers Seagate uses in their drives but it is possible that there is a connection there.

In your case your machine, when booted from the 2015 recovery media, cannot access the USB 3.0 drive if plugged into the a USB 3.0 port but does access the drive if plugged into a USB 2.0 port. The xCHI controller on your mobo controls the USB ports on your machine USB 2.0 and above. The xCHI specification makes a distinction between the words “attach” and“connect”.

A USB2 downstream device is considered to be “attached” to an upstream port if the upstream port has detected either the D+ or D- dataline pulled high through a 1.5 k Ω resistor. A USB3 downstream device is considered to be “attached” to an upstream port if the upstream port has detected SuperSpeed far-end receiver terminations.

A USB2 downstream device is considered to be “connected” to an upstream port if, 1) device has pulled either the D+ or D- data line high through a 1.5 k Ω resistor, and 2) if the device is high-speed or full-speed it has been reset and the Chirp signaling has determined its speed. A USB3 downstream device is considered to be “connected” to an upstream port if, 1) SuperSpeed far-end receiver terminations have been detected, 2) training was successful, and 3) the Port Capability/Configuration LMP exchanges are successful.

From the postings here in this thread and others here on the Forum the Seagate theme mentioned earlier appears to lone devices that have issue with meeting the criteria set forth in the xCHI specification as either "attached" or "connected". As tested and confirmed by Joey this appears to be solely a Seagate problem thus the Linux disto used in the 2015 recovery media logically would not be the issue.

Given the above it appears that for some reason the Seagate external USB 3.0 drives for some reason do not "attach" or "connect" when such access is attempted using the recovery media. I am all ears for suggested solutions or workarounds.

The fact that your experience with your drive on your pre-USB 3.0 mobo having access to the drive through an add on USB 3.0 card until it is attempted to be accessed using the recovery media indicates that "attached" or "connected" criteria of the xCHI specification is not being meet and I might add that because your drive activity light stays continuously lit and never flashes indicates a non attached/connected or hung condition and not a sleep state.

It would be most interesting if you have access to another brand external drive that you could test connect/attachment with if in fact the problem still exists or not.

Hi Enchantec,

Again, you've written a very informative article. Your knowledge of USB versions far surpasses mine. However, if you've written this post based on the fact that TI 2015 Recovery Media works when the USB3.0 drive is plugged into a USB2.0 socket, then you clearly haven't read my comments properly. Sometimes it's better to stand back and look at the basic details before digging into the finer points.

Facts, as found with my hardware:

On three radically different PC's with different USB architectures, TI 2015 Recovery Media does not recognise my 5TB Seagate USB3.0 drive plugged into USB3.0 or USB2.0 sockets.

On the same PC's, TI 2013 Recovery Media has full read/write access to the same drive plugged into USB3.0 or USB2.0 socket.

On the same PC's, TI 2013 and TI 2015 WinPE Recovery Media has full read/write access to the same drive plugged into USB3.0 or USB2.0 socket. So too does MustangPE Recovery Media running TI 2015.

The only common point of failure is TI 2015 Recovery Media.

Now that's not to say that other people are getting different results. I'm highlighting my findings from three different PC's, all of different ages and with very different USB hardware architecture.

At the moment, Acronis Support are looking into this. They have asked me to perform various tests with TI 2015 Recovery Media and TI 2015 WinPE, all of which I've reported back with the results. They've even asked me to run the TI 2015 Recovery Media and using a shortcut key combination, access the Linux shell and run fdisk -l, take a photograph of the output and send the photo to an FTP folder that they have given me access to. They've also asked me to upload System Reports from the Windows software and from the Recovery Media, both of which I've done.

Currently, I have made a MustangPE Recovery Disc, which works fine, but takes a long time to load, especially on my newer lower spec Acer laptop (several minutes). As part of Acronis Support request, I also made a WinPE Recovery Media from the TI 2015 Windows software, which to my surprise was extremely quick and easy to do, and as Mustang points out, there are no options to add extra drivers. This recovery disc also works, but again, takes ages to load. Either way, I currently have the option of recovering my hard drives if I suffer a disaster on any of my three PC's. The time it takes to load the Recovery software would be the least of my worries. I'd be glad that I could recover the system. My real concern is that there must be quite a few people out there who are backing up to a hard drive from which they won't be able to restore. And they won't find this out until it's too late! I took the wise precaution of testing the Recovery Media after I upgraded to TI 2015 3 license version, found that it wasn't working and after a quick Google search, found myself on here with others reporting similar problems.

I am adding the results of a few more tests. They may not be valid to this post, but here they are anyway:

Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 500GB USB2.0,
Seagate FreeAgent Go 120GB USB2.0,
Western Digital 320GB SATA connected through SATA to USB 3.0 adapter,
all work when connected to USB3.0 socket and booting to TI 2015 Recovery Media.

Hi all,

I've just had a response from Acronis Support after I uploaded several report files and screenshots to their support FTP server and also replying by email to all of the tests that they asked me to conduct. The response is totally unacceptable and shows complete disregard to those people who are currently backing up their PC to a hard drive which won't be accessible from Acronis' own recommendation of creating a Recovery Media disc. I accept that the number of people who will lose all of their data is probably not huge, but it's worrying that Acronis do not treat this problem with the respect that it deserves. I won't go into details about their response yet, I've asked them to reconsider and escalate the problem to a higher level.

I've also found two more threads about this problem on this forum.... https://forum.acronis.com/forum/81104 and https://forum.acronis.com/forum/70300, so more people have experienced this problem problem than I originally thought.

Acronis Support have at least admitted that the problem is a driver issue with the current bootable media.

Graham,

Thank you for responding, It is good to know that you have gotten support and a response back from Acronis. In my last post please note that I referenced in your case one of your drives activity lights staying lit continuously indicating a not attached/connected or hung condition. What I did not go on to say but should have is that that fact is indicative of a driver issue. So it is good to know that Acronis has admitted that is the issue. I have no idea what their response beyond that was that offends you and that's fine.

You are correct that testing things out first is the best policy. At least you have a workaround using WinPe/MustangPE media, not perfect but workable for you which is a good thing. I can say that I am aware of work going on in the Linux community on the USB 3.0 drivers as we are not alone with issues from the current drivers, hopefully a fix will be forth coming.

After informing Acronis that their response to my (and other peoples) problem was unacceptable and that their software was not fit for purpose and requesting that they escalate the problem to a higher level, I can inform everyone on this forum that I have just received a phone call from Acronis Support. They have apologised for the problem and told me that they are going to look into this problem with a view to correcting it some time in the future. I was told to continue to keep my WinPE Bootable Media in case of emergencies, which of course, I will. I was told that a resolution to the problem would be sought and hopefully an update with a fix would be available. No timescale was offered, and none was expected.

Lets keep our fingers crossed that they honour these words and prevent a likely disaster occurring for those people who are relying on the standard Acronis Recovery Media to work if they ever need it to.

SOLVED!!!
I had the same issue and fixed the problem like this: Used TI2014 rescue boot cd to boot into the TI system. Selected 'tools' and de activated the F11 recovery option which removed the 2025 f11 boot function and immediately 'Activated' it again, which wrote the 2014 boot version on the system and now the "f11" option sees my 3tb external drive. Simple fix, and the images are still created using the 2015 TI engine.

Good to read this since I too thought I was losing my marbles. Never had an issue up till now. I spoke with Support - they sent me a link to a boot ISO. The download won't run from here and I have closed the chat window. Is there a link to this boot image somewhere please? Thanks.

Hi Bob,

That's good to know that you've found a way of getting it to work on your PC, but I don't think the problem has been solved. You've found a way of making it work for those people who have installed the F11 Recovery Mode onto their hard drive. Unfortunately, if your hard drive fails or gets corrupted, you will not be able to restore anything using F11 at startup. This is where you will be relying on a Rescue Media, which for you is likely to fail if your F11 boot failed before you overwrote it with the TI 2014 startup as you have mentioned above. I haven't chosen to implement the F11 boot option onto any of my systems, so I haven't been able to test and verify whether it also suffers from the same problem as the Recovery Media, so you've highlighted a valuable bit of information. Hopefully, Acronis will address this problem also.

Having received a phone call from Acronis a few days ago with an assurance that they will be escalating the problem to a higher level, I can now report that I have had further correspondence from their Support department. They sent me a link to a bootable ISO image for another product of theirs - Acronis Backup V11.5. They asked me to burn it to CD, boot from the CD and see if the software recognizes my USB3.0 hard drive. Although not the same product as True Image, it does use the same version of Linux to boot from - BusyBox V1.20.2. I confirmed with them that the software does recognise my USB3.0 drive on all three PC's and on USB2.0 and USB3.0 sockets. They have since confirmed that there is a problem with the current Linux kernel (I assume that Acronis omitted something when they built this version of the kernel for TI 2015 as the same version of kernel works with Backup 11.5). They have also confirmed that they will release an update for True Image which will incorporate a fix to this problem. They informed me that they don't want to release an update until Microsoft Windows 10 has been released so that they can test it on this new Windows version. This really isn't the response that I wanted to hear - Windows 10 is set for release later this year! So until then, those of us that have recognised that we have a problem with the standard Rescue Media will need other solutions, whether it be another product from a different software company or WinPE based media. But for those people who are not yet aware of the fact that they won't be able to use TI 2015 Recovery Media to restore their hard drive after they experience a problem? It looks like Acronis are happy to leave them in this appalling situation until later in the year. Let's hope that Acronis change this attitude and test the update on the available Windows 10 pre-release versions very soon and issue this vital update sooner rather than later.

Ridiculous. I am filing a dispute/claim at PayPal to get my money back. I don't even want to tally up the hours I spent working on this to deal with my failing hard drive. No wonder I can't back up my machine!

Oh yeah -- and I am four days out of support on software that has never worked, so now they want to charge me $20 for support? They need to just fix the dang image and post it for download. We do not all have the luxury to wait until Windows 10 is released.