Acronis True Image Backup without Rebooting? How is this possible?

I recently installed Acronis True Image Home 2009 and I created a system image for my primary drive which is dual SSD in Raid0.

I don't understand why Acronis did not prompt me to reboot my computer. Can it really create an accurate system image while Windows is running? Shouldn't it be necessary for the program to reboot.

I'm concerned that it may be leaving out some important system files that can only be accessed when Windows is not running.

I am about to do a clean install of windows, so I will need to ensure this system image contains all my OS and application files.

 

This really isn't an answer, but the create system image that's built into Windows 7 behaves the same way. It creates the system image without having to shutdown or restart, and I've always wondered why. I never had any problems with restoring my computer from the images though.

 

Previously I used the Win7 backup feature and I was prompted to reboot my computer.

I tried to use Win7 backup again, but it fails to load due to a Volume Shadow Copy problem, perhaps because I have disabled the Volume Shadow Copy service on my SSD, which is why I installed Acronis.

 

I have/use both programs to create HD images with Acronis TI Home 2009 my favorite (other users may have different experiences/opinions) and have never had a problem with a backup or restore.

I also have never had a problem with Windows 7 backup/restore and neither program ever asked me to reboot.

If you are really concerned with Acronis not requiring a reboot you can (and should) create an Acronis boot disk allowing you to boot from the CD and restore to a new HD if you need to. You can also boot from the CD and create the HD image without being in the Windows environment if desired.

 

OK I started the process of restoring to the back up file created by Acronis and my laptop rebooted during the restore process and it has been sitting in a black screen state for the past 20 minutes. The USB drive containing the restore file seems to be active.

Is it normal to see a black screen for such a long time when restoring from Acronis backup? shouldn't I see some sort of GUI indicating restore progress?

How long should I wait before attempting to interrupt this black screen?

EDIT: could this be related to the fact that I'm using a USB 3.0 external drive to restore the system image?

 

I don't understand "I started the process of restoring to the back up file created by Acronis". Do you mean you started the restore of a backup image you had saved to an external HD?

If you booted from an Acronis CD or restore CD you created, you should have selected that you want to perform a restore and you would see a GUI indicating restore progress. You should not be seeing a black screen.

 

I started the restore of a backup image I saved to a USB 3.0 external drive.

I did not boot from an Acronis CD, I began the restore process from Windows by running the Acronis app and selecting Restore from Backup.

I was prompted to reboot and during the reboot process windows did not load, instead my laptop screen went black, and it has been in the same condition for about 1 hour. I tried pressing various keys and nothing happens. I'm worried about performing a hard reset in the middle of this system image restore, but it seems perhaps this will be necessary.

I don't know if this is relevant, but I'm restoring to a different laptop. I have two identical laptops. One of them I will return to HP, but I wanted to transfer the primary disk image to the other laptop with all applications and windows settings, etc., intact. If the hard drives were normal 2.5" drives, I would simply remove one and use Easeus Partition Magic, or similar application to transfer the image to an external 2.5" USB enclosure; however, both laptops have dual 1.8" SSDs in a caddy set to Raid0.

 

Why in the world would you disable VSS? There is no reason to do so, on any kind of drive. In any case, yes, that is exactly why your backup doesn't work. Volume shadow copies are needed in order to be able to backup a live file system.

There is no restore, your system is crashed. If the system was restoring, you should see a GUI indicating the restore progress. Do you see any disk activity? Most likely you will have to perform a hard reset via the power button, although you can try if Ctrl-Alt-Del gets you out of this.

 

I performed a hard reset.

I ran Acronis True Image again and activated the restore from backup. Upon reboot, the same process resulted

(1) "Starting Acronis Loader..." message

(2) black screen

 

Does this Acronis loader crash have something to do with the fact that in the Restore options menu within Acronis, I selected in addition to the C: partition, "MBR and Track 0"?

Should I restore the C: partition but not the "master boot record and track 0"?

 

I tried (1) switching to a USB 2.0 port instead of the 3.0 port and (2) deselecting "MBR and Track 0" from the restore menu options.

In both cases I had the same problem - message indicating "Starting Acronis Loader..." and then black screen again.

 

All good questions but I don't have the answers.

First, it would have been helpful if you had mentioned the dual SSD's and Raid 0 configuration at the beginning. I have never backed up an image from such a configuration and don't know if Windows 7 or Acronis is capable to create an image of that setup. My experience is imaging a single HD at a time with either of the software mentioned.

When I perform an image backup of a single HD I only see the partitions to backup, i.e. C: or multiple partitions if present. I have never seen a breakout of MBR or Track 0???

Sorry but I hope someone with experience backing up / Restoring Raid configured systems responds to your questions soon. I have a feeling that Acronis is confused by the Raid setup or the method used for creating the image of such a setup.

 

I enabled Volume Shadow Copy service on both the source and destination laptops and tried using Windows backup. I was able to create a system image for the source laptop, but when running the recovery manager on the target laptop, I'm advised that the recovery manager needs to access the active windows partition and I must exit Recovery Manager and reboot from a windows repair disc.

When I boot from the windows repair disc, the HP recovery manager lists several options, but the specific options I need to select are "greyed out"

 

In case anyone else experiences this, I figured out what the problem was.

Windows Recovery Discs and System Repair Discs don't contain the drivers for USB 3.0 ports. The error message I was receiving had to do with using the 3.0 port, even though it is backwards compatible with USB 2.0.

Since I only have one USB 2.0 port, I had to load the system repair disc from my Blu-Ray drive connected to the USB 2.0 port and as soon as it loaded the repair menu, I had to quickly remove it and plug in the external hard drive to the same USB 2.0 port before it scanned for system images. I was able to successfully restore the system image from the source laptop onto the target laptop SSDs in Raid0.

 

Very interesting. Thank you for providing the solution to your problem. One more thing I learned this day.

After reading your reply I did a quick read about Windows 7 and USB 3.0. The drivers for USB 3.0 are installed through Windows Update (or other) and as you said they are not native to the OS.