Acronis TI v10 and Vista

[Noreen]

Thanks Steve. From what I can understand (which isn't much) it seems that the problems arise if you attempt to do just a C partition restore whereas there is no problem if you do a complete hard drive restore. I only do complete drive backups so hopefully I'll be OK. The thing is I won't know until I do a restore and I'm just not going to risk just trying it out. Hopefully I'll have the disc that Sebby is going to send me which will be further insurance. That'll be useful to have in any case. I do have a basic disc from Hi-Grade (the laptop makers) but it's not intended as a startup/repair disc.

Leaving Acronis aside this Vista startup/repair disc business does seem to be a problem for customers who aren't supplied with a Vista DVD by the machine makers. What are they supposed to do?

[Sebby]

It's downloading as we speak, Noreen, and should be in the post tomorrow.

[Noreen]

Thanks Sebby, you're a star.

[Sebby]

Pleasure.

[Simon]

Nice one, Seb. 

[Noreen]

Sebby, I forgot 

I also didn't mention yesterday that Royal Mail tried to deliver the Acronis package in the morning while I was out (it required a signature) and now I've got to go to the Delivery Office to pick it up.

[Sebby]

That's annoying. The recovery disc is in the post, so you should get them around the same time.

[Noreen]

  Sebby

[Noreen]

CD safely received, thanks Sebby. Would it be possible to test this disc, without actually doing any repair etc, just to see if it runs OK? I don't want to do anything else disastrous to this laptop.

[Rik]

It should be possible to just boot then backout, Noreen, but wait till someone with Vista confirms this.

[Sebby]

It's a pure boot disc AFAIK, so you should be able to test it then just remove the CD and reboot.

[Noreen]

I'm beginning to think that this Acronis business is cursed. I put the CD (Sebby's) into the drive and restarted. I heard the CD drive working with the light showing but after that it went straight into Windows as usual. Is this what is supposed to happen because I thought I would get some sort of menu?

I had a look in the BIOS settings and in Boot Priority Order it says...........
1: IDE CD: TSSTcorp CDDVDW followed by a ref no.
2: SATA HDD: Fujitsu followed by a ref no.
3: USB CDROM:
4: USB HDD:
5: USB Key:
6: USB FDC:
7: BOOT TO LAN: Realtek Boot Agent
if that's of any help.

Prior to this, I went to the Royal Mail Delivery Office to collect the Acronis software which they had been unable to deliver because I was out and it needed a signature. Only to discover that it had not yet been returned to them even though it was supposed to have been as it was over 24 hours. So now I have to go back on Monday.

[Sebby]

The boot order looks okay, Noreen. I know with the Vista CD a message is displayed saying "press any key to boot from CD". I wonder if it's something similar with this boot disc?

[Steve]

On my toshiba laptop I have to press f12 before power to obtain boot options

[Rik]

That boot order should be OK, Noreen. Do you know anyone who would let you test the disk (or do you have an Acronis boot disk to hand - if so, and that boots, it sounds like something is wrong with the CD).

I'd complain with to RM, it means someone is carrying around your mail when they shouldn't be. Could you not get them to re-deliver on Monday?

[Sebby]

I should've tested it before I sent it, but I got home so late on on Thursday (had a work function) and wanted to get it in the post Friday. Perhaps I'll burn another copy and try it myself later today.

[Noreen]

Did you use Nero to burn it, Sebby? Reading through the huge amount of comments on that download page, apparently there is a problem with Nero. It also says that you must burn it as an ISO image.

[Sebby]

Nope, I used DeepBurner.

[Noreen]

Sebby, see my edit above,

[Sebby]

It was burnt as an ISO, Noreen. I can assure you the burning was fine. I'll see if I can test it later.

[Steve]

Noreen, I burnt the vista recovery iso using nero 8 burning rom in xp and then over to laptop pressed and held f12,power on, arrow over to cd drive> select. Then it gives option to start from cd/dvd. It then states windows loading files (getting nervous now), moves on to the vista install screen, location,keyboard etc,at this stage I cancelled and booted vista normally without problems. I suppose its a bit like a vista version of bartPE?

[Noreen]

I tried again but pressed F12 this time while booting as suggested by Steve, there were several loud screeching beeps then a white text on black screen came up with some text about Realtek (I think) there was a flashing cursor and after a while it said press any key to boot from CD or DVD. I pressed the spacebar but perhaps I was too late as it then went into Windows normally. I was so frightened by the beeps that I was extremely nervous.

Perhaps my best bet would be to get on to the laptop makers and ask if they can supply me with a start-up CD. The CD that they supplied actually overwrites some of the stuff already on the computer and Support told me during my problems last Wednesday that it was NOT a start-up CD and not to try to use it for that purpose. 

[Sebby]

The beeps are probably because F12 doesn't have a function on your laptop, Noreen - nothing to worry about.

It sounds like the problem is that you have a press a key to continue. Perhaps give it another try.

[Noreen]

Sebby, it worked! What had happened the first time was that I was watching the CD light to see if it was doing anything and so missed the line of text at the top left of the screen, "press any key to boot from CD or DVD". There was no need to press any F key. I went through the process outlined by Steve, my heart pounding as the screen came up about installing Windows, I pressed next and up came the screen with all the repair options. Thanks again to Sebby  and to Steve  for their encouragement.

[Rik]

Great news, Noreen.