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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 7:34 pm 
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OK... Where to start on this??? ;)

There has been recent discussion on these forums about 4096K (4K) sector size drives and what imaging software that will work with these drives. The three mostly referred have been the Built in Windows Imaging, Macrium and Acronis. Well I seem to have the answer... :mrgreen: Please keep in mind that these tests were done on a Windows 7 Ultimate system. Results on Windows 8/8.1/10 may possibly differ but I seriously doubt.

1) Windows built in imaging... It just is not going to work as it cannot complete a successful image backup to these drives. If you cannot create the image backup you surely cannot restore. :ugeek: Since it is free I would still recommend using this tool but only when putting the image to a 512 sector size drive. Interface is as easy as it gets.

2) Macrium... I did very little with this, just one attempt, but it failed when creating the image to a 4K drive. Again this is a viable package if you have a drive to store the images that is 512 as to sector size. The user interface is somewhat complicated but not too hard to figure out.

3) Acronis 2016... Full success in both creating the image to a 4K drive and restoring. The user interface is between the total simplicity of the Windows Imaging and Macrium. While I found that it presented possibilities I did not fully understand the help system made it very easy to decide. The help system is extensive and even available from the recovery boot media.

However there are still some MINOR issues to consider that relate to SSD drives as not all SSD drives are the same. The following quote is in response to a query that bbarry made to Acronis as to the feasibility of successfully creating and restoring an image made with Acronis to a specific type of SSD drive.
Response from Acronis to a query... wrote:
Your drive is one of the new NGFF form factor devices. In order to restore your backup image to a replacement drive for that device you would need to use a recovery media based on the WinPE so that you have the proper driver support.

This should not be an issue as the Acronis rescue media builder gives that option.
Attachment:
Acronis-media-type.jpg
Acronis-media-type.jpg [ 50.66 KiB | Viewed 11663 times ]

If you click on the "How do I choose media type?" link at the bottom it will explain. You do seem to have to download a free plug-in from Acronis.

My results were a total success on both creating and restoring an image to my partitioned SSD.

A few added notes...

1) While I had total success on the creation and restore to/from a 4K drive with Acronis my system is no longer exactly the same. Once to Windows everything is exactly the same but my Windows load screen has changed. Please remember that this test was done on a Windows 7 system. If you still use Windows 7, or have in the past, you are familiar with the load screen showing the 4 colors of the MS flag coming together. That screen is no longer there. There is still the loading screen but the graphic is that of the circa Windows XP segmented green bar at the bottom. The probable cause is that, when I did the restore, I chose to restore everything including the MBR and sector zero. I assume that one of these two added options on the restore is the cause of the change in graphics. I will say that the end result of the boot is the same, nothing different once Windows is loaded and, to be honest, it seems that my boot time is slightly quicker.

2) The restore took a LONG time, an hour plus. Still it must be considered that I was restoring from an external connected to a USB 2 port. I created the image through a USB 3 port but and it was fairly quick for a full image. The problem is that my system cannot access the USB 3 ports until Windows drivers are installed so I had to do the restore via USB 2.

I MAY do this again creating the image on my internal 4TB 4K drive but doubt that I'll get around to it. Let's face it... we already know the results. The restore would obviously be exponentially faster.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:44 pm 
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Jay, that was an excellent post. The Acronis KB article that addresses the current shortcoming for restoring a Samsung SSD like mine is: https://kb.acronis.com/content/57521

Acronis hope to soon be releasing a build that will resolve this issue. FYI, the current build of Acronis is 6027.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 9:04 pm 
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Thank you. :)

And yes, my build is the current 6027.

Actually I don't see any real issue as the ability to create recovery media to address the issue is already in place. Of course it would be better if one did not have to decide between the recovery disk format especially for a novice user. Still Acronis seems way ahead of the curve as it is the only one I tested with full success.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 9:52 pm 
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My understanding of the Acronis backup/restore issue related to some Samsung SSDs was that recovery became a problem if you tried to restore to a replacement drive. So I went back to the Acronis forum and asked the question: "If I wanted to restore my backup image to that same solid-state drive from which the image was created (instead of to a replacement drive), wouldn't that be a normal restore?"

The answer I received from Bobbo_3COX1 was as follows:
"If it's a standard SATA drive, yes. If you're still talking about the 950 Pro, then no. The 950 pro's do not have default linux driver support as of 2016 v6027. While in Windows, you can back these drives up just fine as Windows has the drivers for the 950 Pro. However, when you attempt a recovery in Windows, it will boot into Linux recovery media and drivers are not there in this version. Likewise, if you try to recover with your default linux bootable recovery media - still no drivers available. So, you'd have to create WinPE using ADK 5.0 (Win8.1 ADK but doesn't mean you have to have Win 8.1 installed) or 6.0 (Win10 ADK but doesn't mean you have to have Win 10 installed). That will provide the necessary drivers for the 950Pro in the offline booablce reocvery media.

Linux driver support for these drives shoudl be coming this months update - fingers crossed. Shouldn't be too much longer until we find out though."

But as Jay pointed out above, this is not really an issue because Acronis True Image 2016 already has a solution in place that should work. Specifically, Acronis presents a screen for selecting the type of bootable rescue media that you want to create, and one of the choices is a WinPE-based media with an Acronis plugin.

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 Post Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2016 10:22 pm 
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Just as an added note...

To set up the Acronis Win-PE restore media you will need one more thing other than the Acronis Plug-in. You will also need the Win 8.1 or 10 ADK. Here is a link to the Windows 10 ADK.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... 13721.aspx
I am not even going to bother downloading the ADK as my SSD drive is not one that has this issue. Even if I downloaded, any test that I performed would be useless as my drive does not apply as to this issue. This free ADK package supplies the needed drivers.

LOL! Personally I would suggest that you just do not mess up your system until Acronis has this rectified. :rofl2: :mrgreen:

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 7:19 am 
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Interesting post Jay, very informative. My latest issue of Acronis is the 2014 version. I used to update the program every year but decided not to bother any more as I never saw anything added that justified the cost each year.

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 8:38 am 
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jaylach wrote:
LOL! Personally I would suggest that you just do not mess up your system until Acronis has this rectified. :rofl2: :mrgreen:


Who Me??? What makes you think I would do anything to mess up my system? If I didn't do a little 'messing' every now and then, you and other CH members would probably get bored. As you know, my desire to experiment is much greater than my knowledge base. :D

But I'm not going to download ADK. However, I am going to create the Acronis WinPE-based recovery media to have just in case. In answer to one of my questions, a member of the Acronis forum (Enchantech) said "Yes, this WinPE based recovery contains the needed drivers to work with your drive, and Yes the WinPE media would suffice in both restoring the image to the same drive and/or a replacement drive."

Bottom line, I am hopeful that Acronis will come out soon with the build to correct this SSD limitation. For the record, the Samsung model that I have is the 512GB 950 Pros PCIe 3.0 SSD.

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 10:17 am 
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Hi guys

Couple of things.

1. BB. Unless you already have the ADK installed on your system, you will have to download it to make a winpre recovery disk/usb key. No way around it.

2. I read the KB article from Acronis, and the wording about a fix was a bit ambiguous at best. Hopefully Acronis has changed it's stripes so to speak but the reason I abandoned it way back was their history of not fixing bugs and release an update, but fixing the bugs in the next version and charging an update fee. Time will tell on this. Since I bought the upgrade to 2016 I've not seen any new builds, compared to 3 or 4 new builds with Macrium

3. Jay, what you saw with the boot up screen is a function of the boot stuff restored. Bit strange though for you. When I got rid of the 100mb boot partitions and made the c: partitions bootable, I not only ended up with the same graphic you see, but also when boot manager comes up it said windows Vista. Still booted into Win 7 of course. Images and full restores still had the same boot graphics. Then one day for the heck of it I tried Macriums Boot repair. Bingo I now had the same WIn 7 graphic you are used to and also it says Win 7 in the boot manager. All images and restores now report the same thing. So it's clearly something somewhere in the boot code.

4. Jay, you commented on how easy WIndows Imaging GUI is. Well, I am not sure I'd agree, as imaging is only half the story, then there is the restore. A test. Use Windows Imaging, and take 3 images of your system. Note, you do not have to move the first image out of the way, simply take two more images. Then boot to the recovery, which of course is the windows repair disk, and find where you can choose which of the 3 you can use to restore. It's there, but....

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 9:10 pm 
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Peter2150 wrote:
1. BB. Unless you already have the ADK installed on your system, you will have to download it to make a winpre recovery disk/usb key. No way around it.
Pete

Hi Pete. Sadly, I never heard of the ADK until two days ago, so I doubt I have it on my system. But in the Acronis Media Builder screen, they offer the option of creating a WinPE-based media recovery disc that Acronis Tech says contains the needed drivers to work with my SSD drive.

If this is truly the case, do I still need to download ADK and then try to learn how to use it? :?

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 9:41 pm 
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The only real way to tell would be to create a WinPE recovery disk and try booting the thing Which I just did...

The process is quite simple. When I selected to create a WinPE recovery disk it stated what I was missing with download links for both that were needed.

First the Acronis Plug-in was needed and I did first. Once downloaded and installed that missing requirement went away on the WinPE disk creation dialog.

Second I clicked to download the ADK for Windows 10 (Windows 10 need not be installed). This ADK is currently being 'acquired' but looks like it is going to take a while.

Even though I have not proven everything yet (and can't as I don't have an SSD with the issue) I would suggest that you start the process by selecting to build a WinPE recovery disk and doing the downloads and installs. After the downloads and installs go ahead and create the WinPE recovery disk and boot to the thing to make sure that it boots properly.

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 Post Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2016 11:06 pm 
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OK, the downloads/installs are now done. Now, when I click to create a WinPE Recovery disk, here is my screen.
Attachment:
WinPE-acronis-boot-media-builder.jpg
WinPE-acronis-boot-media-builder.jpg [ 41.25 KiB | Viewed 11617 times ]


The plug-in download/install is pretty quick. As to the ADK it took quite a while but I can't say whether that was caused by just plain how long it takes or a bad connection to the download.

I'm just going to hazard a guess here but, since Acronis gives a viable solution to this problem, that solution involves a download/install from Microsoft. I have to wonder if the actual need for this convoluted method may not involve a discussion between Acronis and Microsoft concerning the rights for Acronis to include the needed drivers from the ADK install to be embedded within the base Acronis software.

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 Post Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 9:11 am 
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Hi Jay

All the ADK downloads take forever. It used to be that you could download an ISO file with all the PE stuff already in it. I know that was the way it was with Shadowprotect. They had to pay a license fee for every winpe download. Then Microsoft, bless them, changed that so they could no longer do that. Now you have to download the ADK's separately. This is true for Shadowprotect, Acronis, Macrium etc. That is why they have all gone to linux recovery's as that isn't an issue. Macrium has the best implementation for building the Winpe environment, bar none, but it still may involve downloading the ADK.


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