Anyone successfully created a USB bootable recovery image with Acronis?

[Talldog]

I've installed the trial version of Acronis along with the hotfix that's supposed to fix this problem, but I still get an invalid signature when I try to boot my Pro from the USB drive. Has anyone gotten this to work?

 

[Cowboy]

I've installed the trial version of Acronis along with the hotfix that's supposed to fix this problem, but I still get an invalid signature when I try to boot my Pro from the USB drive. Has anyone gotten this to work?

Was "Invalid Signature" the actual message or is secure boot failing because the Acronis image is not signed? Did you disable "Secure Boot"?

 

[Talldog]

"Invalid Digital Signature" was the actual message. I was googling all over the place and ran across something somewhere that said that the hotfix only works on 32-bit. I don't know whether that's true, but I did a clean install of the trial software followed by install of the hotfix and it didn't work. No way I'm going to disable Secure Boot for this software. I ripped it out and installed Macrium Standard and had no problem booting their USB image and restoring from it.

 

[Cowboy]

I keep reading about people who feel secure that they have Acronis running and are doing backups, but I can't get any answer as to whether or not they have successfully booted from an Acronis USB device. As far as secure boot is concerned there is absolutely no problem disabling that and booting from a source that does not have a Microsoft signature on it. I have created WinPE 4.0 UEFI images on USB drives and booted the Surface from them successfully and not encountered any residual problems. Secure boot is just that; a security measure. I believe that you are correct in stating that the hotfix and Acronis 2013 Plus Pack are all 32 bit solutions and therefore not compatible with UEFI. If we could also turn UEFI off and boot in legacy mode then 32 bit would work, but sadly they have disabled that feature on the Surface. I have heard a lot of good things about Macrium and even reviewed their menu driven process for creating a USB recovery image and it looked pretty slick. Acronis has been promising to support UEFI for almost 2 years and they finally do using a Linux CD but they don't support a USB stick. If they don't get it in gear I think Macrium is going to eat their lunch and Macrium is a lot cheaper than Acronis for the server versions.

I am pleased to hear you got it going and thanks for the feedback.

 

[Nuspieds]

I have a registered version of Acronis True Image 2013 and I was able to successfully boot my USB Rescue Media.

 

[Cowboy]

I have a registered version of Acronis True Image 2013 and I was able to successfully boot my USB Rescue Media.

Is that WinPE based or Linux based?

 

[Nuspieds]

Is that WinPE based or Linux based?

Acronis True Image 2013 doesn't give that option...when you select "Rescue Media Builder" from its Start screen, it's just a matter of clicking the Next button a couple of times, but none of those dialog screens is regarding WinPE vs. Linux.

 

[Cowboy]

So when you boot into it do you get the Windows logo indicating it is WinPE or do you get the "Acronis UEFI loader ......" indicating it is Linux. Also, when the boot is complete, if you are in WinPE you can hit Alt+Tab and switch into the WinPE window where you can run diskpart, Bcdedit, etc.

 

[Arizona Willie]

How much room do you need on a USB drive for the Acronis Boot Image?
Does it have to be the ONLY thing on the USB drive?

I always used CD's for my emergency boot disk but, of course, the Surface doesn't have one of those.
But I suppose if someone had an external DVD drive that hooked up with a USB cable that would probably work for the Surface.
I just made my backup using an external hard drive via the USB port, so I would think an external DVD drive would work also.

 

[Cowboy]

How much room do you need on a USB drive for the Acronis Boot Image?
Does it have to be the ONLY thing on the USB drive?

About 325MB for the WinPE version.

No.

 

[Nuspieds]

So when you boot into it do you get the Windows logo indicating it is WinPE or do you get the "Acronis UEFI loader ......" indicating it is Linux. Also, when the boot is complete, if you are in WinPE you can hit Alt+Tab and switch into the WinPE window where you can run diskpart, Bcdedit, etc.

No, I do not get the Windows logo. This is what happens:

1) On the boot screen with the "Surface" text, I get two options: "Press 1 for Acronis; Press 2 to continue booting". This is all in plain black-and-white text that overwrite part of the "Surface" text.

2) I press "1" and then I get the "Acronis Loader" and then it start to load and finally the UI appears.

Let me know if you need more details, then I can do another reboot and look specifically for what you want to know.

 

[Cowboy]

Thank you very much. That is exactly what I wanted to know. I appears you are booting from the Linux based media.