Using Acer Backup Manager to RESTORE previously backed up HDD.

mistyblue1940

I have two V3-571G laptops using Acer Backup Manager. I have backed up these systems religiously for the last 8 years, never tested the restore functionality from the bootable DVD. It doesn't work, whether I use either system's DVD on its own or the other laptop. Is there any way to invoke the restore software (which I assume must be resident on the DVD) at boot time? The BIOS boot priority has been changed to begin with CD/DVD then HDD. At boot time the emergency boot DVD is accessed, then ignored before passing control to the C drive to boot Windows 10. Any ideas please?

Accepted answers

mistyblue1940

Thanks Billsey, I realised that there were changes to the early BIOS that migrated to the UEFI in the days of Windows 7, it didn't occur to me that this could be associated! You are correct, so to answer your question, on the recovery DVD there is indeed a folder named EFI holding another folder named Microsoft with another named BOOT. That folder has a file called BCD. It is interesting that the first folder also has a folder named BOOT which has a file named BCD. Both the BCD files are 256KB in length. Its as if there are two boot options here, one using UEFI the other one the old BIOS boot. I decided to follow some comments on the web and found an article in Windows Report.com https://windowsreport.com/enable-legacy-windows-7-boot-menu-windows-10/ that showed the method of setting the BCD to either STANDARD or LEGACY. The DVD was still accidentally installed in the reader when I followed the following process in Settings
Update and Security>Recovery>Advanced Setup>Restart Now>Troubleshoot>Advanced Options>Startup Repair.
This caused the system to reboot and then accessed what I believe to be the LEGACY BOOT option in the BCD. Because I had inadvertently left the DVD installed it booted to the ABM recovery application and called for a recovery file, so you are absolutely correct with your comments, a lesson learned on my part! So now the real issue. The last backup on this system was performed on 14th April and since then there has been a failure of the C drive (a 1TB FireCuda Seagate Drive). This drive is still under warranty and Seagate have been helpful in trying to recover the data with software they provided called Premium Recovery. Because the file structure had been destroyed either from a software or hardware malfunction, I used this software in an attempt to recover the data files. There was some success here but there were still some corrupted images. In parallel I was attempting to understand why I couldn't boot from the emergency boot DVD which you have asisted with. Because the 1TB C drive was corrupted I installed the original 750GB Acer HDD which luckily still worked then placed the 1TB HDD in a clamshell with USB interface, and purchased a second 1TB FireCuda disk, To now attempt a recovery I can either recover the April backup to either the original (faulty) or new HDD once reinstalled into the ACER.
If I use the new 1TB HDD into the C slot within the Acer, will the ABM restore process succeed so a physical copy of the original HDD will now be on the new one? The faulty HDD can therefore be returned to Seagate for evaluation or replacement under warranty. I would appreciate your comments and thanks for the interest in this problem resolution

All comments

billsey

Those systems came originally with Windows 7 and a free upgrade to Windows 8, IIRC. That means they very likely have a UEFI BIOS on them. To allow booting from an external drive with UEFI you need to set Secure Boot off in the BIOS. If that doesn't allow you to boot from the DVD then there's a possibility that Acer was still configuring their recovery images with a Legacy boot environment. That would mean you need to reconfigure the BIOS for Legacy boot in order to boot from the DVD. If the DVD is set for Legacy then there will most likely not be an EFI folder on it. Do a quick look with File Explorer and show us what's on the disc.

mistyblue1940

Thanks Billsey, I realised that there were changes to the early BIOS that migrated to the UEFI in the days of Windows 7, it didn't occur to me that this could be associated! You are correct, so to answer your question, on the recovery DVD there is indeed a folder named EFI holding another folder named Microsoft with another named BOOT. That folder has a file called BCD. It is interesting that the first folder also has a folder named BOOT which has a file named BCD. Both the BCD files are 256KB in length. Its as if there are two boot options here, one using UEFI the other one the old BIOS boot. I decided to follow some comments on the web and found an article in Windows Report.com https://windowsreport.com/enable-legacy-windows-7-boot-menu-windows-10/ that showed the method of setting the BCD to either STANDARD or LEGACY. The DVD was still accidentally installed in the reader when I followed the following process in Settings
Update and Security>Recovery>Advanced Setup>Restart Now>Troubleshoot>Advanced Options>Startup Repair.
This caused the system to reboot and then accessed what I believe to be the LEGACY BOOT option in the BCD. Because I had inadvertently left the DVD installed it booted to the ABM recovery application and called for a recovery file, so you are absolutely correct with your comments, a lesson learned on my part! So now the real issue. The last backup on this system was performed on 14th April and since then there has been a failure of the C drive (a 1TB FireCuda Seagate Drive). This drive is still under warranty and Seagate have been helpful in trying to recover the data with software they provided called Premium Recovery. Because the file structure had been destroyed either from a software or hardware malfunction, I used this software in an attempt to recover the data files. There was some success here but there were still some corrupted images. In parallel I was attempting to understand why I couldn't boot from the emergency boot DVD which you have asisted with. Because the 1TB C drive was corrupted I installed the original 750GB Acer HDD which luckily still worked then placed the 1TB HDD in a clamshell with USB interface, and purchased a second 1TB FireCuda disk, To now attempt a recovery I can either recover the April backup to either the original (faulty) or new HDD once reinstalled into the ACER.
If I use the new 1TB HDD into the C slot within the Acer, will the ABM restore process succeed so a physical copy of the original HDD will now be on the new one? The faulty HDD can therefore be returned to Seagate for evaluation or replacement under warranty. I would appreciate your comments and thanks for the interest in this problem resolution

billsey

It depends somewhat on what software you were using in April to create the backup. Most backup files, not partitions, so the restore doesn't care about the partition format or size. Some backup partition images and they like to restore to a partition of the same size. If the backup software was something like Windows File History it will only have your data files backed up, so it will restore the data files only. With that you will need to install Windows, reinstall your apps and then restore the data. The older Windows 7 Backup that is an option in Windows 10 backs up both data and the OS & apps, so it will put you back pretty close to exactly where you were in April. You will then need to only reinstall apps newer than the April version and you will need to reinstall all Windows updates since then. So, what did you use for your backup?

mistyblue1940

The software used for the backup in April was Acer Backup Manager (ABM) and at that time I did a complete image backup resulting in the two files .CAL and .NBF appearing in the File Manager listing. I'm confident that the backup was successful at that time (April) and therefore my plan is to install the new 1TB HDD into the Acer system then do a restore of the April backup to this virgin drive. I assume that this new HDD is formatted and that an image restore will be successful. I have used the Windows File History backup to verify that all the folders on the 750 GB HDD could be backed up and I've checked the file contents with confidence. That backup was only relevant in 2018, but it proves the point that the Acer/750 GB system could be successfully backed up using MS Windows 10 software. Now to April 2020, a restore using ABM would place a copy of the ABM image onto the new HDD in much the same way that Seagate software copies a complete image onto a new HDD when an HDD upgrade is being performed. Once the restore is completed successfully I'll then be in a position to check what software is installed and do a Windows 10 File backup to protect the files as at April. Worst case therefore will be the loss of emails and MS Office documents for a two month period. As you have mentioned, the Windows 7 Microsoft backup software which backs up an image is available on Win 10 however the NTI Corporation who developed ABM software for Acer has their own backup software which is similar in that it backups a complete image. So in summary my plan is to do a restore from the external HDD to the new 1TB FireCuda HDD installed in the Acer system. If you have any comments please advise and I'll let you know the result. Once again thanks for your interest in resolving the LEGACY/UEFI issue.

billsey

Please do let us know how it goes.

mistyblue1940

Hi Billsey, just a quick update, it appears that using the ABM software to restore from a USB backed up HDD to a new 1TB HDD (installed within the Acer) doesn't work since it has no operating system (as the C drive) even though the recovery DVD could restore the backed up image from the USB installed backup drive. The way forward will be to make a clone of the 750GB HDD installed in the Acer to the 1TB HDD installed within a USB clamshell in the way Seagate software works for HDD upgrades. This is the process I used when I upgraded the Acer from 750GB to 1TB, so I'll be replicating this. I'll do this tomorrow and advise the outcome

mistyblue1940

I figured that by cloning the old 750 HDD to a new 1TB HDD that the cloning software (from Seagate) would initialise the disc and this worked. I then successfully used the Acer ABM boot DVD to invoke the restore software. That could not occur since the source box was empty and would not accept an entry. To the right there is a box titled Image. Pressing this resulted in a 5 line display as follows
SYSTEM RESERVED (C:)
Acer (D:)
PQSERVICE (E:)
CD Drive (F:) DISC_1
Boot (X:)
Selecting any of these options failed to have it entered into the Source Box.
In addition the Destination: Box was preset to Acer (D:). There appears to be no way to select the Source and Destination Discs, I had installed the last backup HDD completed in April this year which I expected to be the recovery disc (E:) The 5 Images above dont make any logical sense and appear to preselected and not changeable.
To prove the point I used the ABM software to create a backup file to a 4TB USB HDD (E:) and created a new Bootable Disc. This worked successfully from the C: drive to the E: drive but once again the reboot to the recovery DVD failed to recognise the E: drive as the source even though the backup had just been completed. So at least it's consistently Bad!
It appears therefore that the ABM bootable disc has preset disc parameters that bear no resemblance to the Acer (Microsoft) standard.
Do you have any suggestions for setting the bootable ABM recovery software disc structure that reflects the above standard? It highlights the point that backup software is useless if the files cannot be restored!

billsey

I wonder why it's assigning a drive letter to the SYSTEM RESERVED partition? That is likely the 100MB FAT32 EFI partition and should be hidden. If that were not on the list you would shift all the drive letters down one, except the X: drive which is just a temporary RAM drive the boot environment creates.

mistyblue1940

I feel the disc allocation is predefined and doesn't make any sense. Its almost as if the restore software is missing the option to define the relevant disc resources. The second system has never had a HDD upgrade although both have been upgraded from W7 to W10. Also interesting that the backup (ABM) software selected both the C Drive as source and E drive as destination, yet couldn't do a restore when attempted immediately after the backup. I have used the boot disc from the second Acer which comes up with the same Restore Disc Image menu. As for the first boot disc menu, this bears no resemblance to the installed discs and doesn't allow for the manual assigning of drive numbers. The menu has a box for the source entry yet wont allow any selection to be made. It will not allow for the Destination box to be filled and is preset to Acer (D:). I have also tried trying to restore the seccond system from it's boot disc with the same results, that is 5 options as above, none of which can be selected, and all wrong. So there is consistency here. There must be some way to have a boot disc that is set up to restore from the E: disc to the C: disc or have a method of changing the source and destination specs within the recovery software on the DVD. So the bottom line here is that 2 identical systems have been backed up over the last 8 years or so and there has never been a way to restore the backed up system image on either of them. The only common denominator here is the upgrade from W7 to W10. Do you have any comments or suggestions?

billsey

At this point I'm going to say use a different backup scheme since this one just doesn't seem to be working. I use the Windows 7 backup that's included with the OS. Do a full system and create the recovery image, then run backup at regular intervals.

mistyblue1940

You are quite correct, and that is why the W7 backup software is still supported in W10. There are also others that are effective, ABM was developed by NTI corp, however they are not prepared to support this (ABM) product. Seagate have a good management system developed by Acronis, the Seagate version is free but only for Seagate users and that's understandable. It is well documented by Acronis and is my pick.
The key here is to use software that has a long term commitment from the vendors, in my case no one was prepared to commit to supporting the Acer Backup Management software (ABM), my predicament is from having relied upon Acer or NTI to do so. This issue underscores the importance of having supported software and not only backing up regularly but verifying that the restore process works. In this case the move from W7 to W10 may have caused the failure, we may never know! It would only take Microsoft to terminate support for the W7 backup software you use, along with one of the many MS software updates and you could well be in the same position where the restore may not work. Excuse my sceptacism! I will never use vendor specific disc management software again be it from Acer, HP or who ever. Thanks for your assistance during this exercise billsey particularly in sorting the BIOS UEFI vs LEGACY boot issue, this post is unresolved and the need is to have a restore process that works from a DVD with the Acer Backup Management software. Any further comments are welcome from the community.

Quick Links

Top Members

Weekly

Puraw 220

StevenGen 100

poooooooooop69 60

GR08 57

Dimm 45

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel® Evo™

Game Pass

Acer Corner

Gaming on Chromebook

Swift Series Intel^® Evo™