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Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 24. Apr 2013, 20:08
by daemorok
I have VirtualBox version 4.2.12r84980 installed and Acronis Backup and Recovery 11.5.32266
I created bootable media inside acronis using the WinPE option. This bootable media works on my laptop and various other computers.

When i try to boot a virtual machine off of the same CD I get a single error window from the Acronis plugin with the following errors:

Cannot connect to 'localhost' I have attached 2 images with the error message details

The last command that is run from the command prompt before the error comes up is:"x:\program files\acronis\backupadnrecovery\trueimage_starter.exe"

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 24. Apr 2013, 21:37
by Martin
Which network adaptor type is configured for this VM?

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 24. Apr 2013, 23:38
by daemorok
I have tried it set as NAT and as Bridged, same result both times.

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 25. Apr 2013, 10:55
by noteirak
Try all the possible adapters types (PCNet, Intel) - most likely, it just doesn't have the drivers for the specific network adapter you've configured.

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 30. Apr 2013, 21:28
by daemorok
noteirak wrote:Try all the possible adapters types (PCNet, Intel) - most likely, it just doesn't have the drivers for the specific network adapter you've configured.
I have run through every possible network adapter configuration and still get the same error everytime.

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 30. Apr 2013, 21:45
by noteirak
Which network mode for the VM are you using?

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 1. May 2013, 07:20
by daemorok
noteirak wrote:Which network mode for the VM are you using?
I literally tried every possible combination of mode and adapter type.

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 1. May 2013, 12:04
by noteirak
Then 2 possiblities :
1. Your Acronis doesn't have a driver for the emulated NIC hardwares. You need to seek support with Acronis directly.
2. Your network config is not good, and you need to troubleshoot it (which is out of scope of this forum).

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 1. May 2013, 17:30
by daemorok
noteirak wrote:Then 2 possiblities :
1. Your Acronis doesn't have a driver for the emulated NIC hardwares. You need to seek support with Acronis directly.
2. Your network config is not good, and you need to troubleshoot it (which is out of scope of this forum).
I am not sure if you have ever dealt with Acronis' tech support. They are essentially useless.

What do you mean by my network config is not good? Every other VM I have created the network works, even this VM if I let it boot to windows has network and internet connectivity. It is only when I try to boot the liveCD that i have issues.

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 1. May 2013, 19:57
by noteirak
daemorok wrote:I am not sure if you have ever dealt with Acronis' tech support. They are essentially useless.
I never had that chance, no. But I take your word for it :)
daemorok wrote:Every other VM I have created the network works, even this VM if I let it boot to windows has network and internet connectivity. It is only when I try to boot the liveCD that i have issues.
Then your network config is not the issue.

What I would personally do is inject myself the drivers for the cards into the ISO you have. You can use the DISM tool included into Windows 7 AIK for that purpose. But is not really in scope of this forum :)

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 1. May 2013, 20:50
by daemorok
noteirak wrote:
daemorok wrote:I am not sure if you have ever dealt with Acronis' tech support. They are essentially useless.
I never had that chance, no. But I take your word for it :)
daemorok wrote:Every other VM I have created the network works, even this VM if I let it boot to windows has network and internet connectivity. It is only when I try to boot the liveCD that i have issues.
Then your network config is not the issue.

What I would personally do is inject myself the drivers for the cards into the ISO you have. You can use the DISM tool included into Windows 7 AIK for that purpose. But is not really in scope of this forum :)
I will take a look at that DISM Tool.

Thank you for all your help

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 2. May 2013, 11:00
by mpack
Does Acronis still come with a BartPE plugin? (I haven't upgraded my copy of Acronis since 2009).

If yes, I would say: practice making bootable PE disk with BartPE. VMs make it very easy to test these. Include the Acronis BartPE plugin in the ISO package. I made one of these a while back and the bootable BartPE ISO has proved very useful.

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 2. May 2013, 20:45
by daemorok
mpack wrote:Does Acronis still come with a BartPE plugin? (I haven't upgraded my copy of Acronis since 2009).

If yes, I would say: practice making bootable PE disk with BartPE. VMs make it very easy to test these. Include the Acronis BartPE plugin in the ISO package. I made one of these a while back and the bootable BartPE ISO has proved very useful.
This a Win PE disc created from within Acronis using the most recent Windows AIK files. When I try to restore using a starndard (linux based) Acronis bootable disc the restore process starts but never completes. Someone suggested using the PE disc instead and now this problem has popped up. Do you think using Bart PE instead would have better results?

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 3. May 2013, 11:38
by mpack
I have no idea if BartPE will give better results for you. All I know is that that's what I did, and it worked first time for me. ISTR you will need access to an XP Pro setup CD ISO for BartPE to to rejig into a BartPE recovery CD.

Re: Booting a VirtualBox to Acronis 11.5 PE disc

Posted: 4. May 2013, 01:55
by daemorok
I created a BartPE disc using an older Acronis plugin and now it is loading Acronis with no errors. This however has revealed a new problem.
The hard drive containing the Acronis image file gives the "Disk is not formatted" error when attempting to browse it.
The disk works in the host OS (windows 7 64).

I have added a second hard drive to the virtual machine (this is where the image is stored). It is an external USB disk. I added it to the VM using this command:

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "<FILE PATH>" -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive*

Where <FILE PATH> is where the vdmk will be stored and * is the actual number of the Physical Drive from disk management. The command was run from ad administrative level command prompt.

To test I added the same drive to a fresh WinXP virtual machine and I get the same "Disk is not formatted" error. However in disk management the drive shows up as healthy.

Not sure where to go from here.