Acronis Universal Restore lets you restore your system to different hardware environment; Acronis Universal Restore allows to change Windows Hardware Abstraction Layer and install HDD controller and NIC drivers
This article refers to:
- Acronis Universal Restore
Description
Acronis Universal Restore is the unique technology developed in Acronis that allows changing Windows Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL.dll) and device drivers.
It is designed to allow a machine to boot its operating system initially after a restoration/deployment of an image to hardware that is different from the one it was taken from, and then proceed with the installation of other drivers and configuration.
Acronis Universal Restore allows changing Windows Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL.dll) and install mass storage boot device drivers into the system.
Part of the recovery process, It installs boot device drivers (e.g. hard drive or RAID controller drivers) into the system, so that the operating system can boot from this boot device. If there are proper NIC drivers present in the folder with the drivers, Acronis Universal Restore will copy them into the restored system and will schedule their installation on Windows boot-up.
(!) All the other drivers (e.g. video and sound card drivers, plug and play drivers) are not installed by Acronis Universal Restore, as they can be installed in Windows after the successful migration.
Acronis Universal Restore is applicable for:
- Instant recovery of a failed system on different hardware (hard drive controllers, RAID controllers, NIC) (Acronis Universal Restore);
- Hardware-independent cloning and deployment of operating systems (Acronis Universal Deploy and Acronis Universal Restore);
- Real-to-virtual and virtual-to-real computer migration for system recovery, testing and other purposes (Acronis Universal Restore).
Universal Restore is not available:
- when the image being recovered is located in Acronis Secure Zone or
- when using Acronis Active Restore,
because these features are primarily meant for instant data recovery on the same machine.
(!) Acronis Universal Restore does not support or install plug and play drivers.
Acronis Universal Restore is required to restore a system to another hardware configuration. It does automatically detect if the HAL should be changed (and changes it) and also installs drivers for HDD controllers and NIC (if they can be found).
If any system-critical driver cannot be found, one will get a warning message during the restoration process.
More information
(!) You do not need to have Acronis Universal Restore installed to back up a system. You only need Acronis Universal Restore to restore a system to dissimilar hardware.
Acronis Universal Restore is available for the following products:
- Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, Acronis Cyber Backup Cloud
- Acronis Cyber Backup 12.5
- Acronis Backup 12
- Acronis Backup 11.7 (as a separate tool)
- Acronis Backup 11.5 (prior to Update 5 and later as a separate tool)
- Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5
- Acronis Backup & Recovery 11 Editions
- Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Editions
- Acronis True Image Echo Server for Windows
- Acronis True Image Echo Enterprise Server
- Acronis True Image Echo Workstation
- Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office (all editions)
- Acronis True Image 2021 (all editions)
- Acronis True Image 2020 (all editions)
- Acronis True Image 2019
- Acronis True Image 2018
- Acronis True Image 2017, Acronis True Image Subscription
- Acronis True Image 2016, Acronis True Image Cloud (Release 2016)
- Acronis True Image 2015
- Acronis True Image 2014 Premium
- True Image 2013 Plus Pack by Acronis
- Acronis True Image Home 2012 Plus Pack
- Acronis True Image Home 2011 Plus Pack
- Acronis True Image Home 2010 Plus Pack
For instructions on how to use Acronis Universal Restore see: