Prepare drivers

Before applying Universal Restore to a Windows operating system, make sure that you have the drivers for the new HDD controller and the chipset. These drivers are critical to start the operating system. Use the CD or DVD supplied by the hardware vendor or download the drivers from the vendor’s Web site. The driver files should have the *.inf, *.sys or *.oem extensions. If you download the drivers in the *.exe, *.cab or *.zip format, extract them using a third-party application (e.g. free 7-zip tool or any other).

The best practice is to store drivers for all the hardware used in your organization in a single repository sorted by device type or by the hardware configurations. You can keep a copy of the repository on a DVD or a flash drive; pick some drivers and add them to the bootable media; create the custom bootable media with the necessary drivers (and the necessary network configuration) for each of your servers. Or, you can simply specify the path to the repository every time Universal Restore is used.

Note for Windows XP users: as Microsoft has stopped Windows XP support on April 8, 2014, more and more hardware manufacturers discontinue testing their harware for compatibility with Windows XP, thus you may experience issues when/after restoring a Windows XP system to new hardware. Please consult your hardware manufacturer to make sure the new hardware is compatible with Windows XP.

Check access to the drivers in bootable environment

Make sure you have access to the device with drivers when working under bootable media. Even if you configure system disk recovery in a Windows environment, the machine will reboot and recovery will proceed in the Linux-based environment. Use WinPE-based media if the device is available in Windows but Linux-based media does not detect it.

What if you do not have drivers

Windows 7 includes more drivers than the older Windows operating systems. There is a great chance that Universal Restore finds all necessary drivers in the Windows 7 driver folder. So, you may not necessarily have to specify the external path to the drivers. Nevertheless, performing Universal Restore is critical so the system uses the correct drivers.

The Windows default driver storage folder is determined in the registry value DevicePath, which can be found in the registry key 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion.

This storage folder is usually WINDOWS/inf.

1. Boot the target machine with Acronis bootable media.
2. Once loaded, select Acronis Cyber Backup:
   

   Acronis Backup	Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud

   (!) You can select 32-bit or 64-bit media. The 32-bit media can work on 32-bit and 64-bit hardware. You need 64-bit components to boot a machine that uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).

3. For Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, click Manage this machine locally. For Acronis Cyber Backup, skip this step.
4. Click Recover:
   
5. Click Select data in What to recover:
   
6. Click Browse to browse for backup location.
7. After selecting backup location, go to the Archive view tab, and select the backup archive that you want to restore. In the Backup contents section select the partitions or disks that you want to recover. When you are ready, click OK.

   

8. Check that the settings are correct.

   

9. Universal Restore for Windows should be set to Use.
   
   If you have Acronis Backup 12 or later: perform the recovery first, then boot the machine once again with Acronis bootable media, select Acronis Universal Restore and apply it as described below.

   Specify a location where Acronis Universal Restore should search for drivers for the new system (Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), HDD controller driver and network adapter drivers).

   • If the drivers are on a CD/DVD or another removable media, set Search removable media to On.
   • If the drivers are on a network location or on external drive, click Add folder and specify the folder with drivers.
   • Specify drivers for mass storage controllers only if automatic driver search does not help to boot the system. Specify the appropriate drivers by clicking Add driver.

     

     

10. Review the details and click OK to start the operation.

    

Universal Restore is not available when:

• the backup is located in Acronis Secure Zone
• you have chosen to use Acronis Active Restore

This is because these features are primarily meant for instant data recovery on the same machine.