Bootable USB drive on Z890 Hero

[bayfront_benny]

I have always used Rufus to boot Acronis and clone my m.2's, SSD's, HDD's but for some reason with the Z890 Hero I can not get to the Acronis interface. I see the initialization but get nothing on the screen and lose keyboard and mouse functions as well. Any ideas why?

[bayfront_benny]

I want to add to the above that I also have a Z790 Hero that I can boot normally with the same USB drive. I have read some boot tips that refer to the security settings in the BIOS but they do not seem to apply to this Z890 chipset.

[Saltgrass]

When I moved to the Z890 Hero, I had problems with my old drive not booting.  I ended up having to do a clean install, so there may be something on this board that is blocking certain types of installations or older licenses.

You can use a NTFS configured flash drive to boot the Windows Install media, but I don't know about Acronis.

[bayfront_benny]

Yes it's strange. I can boot off the windows installation media created from the ISO with Rufus but not the acronis. I can literally take the USB drive to a Z790 machine and boot without any problem. Not sure if it's a board thing, or a chipset (or BIOS) thing.

[Kromlech]

I am not able to figure out a way to boot memtest from a USB that I mounted with their tool and Rufus. Just no way to even boot override from BIOS

[bayfront_benny]

It might be something in the security settings in the BIOS - but - unlike previous Asus motherboards I do not see a downloadable BIOS manual.

[Kromlech]

I tried a few options with no success.

Disabling fast boot

Changing secure boot settings does not net me any change and it appears you can't just directly disable it. 

I also don't see any option for CSM so I have no clue what I could be missing.

[Zbigniew]

I will answer Kromlech's (u) question.
• Using the free software (I also have it) EasyUS Partition Master, change the boot of the Flash-USB disk from NTFS to MBR.
• Create a rufus boot disk
• Install mem-test.
• Voilà 😉

[Zbigniew]

I will answer bayfront_benny's question.

So far I have used the following software:
1)Paragon 14 Suite ENG - only the very old version (2015) 14 ENG worked properly.
2)I also had Acronis - it did not work properly, I returned the purchase. It does not clone and make backups correctly.
If you do not believe me, read customer reviews on Amazon and throw it away.
3)I purchased a lifetime license EaseUS Todo Backup Home in 2022 and it works perfectly. Tested by me on Asus Extreme Encore, Asus Maximus Apex Z790, Asus Maximus Extreme Z890, and Alienware and Razer laptops - it works perfectly. The latest version from the beginning of January has correct support for Win24H2 and the latest PC-setup's and PCIe 5.0 drives. There are several updates a year and each one has worked without surprises since then. They are released a few days after the premiere of the new version of Windows. This way you will get rid of all the problems with cloning and archiving disks that you have at the moment.

Instructions:
• To check, set the motherboard - default.
• Install the TDBHome software.
• Buy activation, it is cheap, because the demo version is only for one copy, or cloning one disk. Just for viewing.
• From Windows level, make the EaseUS Todo Backup Home boot disk
• From now on, you can clone and archive your PC however you want. Both from DOS (Via USB) and Windows.
• Even my wife can handle her Razer laptop 😉
• Then you can experiment with OC on Maximus without fear of losing data, because you will always recover from a backup copy from an external disk.

[Zbigniew]

Just for information...This software backups 60GB data and restores in 1min 20sec. Two drives, 60 and 150GB simultaneously in 2min 30sec.