acronis true image restorations

  • Thread starter Thread starter pcd00d
  • Start date Start date
P

pcd00d

ok.. so i luv true image.. this is true.. [no pun intended] however, i
have found a glitch. when you create an image from a partitioned hard
drive and restore it.. the restored image will not boot.

for instance:

i have a 160 gig hd.. partitioned into 3 primary drives.. 98, 2000, xp
i image 2000 and xp
buy a 300 gig hd
restore 2000 and xp onto the 300 gig hd

neither partition will boot up on the new drive... i've tried a lot of
different things to no avail. my last try was to kill off the
system.dat file in 2000 and see if booting will detect new hardware and
continue into windows.

any suggestions?

thanks
 
pcd00d said:
ok.. so i luv true image.. this is true.. [no pun intended] however, i
have found a glitch. when you create an image from a partitioned hard
drive and restore it.. the restored image will not boot.

for instance:

i have a 160 gig hd.. partitioned into 3 primary drives.. 98, 2000, xp
i image 2000 and xp
buy a 300 gig hd
restore 2000 and xp onto the 300 gig hd

neither partition will boot up on the new drive... i've tried a lot of
different things to no avail. my last try was to kill off the
system.dat file in 2000 and see if booting will detect new hardware and
continue into windows.

any suggestions?

thanks
Click to expand...

The boot manager for all three OS's is stored in Drive C.
If Drive C is not imaged or the image of Drive C is not
copied to the 300 GB hard drive, that is, the boot manager
is not on Drive C, then neither Windows 2000 nor Windows 98
can be started.
 
pcd00d said:
ok.. so i luv true image.. this is true.. [no pun intended] however, i
have found a glitch. when you create an image from a partitioned hard
drive and restore it.. the restored image will not boot.

for instance:

i have a 160 gig hd.. partitioned into 3 primary drives.. 98, 2000, xp
i image 2000 and xp
buy a 300 gig hd
restore 2000 and xp onto the 300 gig hd

neither partition will boot up on the new drive... i've tried a lot of
different things to no avail. my last try was to kill off the
system.dat file in 2000 and see if booting will detect new hardware and
continue into windows.

any suggestions?

thanks
Click to expand...

Your post is too vague to allow any conclusions to be drawn.
At the very least you need to state the following:
- The size of each partition on the 160 GByte disk
- The type (FAT32, NTFS)
- Where exactly each OS resided
- Which partition(s) you imaged
- Where you imaged them too
- What type and size the new partitions are
- How far the boot process goes
- What messages you see on the screen
- Why you deleted the vital system.dat registry file.
- If you have preserved a copy of this file
 
pcd00d said:
ok.. so i luv true image.. this is true.. [no pun intended] however, i
have found a glitch. when you create an image from a partitioned hard
drive and restore it.. the restored image will not boot.

for instance:

i have a 160 gig hd.. partitioned into 3 primary drives.. 98, 2000, xp
i image 2000 and xp
buy a 300 gig hd
restore 2000 and xp onto the 300 gig hd

neither partition will boot up on the new drive... i've tried a lot of
different things to no avail. my last try was to kill off the
system.dat file in 2000 and see if booting will detect new hardware and
continue into windows.
Click to expand...


Which partition on the old HD was marked "active"?
Which OS was installed last?

*TimDaniels*
 
You must image the entire drive and not just individual
partitions to have the restored image bootable. The MBR is not
copied with partition images.
 
ok.. the sizes of each partition with the exception of the 98 partition
is 45 gigs - the 98 is 5 gigs
the 98 is a fat32 - the 2000 is ntfs and xp is ntfs as well.
using the boot manager.. i activate the 2000 ntfs partition, reboot,
log into windows and run acronis to image the 2000 partition and repeat
the process for the xp partition as well. as you can tell from this
comment alone, the partitions boot just fine to c: however, the images
of these partitions do not boot when restored to the 300 gig hd.

i image the partitions into 650 mg chunks to a fat32 storage drive
because if you try to image directly to cd it'll fail. testing the
images return no errors and they can be mounted using the software as
virtual drives so i know they work except when written to the drive for
active booting.

the new partitions are 45 gigs also.. tho the documentation states that
you can use larger partitions to restore to without problem.

the boot process gets to error: can't find winnt\system32\config\system
and dumps me

and finally yes.. i have a preserved copy of the system.dat file.. its
contained in the image file.. which i wont delete till i can get the
images to boot on restoration. as stated earlier.. i figured i could
delete the system.dat file and have windows realize on bootup that it
needed to detect the hardware all over again. didn't happen.

:o) thanks..
 
Leo said:
You must image the entire drive and not just individual
partitions to have the restored image bootable. The MBR is not
copied with partition images.
Click to expand...
I've never heard THIS before!!!!
Since my backup is of partitions, how do I get a floppy copy of the MBR?
OR, do I have to do the whole backup job all over again?
I'm using Powerquest Drive Image 7.
I used Nero 6 to burn to onto "bootable DVD's", and included a copy of the 3
kilobyte DI7 environment on each DVD.
 
hmmmm.. this is interesting.. i'll have to delve into this idea a bit
more.. i think i get what your saying. however, let me pose this idea
to you.. the 98 partition is merely a fat32 partition dos formated with
98, partition magic 8 and boot manager. that's all its used for.
theoretically.. if i create another 98 partition on the 300 and put 98,
partition magic 8 and boot manager on it... then restore the windows
2000 and xp partitions respectively.. shouldn't the 2000 and xp
partitions then be bootable? or am i over simplifying the process?

thanks
 
That is not true. I used Acronis 8 and 9 to image the first partition as
system bootable on drive C: The restored partition booted.


Leo said:
You must image the entire drive and not just individual partitions to have
the restored image bootable. The MBR is not copied with partition images.

--

Work Harder Millions On Welfare Depend On You


pcd00d said:
ok.. so i luv true image.. this is true.. [no pun intended] however, i
have found a glitch. when you create an image from a partitioned hard
drive and restore it.. the restored image will not boot.

for instance:

i have a 160 gig hd.. partitioned into 3 primary drives.. 98, 2000, xp
i image 2000 and xp
buy a 300 gig hd
restore 2000 and xp onto the 300 gig hd

neither partition will boot up on the new drive... i've tried a lot of
different things to no avail. my last try was to kill off the
system.dat file in 2000 and see if booting will detect new hardware and
continue into windows.

any suggestions?

thanks
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
pcd00d said:
hmmmm.. this is interesting.. i'll have to delve into this idea a bit
more.. i think i get what your saying. however, let me pose this idea
to you.. the 98 partition is merely a fat32 partition dos formated
with
98, partition magic 8 and boot manager. that's all its used for.
theoretically.. if i create another 98 partition on the 300 and put
98,
partition magic 8 and boot manager on it... then restore the windows
2000 and xp partitions respectively.. shouldn't the 2000 and xp
partitions then be bootable? or am i over simplifying the process?

thanks
Click to expand...

Another trap door to drop through is putting the partitions back in
a different order on the new drive. If you have a "hidden recovery
partition" (where this happens most often) and "restore" the OS
partition to a new drive, it is now the first partition, not the second
on the drive and you will have to edit the boot.ini file to reflect it
is in a new location. You do have to have some sort of boot
manager (even the default one) to be able to boot - that is the bad
news -- the good news is that since it is not part of the partition
you imaged/restored, your image is fine, you just need to get the
MBR installed. There are a number of utilities out there to fix
the mbr.

mikey
 
pcd00d said:
did you restore the image on the same drive or a new hd?
Click to expand...

I have done this both ways. However, my partitioning structure is EXACTLY
the same as the origin of the image. Then I change the structure if desired
using the Acronis Disk Management system, a separate program.
 
At least the three boot files MUST be on the drive recognized as C by the
operating system. From what I understand, you have restored to a new 300GB
drive which is connected as a secondary [Slave] thus it is not the C
[primary or Master drive]. As you have found, windows does not look at a
secondary drive when engaged in the boot [startup] process. Most hard drive
manufacturers offer a free software program {with instructions} which images
the entire primary drive (C) to the new drive which basically at that point
in time is empty (and the OS recognizes it as D or another character
different from C). When that imaging finishes, you then shutdown and
disconnect all peripheral devices in including the power cord and open the
computer case. Then you rejumper both drive connectors to cable select, and
connect the primary connector {master} to the new drive and connect the old
drive to the secondary connector. The new drive should then be recognized as
C and, if the imaging stage went successfully, will boot.
All that said, why do you need three versions of Windows anyway? Seems
wasteful.
Gene K
 
:
.. ....Then you rejumper both drive connectors to cable select, and
connect the primary connector {master} to the new drive and
connect the old drive to the secondary connector. The new drive
should then be recognized as C and, if the imaging stage went
successfully, will boot.
Click to expand...


You left out an important step. Before allowing the clone
to boot up for the 1st time, the "parent" OS should be
made invisible to the clone by disconnecting the "parent"
OS's hard drive. On subsequent boots, the "parent" OS
may be visible to the clone without a problem. When the
1st boot of the clone is made, it's not necessary to
re-jumper it because the absence of the original HD
which had been at the head of the HD boot order will
make the remaining HD (i.e. the one with the clone) the
head HD in the boot order. Thereafter, with 2 HDs
connected, you can either reverse the jumpering on
both HDs or you can go into the BIOS and reverse the
boot order of the HDs to make the files in the clone's
partition control the booting.

*TimDaniels*
 
If your hard drive is not partitioned into more than drive C, you
are correct.

However if your hard drive was partitioned into drive C and drive
D and you only made an image of drive C the MBR would not have
been included in the image.

The most recent version of TI 9.0 supposedly fixed that problem
but I have not confirmed that it did.

--

Work Harder Millions On Welfare Depend On You


Logos said:
That is not true. I used Acronis 8 and 9 to image the first
partition as system bootable on drive C: The restored
partition booted.


Leo said:
You must image the entire drive and not just individual
partitions to have the restored image bootable. The MBR is
not copied with partition images.

--

Work Harder Millions On Welfare Depend On You


pcd00d said:
ok.. so i luv true image.. this is true.. [no pun intended]
however, i
have found a glitch. when you create an image from a
partitioned hard
drive and restore it.. the restored image will not boot.

for instance:

i have a 160 gig hd.. partitioned into 3 primary drives.. 98,
2000, xp
i image 2000 and xp
buy a 300 gig hd
restore 2000 and xp onto the 300 gig hd

neither partition will boot up on the new drive... i've tried
a lot of
different things to no avail. my last try was to kill off
the
system.dat file in 2000 and see if booting will detect new
hardware and
continue into windows.

any suggestions?

thanks
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Gene.. : i use removeable drive bays. keeps down on opening the case.
the images are always restore to the primary drive.. i just store the
images onto the secondary drive after making them to keep them safe.
once the images are restored, i use partition magic to set the restored
image/parition to active c: reboot the computer and that's when i get
the error and no boot to either os.. then i use the partition magic
boot diskettes to reactivate the first partition where the working os
is.

i run multiple versions of windows cause i like to experiment with
windows.. i'm a tweaker. i admit it. lol. so i have one drive that has
xp on it and one that has 2000 on it. these two drives never get
tweaked until i verify that i like a particular tweak or program as i
do work from these two drives. so their functionality is of utmost
importance.

see when i image a partition.. i boot into that partition so that it is
active at the time of imaging. but i think i'm starting to get the
idea in respect to the images aren't pulling along the mbr information.
so even if i were to restore the image anywhere on the drive.. it
would still not be bootable because it has no mbr information on the
fresh drive. which leads me to my last point, that is.. if i restore
the images on any drive other than the drive from where the images
originated.. they'd not be bootable.

i'll look into the newer version of true image [9] if i remember
correctly.. and check out their forum for further info. i'll let you
all know what i find out.

thanks everyone for the help..
 
Back
Top