Be careful what you delete...

[Peter M]

Ok, I deleted some system files left behind by programs I uninstalled and
drivers and lo and behold on reboot Vista wouldn't start with "missing
critical files". Ouch to say the least. Without my dual boot of XP I would
have been toast. I did check the files before deleting and they weren't MS
files unless the apps/drivers overwrote them so I'd say this is a nasty bug
which I'm reporting.

 

[Darrell Gorter[MSFT]]

Hello Peter,
What files did you delete?
Can you try booting to the DVD?
On the install screen in the lower left, choose the recovery option
Try to see if one of the recovery options allows you to fix the system
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
--------------------
<From: "Peter M" <[email protected]>
<Subject: Be careful what you delete...
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<Ok, I deleted some system files left behind by programs I uninstalled and
<drivers and lo and behold on reboot Vista wouldn't start with "missing
<critical files". Ouch to say the least. Without my dual boot of XP I would
<have been toast. I did check the files before deleting and they weren't MS
<files unless the apps/drivers overwrote them so I'd say this is a nasty
bug
<which I'm reporting.
<
<

 

[Peter M]

The files were snapman.sys and si3112.sys.. the first from the properties
version ifno was from acronis and the second from silicon image. Neither are
MS files from the vista dvd far as I know. I didnt try recover as i just
replaced them thru XP.

 

[Chad Harris]

Peter--

I'm not speaking for Darrell. but most people reading what you posted would
pull out that you had hosed your system, by removing those two files--I know
snapman.sys is located by default in the System 32\Drivers folder and may
work with Acronis true image--the other is 3rd party whose absense I
wouldn't think would hose the system--I'm not sure what Silicon is
associated with--but loose associations conjure up Valley and chests but not
necessarily in any order--or not necessarily connected although I guess they
could be on multiple levels. I didn't see snapman.sys in the DLLCache
folder--I was looking there to see if perhaps it could be replaced by what I
call a "Quickie SFC (System File Check) where if I know what the damaged or
missing file is, I can just go to C:\Windows\System32\DLLCache and pull the
file out and in this instance a file will copy to desktop (left or right
click drag). I've fixed a few damaged files that way--CMD was one.

When we saw "Be careful what you delete"/on reboot Vista wouldn't start with
missing critical files"/Ouch to say the least"/Without my dual boot of XP I
would have been toast..."

Most of us would think--"this guy on a dual boot deleted some files--maybe
others he didn't mention" and now he's in a no boot Vista situation--the
"Ouch/be carefull/Vista wouldn't start kind of did it for me."

So Darell's mission was (and mine would have been exactly the same) to help
you fix or get back your Vista boot by using the new Win RE tool that Darell
and others have been working on by accessing it through the Vista DVD so
that you could use one of its "System Recovery" options to repair Vista and
replace your corrupt or missing system file and your corrupt driver file
including the listed options

Startup Repair
System Restore
Complete PC Restore
possibly even "Fabricant" when or if it's in 5384.4 or whatever flavor of
"RCI foreplay find us more bugs and hope we'll listen to you" build has
dropped now or will in a few days.

Had you been in Windows, ( from your OP it sounded like you were anywhere
but there on the Vista boot), normally in Win XP I would have urged you to
run System File Checker (SFC) to get back the windows files intact, but my
best information on SFC in Vista is that it does not yet work--that in a
high percentage of cases it can damage a registry and put you into a no boot
situation--it happened to several of us trying it.

The last comment I saw on it by one of Darell's collegues who is heavily
involved in Win RE as a PM on that team, recommended only using the "sfc/
verifyonly" switch which I've never even thought of using during the run of
XP because what it does is that switch ID's damaged file signatures but
doesn't repair them--like taking your broken car into be fixed and having
the guys say you need this and that but fail to fix it.

I'd really like to give you an intelligent explanation of the differences
among these options, but I don't know where that's explained anywhere in the
land of MSFT Redmond's posted info on the web. Maybe Darell can point us to
that information. If it was explained in a recent live meeting or chat,
then only a relatively few people would have had access to that information
a month and two days after Vista has been released to the public --May 22 I
beliveve.

CH

The files were snapman.sys and si3112.sys.. the first from the properties
version ifno was from acronis and the second from silicon image. Neither
are MS files from the vista dvd far as I know. I didnt try recover as i
just replaced them thru XP.

Hello Peter,
What files did you delete?
Can you try booting to the DVD?
On the install screen in the lower left, choose the recovery option
Try to see if one of the recovery options allows you to fix the system
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

 

[Peter M]

I can understand that. the si3112.sys is raid driver from a wrong driver
install for my card. snapman.sys is an acronis snapshot api I assume left
over from when I uninstalled acronis trueimage. However one would think with
the correct raid drivers installed that file shouldn't stop vista from
loading. So it seem there is also a MS snapman then if you have it in your
drivers folder. Now that would be the reason for one non-booting system.
I'll have to look thru the DVD and see if I can find the MS file to replace
the acronis one.

Peter--

I'm not speaking for Darrell. but most people reading what you posted
would pull out that you had hosed your system, by removing those two
files--I know snapman.sys is located by default in the System 32\Drivers
folder and may work with Acronis true image--the other is 3rd party whose
absense I wouldn't think would hose the system--I'm not sure what Silicon
is associated with--but loose associations conjure up Valley and chests
but not necessarily in any order--or not necessarily connected although I
guess they could be on multiple levels. I didn't see snapman.sys in the
DLLCache folder--I was looking there to see if perhaps it could be
replaced by what I call a "Quickie SFC (System File Check) where if I know
what the damaged or missing file is, I can just go to
C:\Windows\System32\DLLCache and pull the file out and in this instance a
file will copy to desktop (left or right click drag). I've fixed a few
damaged files that way--CMD was one.

When we saw "Be careful what you delete"/on reboot Vista wouldn't start
with missing critical files"/Ouch to say the least"/Without my dual boot
of XP I would have been toast..."

Most of us would think--"this guy on a dual boot deleted some files--maybe
others he didn't mention" and now he's in a no boot Vista situation--the
"Ouch/be carefull/Vista wouldn't start kind of did it for me."

So Darell's mission was (and mine would have been exactly the same) to
help you fix or get back your Vista boot by using the new Win RE tool that
Darell and others have been working on by accessing it through the Vista
DVD so that you could use one of its "System Recovery" options to repair
Vista and replace your corrupt or missing system file and your corrupt
driver file including the listed options

Startup Repair
System Restore
Complete PC Restore
possibly even "Fabricant" when or if it's in 5384.4 or whatever flavor of
"RCI foreplay find us more bugs and hope we'll listen to you" build has
dropped now or will in a few days.

Had you been in Windows, ( from your OP it sounded like you were anywhere
but there on the Vista boot), normally in Win XP I would have urged you
to run System File Checker (SFC) to get back the windows files intact,
but my best information on SFC in Vista is that it does not yet work--that
in a high percentage of cases it can damage a registry and put you into a
no boot situation--it happened to several of us trying it.

The last comment I saw on it by one of Darell's collegues who is heavily
involved in Win RE as a PM on that team, recommended only using the "sfc/
verifyonly" switch which I've never even thought of using during the run
of XP because what it does is that switch ID's damaged file signatures but
doesn't repair them--like taking your broken car into be fixed and having
the guys say you need this and that but fail to fix it.

I'd really like to give you an intelligent explanation of the differences
among these options, but I don't know where that's explained anywhere in
the land of MSFT Redmond's posted info on the web. Maybe Darell can point
us to that information. If it was explained in a recent live meeting or
chat, then only a relatively few people would have had access to that
information a month and two days after Vista has been released to the
public --May 22 I beliveve.

CH

The files were snapman.sys and si3112.sys.. the first from the properties
version ifno was from acronis and the second from silicon image. Neither
are MS files from the vista dvd far as I know. I didnt try recover as i
just replaced them thru XP.

Hello Peter,
What files did you delete?
Can you try booting to the DVD?
On the install screen in the lower left, choose the recovery option
Try to see if one of the recovery options allows you to fix the system
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

 

[Chad Harris]

Peter I don't want to confuse you. And definitely if Vista is not booting
we want you to try the Win RE recovery tools which have an excellent chance
of fixing it. I don't think you're going to find anything on the Vista DVD
and I'll explain why as far as those files but just as surely, I don't think
they are the cause of Vista's demise and you can fix it.

I had Acronis on my XP but uninstalled it so that may be the reason I found
the driver file left over. I'm on a dual boot with Vista and since I don't
believe but am not sure that Mr. Lauriano and his SR team are going to be
able to fix SR's VSS problem when you go to a boot other than Vista (it
looses Vista restore points because of its VSS infrastructure I often just
type the file path or use a shortcut to get to XP. I also looked in all
possible Vista folders and no snapman.sys is around so it's probably an
Acronis rather than Windows system file. My foray to google left me with
that impression.

So if you do have a screwed up "I ain't bootin' for Peter nowVista" to put
it elegantly and articulately, I would be willing to bet that ole snapman's
and silicon's deletion as you said is hardly the cause--not in a million
years. So definitely try Win RE and here are some directions. It's a great
advantage to have Darell help on this group becaue he's got a lot deeper
knowledge of some of these Vista features than many of us could have. As
Darrell said:

***To fix your Vista Boot use your Vista DVD and use the Win RE options this
way:***

There is a promising "feature" or utility in Vista called Win RE or Windows
Recovery Environment.

How to Use Win RE to fix your Vista Boot:

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC

2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from the
Win RE feature,

You'll have a choice there of using:

1) Startup Repair
2)System Restore
3) Complete PC Restore

Fabricant is also a feature but I'm not sure what its status is in Beta 2
now.

Good luck,

CH

I can understand that. the si3112.sys is raid driver from a wrong driver
install for my card. snapman.sys is an acronis snapshot api I assume left
over from when I uninstalled acronis trueimage. However one would think
with the correct raid drivers installed that file shouldn't stop vista from
loading. So it seem there is also a MS snapman then if you have it in your
drivers folder. Now that would be the reason for one non-booting system.
I'll have to look thru the DVD and see if I can find the MS file to replace
the acronis one.

Peter--

I'm not speaking for Darrell. but most people reading what you posted
would pull out that you had hosed your system, by removing those two
files--I know snapman.sys is located by default in the System 32\Drivers
folder and may work with Acronis true image--the other is 3rd party whose
absense I wouldn't think would hose the system--I'm not sure what Silicon
is associated with--but loose associations conjure up Valley and chests
but not necessarily in any order--or not necessarily connected although I
guess they could be on multiple levels. I didn't see snapman.sys in the
DLLCache folder--I was looking there to see if perhaps it could be
replaced by what I call a "Quickie SFC (System File Check) where if I
know what the damaged or missing file is, I can just go to
C:\Windows\System32\DLLCache and pull the file out and in this instance a
file will copy to desktop (left or right click drag). I've fixed a few
damaged files that way--CMD was one.

When we saw "Be careful what you delete"/on reboot Vista wouldn't start
with missing critical files"/Ouch to say the least"/Without my dual boot
of XP I would have been toast..."

Most of us would think--"this guy on a dual boot deleted some
files--maybe others he didn't mention" and now he's in a no boot Vista
situation--the "Ouch/be carefull/Vista wouldn't start kind of did it for
me."

So Darell's mission was (and mine would have been exactly the same) to
help you fix or get back your Vista boot by using the new Win RE tool
that Darell and others have been working on by accessing it through the
Vista DVD so that you could use one of its "System Recovery" options to
repair Vista and replace your corrupt or missing system file and your
corrupt driver file including the listed options

Startup Repair
System Restore
Complete PC Restore
possibly even "Fabricant" when or if it's in 5384.4 or whatever flavor of
"RCI foreplay find us more bugs and hope we'll listen to you" build has
dropped now or will in a few days.

Had you been in Windows, ( from your OP it sounded like you were anywhere
but there on the Vista boot), normally in Win XP I would have urged you
to run System File Checker (SFC) to get back the windows files intact,
but my best information on SFC in Vista is that it does not yet
work--that in a high percentage of cases it can damage a registry and put
you into a no boot situation--it happened to several of us trying it.

The last comment I saw on it by one of Darell's collegues who is heavily
involved in Win RE as a PM on that team, recommended only using the "sfc/
verifyonly" switch which I've never even thought of using during the run
of XP because what it does is that switch ID's damaged file signatures
but doesn't repair them--like taking your broken car into be fixed and
having the guys say you need this and that but fail to fix it.

I'd really like to give you an intelligent explanation of the differences
among these options, but I don't know where that's explained anywhere in
the land of MSFT Redmond's posted info on the web. Maybe Darell can
point us to that information. If it was explained in a recent live
meeting or chat, then only a relatively few people would have had access
to that information a month and two days after Vista has been released
to the public --May 22 I beliveve.

CH

The files were snapman.sys and si3112.sys.. the first from the
properties version ifno was from acronis and the second from silicon
image. Neither are MS files from the vista dvd far as I know. I didnt
try recover as i just replaced them thru XP.

message Hello Peter,
What files did you delete?
Can you try booting to the DVD?
On the install screen in the lower left, choose the recovery option
Try to see if one of the recovery options allows you to fix the system
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

According to a CompletePC Backup chat today, the incompatibility between the
VSS driver in XP and Vista will not change. XP is always going to delete
the Vista restore points as invalid on boot into XP. A note to remember,
VSS is not active when XP is in Safe Mode, so my thought is that booting
into Safe Mode in XP probably would not affect Vista restore points. A good
trivia question, eh Chad?

Peter I don't want to confuse you. And definitely if Vista is not booting
we want you to try the Win RE recovery tools which have an excellent
chance of fixing it. I don't think you're going to find anything on the
Vista DVD and I'll explain why as far as those files but just as surely, I
don't think they are the cause of Vista's demise and you can fix it.

I had Acronis on my XP but uninstalled it so that may be the reason I
found the driver file left over. I'm on a dual boot with Vista and since
I don't believe but am not sure that Mr. Lauriano and his SR team are
going to be able to fix SR's VSS problem when you go to a boot other than
Vista (it looses Vista restore points because of its VSS infrastructure I
often just type the file path or use a shortcut to get to XP. I also
looked in all possible Vista folders and no snapman.sys is around so it's
probably an Acronis rather than Windows system file. My foray to google
left me with that impression.

So if you do have a screwed up "I ain't bootin' for Peter nowVista" to
put it elegantly and articulately, I would be willing to bet that ole
snapman's and silicon's deletion as you said is hardly the cause--not in a
million years. So definitely try Win RE and here are some directions.
It's a great advantage to have Darell help on this group becaue he's got a
lot deeper knowledge of some of these Vista features than many of us could
have. As Darrell said:

***To fix your Vista Boot use your Vista DVD and use the Win RE options
this
way:***

There is a promising "feature" or utility in Vista called Win RE or
Windows
Recovery Environment.

How to Use Win RE to fix your Vista Boot:

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC

2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in
the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from
the
Win RE feature,

You'll have a choice there of using:

1) Startup Repair
2)System Restore
3) Complete PC Restore

Fabricant is also a feature but I'm not sure what its status is in Beta 2
now.

Good luck,

CH

I can understand that. the si3112.sys is raid driver from a wrong driver
install for my card. snapman.sys is an acronis snapshot api I assume left
over from when I uninstalled acronis trueimage. However one would think
with the correct raid drivers installed that file shouldn't stop vista
from loading. So it seem there is also a MS snapman then if you have it in
your drivers folder. Now that would be the reason for one non-booting
system. I'll have to look thru the DVD and see if I can find the MS file
to replace the acronis one.

Peter--

I'm not speaking for Darrell. but most people reading what you posted
would pull out that you had hosed your system, by removing those two
files--I know snapman.sys is located by default in the System 32\Drivers
folder and may work with Acronis true image--the other is 3rd party
whose absense I wouldn't think would hose the system--I'm not sure what
Silicon is associated with--but loose associations conjure up Valley and
chests but not necessarily in any order--or not necessarily connected
although I guess they could be on multiple levels. I didn't see
snapman.sys in the DLLCache folder--I was looking there to see if
perhaps it could be replaced by what I call a "Quickie SFC (System File
Check) where if I know what the damaged or missing file is, I can just
go to C:\Windows\System32\DLLCache and pull the file out and in this
instance a file will copy to desktop (left or right click drag). I've
fixed a few damaged files that way--CMD was one.

When we saw "Be careful what you delete"/on reboot Vista wouldn't start
with missing critical files"/Ouch to say the least"/Without my dual boot
of XP I would have been toast..."

Most of us would think--"this guy on a dual boot deleted some
files--maybe others he didn't mention" and now he's in a no boot Vista
situation--the "Ouch/be carefull/Vista wouldn't start kind of did it for
me."

So Darell's mission was (and mine would have been exactly the same) to
help you fix or get back your Vista boot by using the new Win RE tool
that Darell and others have been working on by accessing it through the
Vista DVD so that you could use one of its "System Recovery" options to
repair Vista and replace your corrupt or missing system file and your
corrupt driver file including the listed options

Startup Repair
System Restore
Complete PC Restore
possibly even "Fabricant" when or if it's in 5384.4 or whatever flavor
of "RCI foreplay find us more bugs and hope we'll listen to you" build
has dropped now or will in a few days.

Had you been in Windows, ( from your OP it sounded like you were
anywhere but there on the Vista boot), normally in Win XP I would have
urged you to run System File Checker (SFC) to get back the windows files
intact, but my best information on SFC in Vista is that it does not yet
work--that in a high percentage of cases it can damage a registry and
put you into a no boot situation--it happened to several of us trying
it.

The last comment I saw on it by one of Darell's collegues who is
heavily involved in Win RE as a PM on that team, recommended only using
the "sfc/ verifyonly" switch which I've never even thought of using
during the run of XP because what it does is that switch ID's damaged
file signatures but doesn't repair them--like taking your broken car
into be fixed and having the guys say you need this and that but fail to
fix it.

I'd really like to give you an intelligent explanation of the
differences among these options, but I don't know where that's explained
anywhere in the land of MSFT Redmond's posted info on the web. Maybe
Darell can point us to that information. If it was explained in a
recent live meeting or chat, then only a relatively few people would
have had access to that information a month and two days after Vista
has been released to the public --May 22 I beliveve.

CH









The files were snapman.sys and si3112.sys.. the first from the
properties version ifno was from acronis and the second from silicon
image. Neither are MS files from the vista dvd far as I know. I didnt
try recover as i just replaced them thru XP.

message Hello Peter,
What files did you delete?
Can you try booting to the DVD?
On the install screen in the lower left, choose the recovery option
Try to see if one of the recovery options allows you to fix the system
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

 

[Chad Harris]

Colin--

One of the things I would have liked to clarify was that if you are on a
dual boot if simply shortcutting to the XP drive would cause the same
phenomenon with the restore points disappearing. I suppose I could test
that easily.but I have never seen system restore make points--this could be
entirely because I frequently go to my xp boot to use files through a
shortcut or just quickly typing C:\Documents and Settings\ChadHarris\Desktop
or the name of whatever folder added on to that path that I want to access/
I have a hunch that wipes out Vista restore points. After all I think if I
understand this correctly it's a problem of writing to XP for VSS --it's not
how you get there. I have also heard the explanation the XP driver wipes out
restore points whatever that means. Also I know that Vista detects
something has been written to the disc without tracking changes in the
shadow copy, which invalidates the existing shadwo copy when you go back to
Vista. I know I have more than the minimum of 300 MB of disk space that
Vista requires to keep SR on. It was 200 MB with XP.

CH

According to a CompletePC Backup chat today, the incompatibility between
the VSS driver in XP and Vista will not change. XP is always going to
delete the Vista restore points as invalid on boot into XP. A note to
remember, VSS is not active when XP is in Safe Mode, so my thought is that
booting into Safe Mode in XP probably would not affect Vista restore
points. A good trivia question, eh Chad?

Peter I don't want to confuse you. And definitely if Vista is not
booting we want you to try the Win RE recovery tools which have an
excellent chance of fixing it. I don't think you're going to find
anything on the Vista DVD and I'll explain why as far as those files but
just as surely, I don't think they are the cause of Vista's demise and
you can fix it.

I had Acronis on my XP but uninstalled it so that may be the reason I
found the driver file left over. I'm on a dual boot with Vista and
since I don't believe but am not sure that Mr. Lauriano and his SR team
are going to be able to fix SR's VSS problem when you go to a boot other
than Vista (it looses Vista restore points because of its VSS
infrastructure I often just type the file path or use a shortcut to get
to XP. I also looked in all possible Vista folders and no snapman.sys is
around so it's probably an Acronis rather than Windows system file. My
foray to google left me with that impression.

So if you do have a screwed up "I ain't bootin' for Peter nowVista" to
put it elegantly and articulately, I would be willing to bet that ole
snapman's and silicon's deletion as you said is hardly the cause--not in
a million years. So definitely try Win RE and here are some directions.
It's a great advantage to have Darell help on this group becaue he's got
a lot deeper knowledge of some of these Vista features than many of us
could have. As Darrell said:

***To fix your Vista Boot use your Vista DVD and use the Win RE options
this
way:***

There is a promising "feature" or utility in Vista called Win RE or
Windows
Recovery Environment.

How to Use Win RE to fix your Vista Boot:

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC

2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in
the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from
the
Win RE feature,

You'll have a choice there of using:

1) Startup Repair
2)System Restore
3) Complete PC Restore

Fabricant is also a feature but I'm not sure what its status is in Beta 2
now.

Good luck,

CH

I can understand that. the si3112.sys is raid driver from a wrong driver
install for my card. snapman.sys is an acronis snapshot api I assume left
over from when I uninstalled acronis trueimage. However one would think
with the correct raid drivers installed that file shouldn't stop vista
from loading. So it seem there is also a MS snapman then if you have it
in your drivers folder. Now that would be the reason for one non-booting
system. I'll have to look thru the DVD and see if I can find the MS file
to replace the acronis one.

Peter--

I'm not speaking for Darrell. but most people reading what you posted
would pull out that you had hosed your system, by removing those two
files--I know snapman.sys is located by default in the System
32\Drivers folder and may work with Acronis true image--the other is
3rd party whose absense I wouldn't think would hose the system--I'm not
sure what Silicon is associated with--but loose associations conjure up
Valley and chests but not necessarily in any order--or not necessarily
connected although I guess they could be on multiple levels. I didn't
see snapman.sys in the DLLCache folder--I was looking there to see if
perhaps it could be replaced by what I call a "Quickie SFC (System File
Check) where if I know what the damaged or missing file is, I can just
go to C:\Windows\System32\DLLCache and pull the file out and in this
instance a file will copy to desktop (left or right click drag). I've
fixed a few damaged files that way--CMD was one.

When we saw "Be careful what you delete"/on reboot Vista wouldn't start
with missing critical files"/Ouch to say the least"/Without my dual
boot of XP I would have been toast..."

Most of us would think--"this guy on a dual boot deleted some
files--maybe others he didn't mention" and now he's in a no boot Vista
situation--the "Ouch/be carefull/Vista wouldn't start kind of did it
for me."

So Darell's mission was (and mine would have been exactly the same) to
help you fix or get back your Vista boot by using the new Win RE tool
that Darell and others have been working on by accessing it through the
Vista DVD so that you could use one of its "System Recovery" options
to repair Vista and replace your corrupt or missing system file and
your corrupt driver file including the listed options

Startup Repair
System Restore
Complete PC Restore
possibly even "Fabricant" when or if it's in 5384.4 or whatever flavor
of "RCI foreplay find us more bugs and hope we'll listen to you" build
has dropped now or will in a few days.

Had you been in Windows, ( from your OP it sounded like you were
anywhere but there on the Vista boot), normally in Win XP I would have
urged you to run System File Checker (SFC) to get back the windows
files intact, but my best information on SFC in Vista is that it does
not yet work--that in a high percentage of cases it can damage a
registry and put you into a no boot situation--it happened to several
of us trying it.

The last comment I saw on it by one of Darell's collegues who is
heavily involved in Win RE as a PM on that team, recommended only using
the "sfc/ verifyonly" switch which I've never even thought of using
during the run of XP because what it does is that switch ID's damaged
file signatures but doesn't repair them--like taking your broken car
into be fixed and having the guys say you need this and that but fail
to fix it.

I'd really like to give you an intelligent explanation of the
differences among these options, but I don't know where that's
explained anywhere in the land of MSFT Redmond's posted info on the
web. Maybe Darell can point us to that information. If it was
explained in a recent live meeting or chat, then only a relatively few
people would have had access to that information a month and two days
after Vista has been released to the public --May 22 I beliveve.

CH









The files were snapman.sys and si3112.sys.. the first from the
properties version ifno was from acronis and the second from silicon
image. Neither are MS files from the vista dvd far as I know. I didnt
try recover as i just replaced them thru XP.

message Hello Peter,
What files did you delete?
Can you try booting to the DVD?
On the install screen in the lower left, choose the recovery option
Try to see if one of the recovery options allows you to fix the
system
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I assume that when XP is starting up it starts VSS and the driver polls the
system for restore points. It would validate them at that time and protect
the user from restoring corrupt files by ensuring that no invalid restore
point is available. Vista restore points would not be valid and so would be
deleted.

As far as I know a volume cannot be excluded. Since this happens when XP is
running, it makes no difference that SR in XP has not been monitoring the
Vista volume because it was Vista that set the restore points on that
volume, not XP.

As to your accessing the XP volume while running Vista, the XP VSS driver
has to be running in order for anything destructive to happen to the restore
points on the Vista volume. In other words, XP has to be running. What you
are doing is accessing the XP volume as a data disk while Vista is running.
I don't see how that would cause any problem.

The larger issue bothers me. I think what is coming down the pike is the
conclusion that advising folks to multiboot XP and Vista is not a great
idea. It wouldn't even help to turn off System Restore in XP because that
really has nothing to do with it. And I know I don't have any business
telling users not to use SR.

The only way to multi-boot XP and Vista considering these things would be if
the Vista volume is hidden from XP.

I hope somebody figures out how to tell XP to stay the h*ll out of Area 51.

Colin--

One of the things I would have liked to clarify was that if you are on a
dual boot if simply shortcutting to the XP drive would cause the same
phenomenon with the restore points disappearing. I suppose I could test
that easily.but I have never seen system restore make points--this could
be entirely because I frequently go to my xp boot to use files through a
shortcut or just quickly typing C:\Documents and
Settings\ChadHarris\Desktop or the name of whatever folder added on to
that path that I want to access/ I have a hunch that wipes out Vista
restore points. After all I think if I understand this correctly it's a
problem of writing to XP for VSS --it's not how you get there. I have also
heard the explanation the XP driver wipes out restore points whatever that
means. Also I know that Vista detects something has been written to the
disc without tracking changes in the shadow copy, which invalidates the
existing shadwo copy when you go back to Vista. I know I have more than
the minimum of 300 MB of disk space that Vista requires to keep SR on. It
was 200 MB with XP.

CH

According to a CompletePC Backup chat today, the incompatibility between
the VSS driver in XP and Vista will not change. XP is always going to
delete the Vista restore points as invalid on boot into XP. A note to
remember, VSS is not active when XP is in Safe Mode, so my thought is
that booting into Safe Mode in XP probably would not affect Vista restore
points. A good trivia question, eh Chad?

Peter I don't want to confuse you. And definitely if Vista is not
booting we want you to try the Win RE recovery tools which have an
excellent chance of fixing it. I don't think you're going to find
anything on the Vista DVD and I'll explain why as far as those files but
just as surely, I don't think they are the cause of Vista's demise and
you can fix it.

I had Acronis on my XP but uninstalled it so that may be the reason I
found the driver file left over. I'm on a dual boot with Vista and
since I don't believe but am not sure that Mr. Lauriano and his SR team
are going to be able to fix SR's VSS problem when you go to a boot other
than Vista (it looses Vista restore points because of its VSS
infrastructure I often just type the file path or use a shortcut to get
to XP. I also looked in all possible Vista folders and no snapman.sys
is around so it's probably an Acronis rather than Windows system file.
My foray to google left me with that impression.

So if you do have a screwed up "I ain't bootin' for Peter nowVista" to
put it elegantly and articulately, I would be willing to bet that ole
snapman's and silicon's deletion as you said is hardly the cause--not in
a million years. So definitely try Win RE and here are some directions.
It's a great advantage to have Darell help on this group becaue he's got
a lot deeper knowledge of some of these Vista features than many of us
could have. As Darrell said:

***To fix your Vista Boot use your Vista DVD and use the Win RE options
this
way:***

There is a promising "feature" or utility in Vista called Win RE or
Windows
Recovery Environment.

How to Use Win RE to fix your Vista Boot:

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC

2) ***You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in
the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."***

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from
the
Win RE feature,

You'll have a choice there of using:

1) Startup Repair
2)System Restore
3) Complete PC Restore

Fabricant is also a feature but I'm not sure what its status is in Beta
2 now.

Good luck,

CH




I can understand that. the si3112.sys is raid driver from a wrong
driver install for my card. snapman.sys is an acronis snapshot api I
assume left over from when I uninstalled acronis trueimage. However one
would think with the correct raid drivers installed that file shouldn't
stop vista from loading. So it seem there is also a MS snapman then if
you have it in your drivers folder. Now that would be the reason for one
non-booting system. I'll have to look thru the DVD and see if I can find
the MS file to replace the acronis one.

Peter--

I'm not speaking for Darrell. but most people reading what you posted
would pull out that you had hosed your system, by removing those two
files--I know snapman.sys is located by default in the System
32\Drivers folder and may work with Acronis true image--the other is
3rd party whose absense I wouldn't think would hose the system--I'm
not sure what Silicon is associated with--but loose associations
conjure up Valley and chests but not necessarily in any order--or not
necessarily connected although I guess they could be on multiple
levels. I didn't see snapman.sys in the DLLCache folder--I was
looking there to see if perhaps it could be replaced by what I call a
"Quickie SFC (System File Check) where if I know what the damaged or
missing file is, I can just go to C:\Windows\System32\DLLCache and
pull the file out and in this instance a file will copy to desktop
(left or right click drag). I've fixed a few damaged files that
way--CMD was one.

When we saw "Be careful what you delete"/on reboot Vista wouldn't
start with missing critical files"/Ouch to say the least"/Without my
dual boot of XP I would have been toast..."

Most of us would think--"this guy on a dual boot deleted some
files--maybe others he didn't mention" and now he's in a no boot Vista
situation--the "Ouch/be carefull/Vista wouldn't start kind of did it
for me."

So Darell's mission was (and mine would have been exactly the same) to
help you fix or get back your Vista boot by using the new Win RE tool
that Darell and others have been working on by accessing it through
the Vista DVD so that you could use one of its "System Recovery"
options to repair Vista and replace your corrupt or missing system
file and your corrupt driver file including the listed options

Startup Repair
System Restore
Complete PC Restore
possibly even "Fabricant" when or if it's in 5384.4 or whatever flavor
of "RCI foreplay find us more bugs and hope we'll listen to you" build
has dropped now or will in a few days.

Had you been in Windows, ( from your OP it sounded like you were
anywhere but there on the Vista boot), normally in Win XP I would
have urged you to run System File Checker (SFC) to get back the
windows files intact, but my best information on SFC in Vista is that
it does not yet work--that in a high percentage of cases it can damage
a registry and put you into a no boot situation--it happened to
several of us trying it.

The last comment I saw on it by one of Darell's collegues who is
heavily involved in Win RE as a PM on that team, recommended only
using the "sfc/ verifyonly" switch which I've never even thought of
using during the run of XP because what it does is that switch ID's
damaged file signatures but doesn't repair them--like taking your
broken car into be fixed and having the guys say you need this and
that but fail to fix it.

I'd really like to give you an intelligent explanation of the
differences among these options, but I don't know where that's
explained anywhere in the land of MSFT Redmond's posted info on the
web. Maybe Darell can point us to that information. If it was
explained in a recent live meeting or chat, then only a relatively few
people would have had access to that information a month and two days
after Vista has been released to the public --May 22 I beliveve.

CH









The files were snapman.sys and si3112.sys.. the first from the
properties version ifno was from acronis and the second from silicon
image. Neither are MS files from the vista dvd far as I know. I didnt
try recover as i just replaced them thru XP.

message Hello Peter,
What files did you delete?
Can you try booting to the DVD?
On the install screen in the lower left, choose the recovery option
Try to see if one of the recovery options allows you to fix the
system
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

 

[MICHAEL]

I assume that when XP is starting up it starts VSS and the driver polls the system for restore
points. It would validate them at that time and protect the user from restoring corrupt files
by ensuring that no invalid restore point is available. Vista restore points would not be
valid and so would be deleted.

As far as I know a volume cannot be excluded. Since this happens when XP is running, it
makes no difference that SR in XP has not been monitoring the Vista volume because it was
Vista that set the restore points on that volume, not XP.

As to your accessing the XP volume while running Vista, the XP VSS driver has to be running
in order for anything destructive to happen to the restore points on the Vista volume. In
other words, XP has to be running. What you are doing is accessing the XP volume as a data
disk while Vista is running. I don't see how that would cause any problem.

The larger issue bothers me. I think what is coming down the pike is the conclusion that
advising folks to multiboot XP and Vista is not a great idea. It wouldn't even help to turn
off System Restore in XP because that really has nothing to do with it. And I know I don't
have any business telling users not to use SR.

The only way to multi-boot XP and Vista considering these things would be if the Vista volume
is hidden from XP.

I hope somebody figures out how to tell XP to stay the h*ll out of Area 51.

Would XP delete the SR point if Bitlocker was used and the drive encrypted?

-Michael

 

[MICHAEL]

Would XP delete the SR point if Bitlocker was used and the drive encrypted?

I mean Vista's OS partition. That's all BitLocker encrypts. Right? It doesn't
encrypt other partitions on the same drive. That would seem to keep XP away.

-Michael

 

[Chad Harris]

I am sure now that just accessing XP via a shortcut from the Vista desktop
will have the same effect--you lose your restore points in Vista. This is a
terrible situation, a huge failure by Eduardo Laureano SR PM and his home
boys and girls, and one they should find a way to correct. Dual booting is
very very prevelant; this thing is only half way through the beta builds
which they are doing about one a month to collect more bugs which they are
slow and inefficient about correcting.

I find dual booting very convenient because I don't have to transfer files
and folders to Vista saving time and space. I can access XP from Vista
easily by C:\Documents and Settings\Michael's Profile on XP\Desktop and any
file and folder if I add it to that path and of course I can drag a shortcut
off the explorer folder for it onto the Vista desktop.

If you turn off SR in XP or any OS Micheal, of course ayk you lose the
restore points so that would just mean you lost restore points in both. Bit
locker's use won't impact this or protect the restore points in Vista.

CH

 

[Peter M]

Actually snapman is a culprit. According to what I read on wilderssecurity
forums when you uninstall trueimage it leaves behind a hidden service that
still runs and snapman is part of it. I tried to manually get rid of it
using the instructions from the forum provided by acronis support and my
machine went into an endless reboot loop. Last Knonw Good config got me
running again. As for si3112 theirs registry entries so it's probably still
being seen by vista hence the critical error. I may try the unistall routine
stuff and then try the recover function for giggles. I do have a full disk
backup from the 17th so I wouldnt be losing much. If so I'll post here as to
how well it worked.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

No. I believe VSS operates below that level. I believe that VSS and
CompletePC Backup operate at the block level.

 

[Chad Harris]

1) I wish I had a nickle for every time eggregiously stupid statements were
made by "Wilder Security" and particularly for all the millions of times
idiots post normal Windows processes on hijack this logs and yammer on about
how a normal Windows process is hosing them when the culprit is anything
but.

2) If snapman is in fact a culprit, then Last Known Good is nothing
esoteric--it is simply another form of system restore snapshot--and in Vista
it is probably a variant of VSS that is used for system restore and does
such a stupid job of losing restore points when you even go to an XP file
path.

3) To conclude snapman is the culprit since thousands of people are happily
running Acronis TI in XP, then you'd have to conclude that snapman and
Acronis TI are not Vista compatible at this time. I doubt silicon's
deletion had anything to do with your problem.

Stash the info on Win RE because it's the main recovery set of tools for
Vista and MSFT is making certain to repeat history. Their OEM VP who is an
accountant and not a sofware engineer is making certain that just as XP
could not repair install from OEM recovery disc and partition crap, that
Vista Win RE will not be accessed by the junk that OEMs ship to suckes
because both companies are too cheap to give the customer adequate access to
Win RE in a Vista retail DVD.

4) I cannot find one Softie on the Redmond campus who will take the
challenge to fix a trashed Vista with the crap that OEM ships with expensive
pcs--partitions purporting to have Win RE and crap discs purporting ot have
it. Just as I cannot find one who wants to get into a contest with 1000
trashed XP boxes and 500 XP retail CDs to do a repair install if needed and
500 pieces of crap that OEM ships.

CH

 

[milleron]

I can understand that. the si3112.sys is raid driver from a wrong driver
install for my card. snapman.sys is an acronis snapshot api I assume left
over from when I uninstalled acronis trueimage. However one would think with
the correct raid drivers installed that file shouldn't stop vista from
loading. So it seem there is also a MS snapman then if you have it in your
drivers folder. Now that would be the reason for one non-booting system.
I'll have to look thru the DVD and see if I can find the MS file to replace
the acronis one.

My Vista installation includes no file named "snapman.sys."

Peter--

I'm not speaking for Darrell. but most people reading what you posted
would pull out that you had hosed your system, by removing those two
files--I know snapman.sys is located by default in the System 32\Drivers
folder and may work with Acronis true image--the other is 3rd party whose
absense I wouldn't think would hose the system--I'm not sure what Silicon
is associated with--but loose associations conjure up Valley and chests
but not necessarily in any order--or not necessarily connected although I
guess they could be on multiple levels. I didn't see snapman.sys in the
DLLCache folder--I was looking there to see if perhaps it could be
replaced by what I call a "Quickie SFC (System File Check) where if I know
what the damaged or missing file is, I can just go to
C:\Windows\System32\DLLCache and pull the file out and in this instance a
file will copy to desktop (left or right click drag). I've fixed a few
damaged files that way--CMD was one.

When we saw "Be careful what you delete"/on reboot Vista wouldn't start
with missing critical files"/Ouch to say the least"/Without my dual boot
of XP I would have been toast..."

Most of us would think--"this guy on a dual boot deleted some files--maybe
others he didn't mention" and now he's in a no boot Vista situation--the
"Ouch/be carefull/Vista wouldn't start kind of did it for me."

So Darell's mission was (and mine would have been exactly the same) to
help you fix or get back your Vista boot by using the new Win RE tool that
Darell and others have been working on by accessing it through the Vista
DVD so that you could use one of its "System Recovery" options to repair
Vista and replace your corrupt or missing system file and your corrupt
driver file including the listed options

Startup Repair
System Restore
Complete PC Restore
possibly even "Fabricant" when or if it's in 5384.4 or whatever flavor of
"RCI foreplay find us more bugs and hope we'll listen to you" build has
dropped now or will in a few days.

Had you been in Windows, ( from your OP it sounded like you were anywhere
but there on the Vista boot), normally in Win XP I would have urged you
to run System File Checker (SFC) to get back the windows files intact,
but my best information on SFC in Vista is that it does not yet work--that
in a high percentage of cases it can damage a registry and put you into a
no boot situation--it happened to several of us trying it.

The last comment I saw on it by one of Darell's collegues who is heavily
involved in Win RE as a PM on that team, recommended only using the "sfc/
verifyonly" switch which I've never even thought of using during the run
of XP because what it does is that switch ID's damaged file signatures but
doesn't repair them--like taking your broken car into be fixed and having
the guys say you need this and that but fail to fix it.

I'd really like to give you an intelligent explanation of the differences
among these options, but I don't know where that's explained anywhere in
the land of MSFT Redmond's posted info on the web. Maybe Darell can point
us to that information. If it was explained in a recent live meeting or
chat, then only a relatively few people would have had access to that
information a month and two days after Vista has been released to the
public --May 22 I beliveve.

CH

The files were snapman.sys and si3112.sys.. the first from the properties
version ifno was from acronis and the second from silicon image. Neither
are MS files from the vista dvd far as I know. I didnt try recover as i
just replaced them thru XP.

Hello Peter,
What files did you delete?
Can you try booting to the DVD?
On the install screen in the lower left, choose the recovery option
Try to see if one of the recovery options allows you to fix the system
Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

 

[MICHAEL]

No. I believe VSS operates below that level. I believe that VSS and CompletePC Backup
operate at the block level.

Well, obviously, I'm not quite understanding all this. I turned Bitlocker on,
rebooted to XP three different times, and all my restore points are still
listed. I have not attempted to do a restore but it was my understanding
that there would be no restore points listed. I do have System Restore
disabled on XP. Someone please explain what the deal is. Thanks.

-Michael

 

[MICHAEL]

I am sure now that just accessing XP via a shortcut from the Vista desktop will have the same
effect--you lose your restore points in Vista. This is a terrible situation, a huge failure
by Eduardo Laureano SR PM and his home boys and girls, and one they should find a way to
correct. Dual booting is very very prevelant; this thing is only half way through the beta
builds which they are doing about one a month to collect more bugs which they are slow and
inefficient about correcting.

I find dual booting very convenient because I don't have to transfer files and folders to
Vista saving time and space. I can access XP from Vista easily by C:\Documents and
Settings\Michael's Profile on XP\Desktop and any file and folder if I add it to that path and
of course I can drag a shortcut off the explorer folder for it onto the Vista desktop.

If you turn off SR in XP or any OS Micheal, of course ayk you lose the restore points so that
would just mean you lost restore points in both. Bit locker's use won't impact this or
protect the restore points in Vista.

I'm lost. I have SR turned off in XP, never liked SR in XP. I prefer image
backups and select manual file backups. But I thought I would test SR in Vista.
I turned Bitlocker on yesterday. I have rebooted several times to XP and my
restore points are still listed in Vista. Before I turned Bitlocker on, I hadn't
gone to XP since the 21st. I have several restore points listed going back to
the 21st. Are they valid? I have not tried to use them.

-Michael