MBR Changes have any impact ?

[Hahaiah]

I've been using TI8 fairly successfully just using the boot disc has been fine.

Recently, I was working with Drivecrypt and they have an option which tinkers with the MBR, to remove it, I essentially had to do a FIX MBR

After restoring a saved image afterwards. Windows was corrupt and couldnt stop with the errors, I tried 3x to restore the image and even resized the partition on the last one just to see if I could get lucky. The image checked out fine with an integrity check. but windows was trashed.

I'm doing a fresh install now and have an older known good image I'll restore later

I've never had a bad restoration, and this was the only thing I could think of, especially since the image verified itself as good ...

Possible ?

[Acronis Support]

Hello Hahaiah,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

Could you please provide me with the more detailed information on the problem?

- Whether you have created this particular image before altering your hard drive's MBR using Drivecrypt or after doing this?

- Have you ever had a successful restoration of this particular image?

I mean the ability to boot into Windows after the image has been restored.

- What operating system you use?

- What exact error messages have you received when tried to boot into the restored operating system?

- Have you tried to fix your hard drive's MBR after you have restored an image?

- Find the build number as it is shown here (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/) and let me know it;

- Describe actions taken before the problem appeared step-by-step.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

[Hahaiah]

System Specs in Signature. This was done using TI CWS v8 Build 1196 Boot CD

Created image of C System Drive.

Installed Drivecrypt's option of Boot logon security. It modifies the MBR to create a logon window of it's own before booting to windows. On another system, I restored an image and the logon was still present, so this has to be in the MBR.

Used Drivecrypt's option to remove the boot logon, which is supposed to replace the MBR with a backup it keeps stored in it's program directory.

After restoring the image, I had 3 or 4 critical windows errors and the entire system was unstable. Tried to restore the image several times. I then had a previous image of the same system and tried to restore that one. I got the exact same windows errors. I resized the partitions hoping it might somehow fix it, it did not.

At this point, I figured somehow the MBR caused this or I have hardware issues.

I then did a full reformat and install. I created an image and it restored without errors. I've only had the system back for a short time, so if it does turn out to be hardware, I'll post it, but it seems the MBR was the culprit.

If possible, can you explain what could have happened ?

Thanks again.

[Allen L.]

If it was the MBR that was corrupted, the system wouldn't boot to give you the Windows errors. The MBR is the *boot* sector, and is really nothing more than a pointing device to boot.ini and some other files according to which OS system is booting.

[Hahaiah]

I thought so too. But apparently it affected it somehow.

MBRs also hold information about the drive itself. serial #, sector info and so on. Since the problem 'seems' resolved ... it's still pointing to the MBR as the cause ....

[Acronis Support]

Hello Hahaiah,

Well, since everything works fine at the moment and there is no chance to find out what exact error messages you received when tried to boot into the restored operating system, it's really hard to determine the exact reason for the problem you faced.

However, I'm inclined to believe that Drivecrypt has changed\damaged your hard drive's MBR in some way and that was the reason for the problem. You should have try fixing your hard drive's MBR by booting the computer from Windows XP Installation CD and issuing the "fixmbr" command in Recovery Console. It might have solved the problem.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov