Please help Ntldr missing - tried xp recovery :-(

[Alabama978]

I have a dell dimension 9150

I have two SATA drives (originally Striped 0 RAID) set up in the BIOS as SATA combination mode.

I finished re-installling win XP media center, then decided to try Acronis true image trial version today.

I successfully backed up the C:drive and then attempted to restore it. The software told me all was succesful but I get the dreaded NTLDR missing error on boot.

I tried the trick of running XP recovery console but when I log onto the c: drive and try to copy the NTLDR and NTdetect to c:\ I get "access denied"

I am in the Administrator account OK

Help :-(

Another thought...

Should I have created a secure zone first? I did not do that.

Also is it possible that the Bios Combination mode has somehow got confused on restore. I think I read somewhere that the Combination mode can change drive letters.

Sad to say I am no expert on raid and changing it to normal 2 X 160 gb drives but they worked under the Combination setting and I could see and add files to them. Anyone know what the best BIOS setting is in this configuration?

I really would like to recover the drive, not just to save the nausea of loading XP + all the drivers again, but to get acronis to work with confidence as I need to get a backup regime that works after loosing a lot of data on another machine lately.


Any help greatly appreciated

Al

[Chutsman]

When you said you tried the XP Recovery console, did you choose the SECOND repair option that appeared in the dialog windows? You have to ignore the FIRST repair option and I think the second one will be presented right after you agree to the Eula.

Whatever you do, I would not recommend you create (or use) a SZ. That is only adding another thing that may go wrong.

Also do all your Imaging or Cloning with the bootable TI Rescue cd. All the features you will want are on it and you want to know that the bootable cd will work now rather than later when you are in a situation where you are depending on it to work.

[sick0]

try fixboot or fixmbr under recovery console...

[Alabama978]

Thanks for replies.

I am using the TI recovery CD I created for doing backups etc.

I tried fixmbr in Win Xp recovery console but it's a bit scary as it warns...

"this computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid MBR. Fix MBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed"

I think I will sail close to the wind and try it, if it don't work then looks like XP gets reloaded. If that is the case then I am not too keen on playing with TI again unless I can work out why the restore damaged the NTLDR.

Al

[Chutsman]

I could understand why XP will have that warning message ... it is something like a disclaimer - "don't blame me" sort of thing.

Other things that may make TI produce errors:

Multiple usb devices including hubs, keyboard, mouse.
Wireless keyboard, mouse.

[Alabama978]

Well I thought, why not read the Acronis Sticky. I then burnt their ISO which rewrites the MBR after booting...

Result... Now I get "No operating System"

Time to crash and burn methinks.

Back to XP recovery after restoring the image again and see if fixmbr or fixboot works.

[Chutsman]

Are you using the Clone feature or the Image Backup feature? Whichever one, try the other, since you do have two drives.

If using Clone, you know that you have to disconnect or remove the original drive, before booting (testing) the Cloned drive for the FIRST time?

[Acronis Support]

Hello Alabama978,

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

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Please boot up from the Windows Bootable CD, then go to the Recovery Console (the first Repair option you come to).

From the command prompt please type the command in the following sequence:

FIXMBR C:
FIXBOOT C:
COPY CDDrive:\I386\NTLDR C:\
COPY CDDrive:\I386|NTDETECT.COM C:\
BOOTCFG /rebuild

After that, please reboot your computer.

If the issue remains then please create Acronis Report in the way described below:

- Download and run Acronis Report Utility (http://www.acronis.com/files/support/AcronisReport.exe);
- Select the "Create Bootable Floppy" option;
- Insert a blank floppy disk in the A: drive and proceed with creation of the bootable floppy;
- Boot the computer from this diskette and wait for report creation process to finish;
- Collect the report file from the floppy.

Please submit a request for technical support (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/support/). Attach the collected report file to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

[Howard Kaikow]

-{ Quote: "I have a dell dimension 9150

I have two SATA drives (originally Striped 0 RAID) set up in the BIOS as SATA combination mode.

I finished re-installling win XP media center, then decided to try Acronis true image trial version today.

I successfully backed up the C:drive and then attempted to restore it. The software told me all was succesful but I get the dreaded NTLDR missing error on boot.

I tried the trick of running XP recovery console but when I log onto the c: drive and try to copy the NTLDR and NTdetect to c:\ I get "access denied"

I am in the Administrator account OK

Help :-(

Another thought...

Should I have created a secure zone first? I did not do that.

Also is it possible that the Bios Combination mode has somehow got confused on restore. I think I read somewhere that the Combination mode can change drive letters.

Sad to say I am no expert on raid and changing it to normal 2 X 160 gb drives but they worked under the Combination setting and I could see and add files to them. Anyone know what the best BIOS setting is in this configuration?

I really would like to recover the drive, not just to save the nausea of loading XP + all the drivers again, but to get acronis to work with confidence as I need to get a backup regime that works after loosing a lot of data on another machine lately.


Any help greatly appreciated

Al" }-


Did you happen to have a floppy in the floppy drive?
Or other non-bootable media in an optical drive?

[Alabama978]

Thanks for suggestions...

I don't have a Floopy drive so unable to do a report :-(

Earlier I tried to copy the two files across from the Win CD but Recovery console gives me an access denied error whether I log onto the CD or the Windows DIR, you cannot log onto both in Recovery console at the same time, and of course if it is related to Attrib you cannot change the Attrib of the files on CD.
I will try another restore and see what happens, if you can suggest a solution to the "access denied" error.

I have a solution which is not so elegant as TI 9 but works, I think you will recognise the software - Drive Image XML :-) along with A Bart CD and DI xml as a plugin.

To answer the other reply I only had the Win CD in the drive when attempting the restore, no other USB or other media.

Al

[Chutsman]

Yes, DI XML works but it is very very slow compared to TI. But if it works .... that's the main thing. :)

[Alwill]

-{ Quote: "
Earlier I tried to copy the two files across from the Win CD but Recovery console gives me an access denied error whether I log onto the CD or the Windows DIR, you cannot log onto both in Recovery console at the same time, and of course if it is related to Attrib you cannot change the Attrib of the files on CD.
" }-

Is this article ( http://www.informationweek.com/LP/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=187000225&pgno=1&queryText=) by Fred Langa of any help?