TI9 WS Restore Errors Out After Notebook Service

[Dobermann]

I have a notebook that before sending it in for service, I wiped out all kinds of stuff on its hard drive since I could not seem to figure out how to secure it from the service folk's prying eyes. Before I did that, I made a backup using TI 9 home edition trial version. It verified just fine.

My notebook is now back. I have purchased the workstation verion, installed it, and created a recovery CD, which is what I am using. When I first tried to restore from the backup image (one large image on external USB HD), it restored just fine, but upon rebooting, it errored out saying it had a problem with the OS. When it suggested Primary as the partition type during the first restore, I "wisely" changed it to Active (there is a hidden partition containing the mfg's restore feature). A couple attempts later (after having to delete the HD contents in a now non-functioning notebook), I was still in the same boat. Plus, I now no longer had the option to set this back from Active to Primary.

Next I used the mfg's system restore feature to restore the notebook to its original condition, using the DVD/CDs that I had created when I first purchased the unit. This worked, the unit booted, and wanted to go through the initial startup junk. At this point, I rebooted and restarted the TI recovery. Upon "successful" restoration, and another reboot, I am now greeted with the following lovely message,

"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."

Obviously, I'm stumped. I think that perhaps part, if not all, of my problem is that when the notebook was in for service, they changed the motherboard. This has probably triggered MicroSoft's reactivation (XP-P), yet locking me out, when I try to use the TI image, whereas when I use the mfgs restore DVD/CDs, it sees that MB and thinks nothing of it. It's like XP thinks I am trying to cheat and use this image on second, almost identical notebook (just the MB is different), which I am not. Since pre-installed XP-P does not require activation, the restored from mfg DVD/CDs does not have any problem. But when I go and dump this TI image on top of it, that's when things go wrong. And it won't give me any option to fix it.

What can I do to get my image back and working once again? ???

TIA,
Dobermann

[Dobermann]

shameless bump....

[Chutsman]

Interesting situation you have there. I don't have an answer except to say that if the restore CDs worked, your backup Image should also work.

After you tried the restore CD, so that Windows was now on the drive, did you then try to Restore the backup and allow the process to delete the existing partition?

[bodgy]

Have you checked in BIOS what the drive lettering is?

Perhaps the manufacturer (just to be difficult) has a special boot partition that is read by the BIOS and then hands control over to the Windows boot mechanism.

Do you actually have an OEM copy of Windows, because if XP, you could try restoring the image and then use the CD repair method to re-instate all the files - then we might be able to work out where the image process has gone awry.

Colin

[Dobermann]

-{ Quote: "After you tried the restore CD, so that Windows was now on the drive, did you then try to Restore the backup and allow the process to delete the existing partition?" }-

Couple of times, but it did not work. After all my failed attempts (more times that I have fingers), I realized that I had forgotten a) that I had also purchased Universal Restore, and b) that I had not installed it nor built the boot cd with it. What a commotion to do; install, remove, install, remove, install .... now it finally installed and allowed the creation of the boot CD with UR.

It has finally restored, via UR! I need to check out the functionality of all my software now - hopefully everything is okay.

Thanks for the input!
Cheers,
Dobermann

PS - I like your "you are" comment .... my pet peeve is "try and do" or "try and see". You either do or you don't - you don't "try and", you "try to."

[Dobermann]

-{ Quote: "Have you checked in BIOS what the drive lettering is?

Perhaps the manufacturer (just to be difficult) has a special boot partition that is read by the BIOS and then hands control over to the Windows boot mechanism." }-

Everything looked just fine in the BIOS (what limited values that you are able to check in a notebook). I don't think that Sony did that, but I would not put it past some mfgs.

-{ Quote: "Do you actually have an OEM copy of Windows, because if XP, you could try restoring the image and then use the CD repair method to re-instate all the files - then we might be able to work out where the image process has gone awry.
" }-

Unfortunately, Sony does not included any CDs. You have to build your own recovery CDs. I did, however, try this already, but to no avail - XP CD repair failed.

I figure that it had to be something to do with the new motherboard that service installed and XPP thinking I was trying to cheat my license. This makes me wonder all the more how UR was able to successfully do the restore.

Perhaps Acronis Support can chime in on this and shed some light on why one way worked and the other did not. I would be really, really interested in knowing, as I am sure that those purchasers of just TI Home without UR would also like to know. After all, my backup was made using TI Home (trial version), so the potential for others to run into this problem does exist.

When you are sitting there with a useless backup searching this forum, how much nicer it would be to actually find a solution (or at least a reason) to this problem rather than waiting a couple of days for Acronis Support to respond (weekends are when these problems happen, right?).


Cheers,
Dobermann

[Acronis Support]

Hello Dobermann,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Workstation Disk Backup Software (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/).

I'm really glad to hear that you were able to restore your system with help of Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation and Acronis Universal Restore.

Please note that Acronis Universal Restore (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/ATICW/universal-restore.html) was developed in order to help you transfer the system to a different hardware. Acronis Universal Restore technology provides an efficient solution for hardware-independent system restoration by replacing the crucial HAL and hard disk controller drivers. It is plug-in for Corporate versions of Acronis True Image. Acronis Universal Restore can be used “after the fact”: it is not necessary to create an image with the option. So you are able to use this plug-in with the image archive created with Acronis True Image 9.0 Home as well (you will still need one of the Corporate product in order to be able to restore the image with Acronis Universal Restore).

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

[Dobermann]

Thanks, Aleksandr, but you did not really answer the question. Why did it not work with the regular restore without UR? It was the same computer, just a replacement motherboard in the notebook.

Cheers,
Dobermann

[Acronis Support]

Hello Dobermann,

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

We are also very sorry for not answering your question.

Please note that there are two most probable reasons why the restored Windows did not boot:

1.) The replacement motherboard is different from the one installed originally.

2.) You have restored a single system partition rather than the entire hard drive (see section 7.3.4 of Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation User's Guide (http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/download/docs/)).

Please also take a look at the respective Microsoft Knowledge Base Article (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314477) describing the possible reasons and resolutions for this sort of problems.

As you have already restored your system to a working state, I'm afraid there is no way to figure out what has caused the problem exactly.

If the problem appears in the future 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 having the issue from this beforehand created diskette and wait for the report creation process to finish;

- Collect the report file from the floppy.

Then please submit a request for technical support (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/support/). Provide the report.txt file collected in 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.
--
Alexey Popov