NTLDR is missing - Acronics True Image kills PC

PC: XP, quality hardware and software, no games, router + McAfee internet security Suite, no viruses reported
Acronics True Image registered, up to date V.8 826

Today:
Acronis Secure Zone established
bootable Acronis CD created
system disk C:\ and some other disks created in secure Zone
everythings seems to be o.k. No other programs have been used in this time, nor any internet access.

During a break the PC starts hibernating, which is routinely used without problems

Upon starting again, the message NTLDR is missing, restart with crtl + alt + del

I reboot with Acronis emergeny CD and reinstall C:\
Acronis says o.k.
After reboot same message, NTLDR is missing ....

XP system repair attemts fail:
I cannot repair via R
I cannot install XP over XP via setup
The disks are not recognized (no .. disk in the drive)

A STOP ERROR occurs

WHAT TO DO NEXT?
There seems to be very clear indication that the problems are linked to the use of ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE.

I can access the system with Acronis Emergency Disk.

HELP - This is a critical situation for a small consulting firm, where most of the crucual data sit on this PC.

Regards
Erwin

 

Hello Erwin,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for your inconvenience.

Could you please do the following?

- Download the Acronis Report utility from http://www.acronis.com/files/support/AcronisReport.exe;
- Run Acronis Report utility and select the "Create bootable floppy" option;
- Insert a blank floppy disk in the floppy drive and proceed with creating the bootable diskette;
- Boot the computer under consideration from this diskette and wait for report creation process to complete;
- Send the 'report.txt' file from the floppy disk to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

 

Seen this many times with PCs that don't have Acronis TI installed.... Try this page.

Might be handy to mention which STOP error it is...

 

The STOP Error is quite unspecific, it suggests to check for disk space, BIOS updates, use select save mode, at the end it says Techical Information STOP 0x0000008E (0xC00 ................

Not much to cling on to here, or is there?

Regards
Erwin

 

PS.: I have been to the suggest page. The problem is the the PC does not know that it has any hard disks at all.

 

Sounds like the BIOS. ATI doesn't touch the BIOS.

Have you tried getting the BIOS to redetect the disks?

 

Not true.

The BIOS do not have the foggiest idea which files should be on the hard disk during the Windows boot. You yourself wrote:

Only a Windows MBR would know to look for NTLDR, and the Windows MBR is stored on the disk - ergo, the PC/BIOS is able to read something of the disk.

Something (read: TI) screwed up the partition table during the partition resizing and SZ-creation. Time for http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz/bm_cdr.html ??

 

I gave it a breather and started again.

I could get via XP-CD into repair mode (on previous attemts I did not load the required disk drivers, which were very well stored away).
I copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM to C:\
I could then reboot from the hard disk.
Boot.ini was missing, again back into repair and recreated it.
Up and running, thanks God.

IMORTANT QUESTIONS REMAIN:
Acronis True Image 8.0 build 826 apparantly deleted NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI during normal operation (creating an Acronis Secure Zone).
In the Imagefile of C:\ these files are missing (the appropriate folder options are set, of course)
What's the point of doing an exact (?) image when crucial system files are missing from it?

This needs explanation!!!!!!

Thanks to everyone who reacted to my mail, I was definately under stress. The data on this PC, if lost, would break my back. Now I think I am ready to buy a costly tape backup in order to replace my old one, which I was trying to avoid.

Regards
Erwin

 

I've had this problem before when my Image contained a dual-boot system (C: - Win98, D: WinXP) and I tried to restore D: (WinXP) onto the C: partition.

 

Hi Erwin,

Would you please work with Acronis supoort to solve your TI problems?
It could be helpfull to understand what happened

Good to see that you are up and running again (next time, stay cool. I know from experience that logical thought is much easier when not stressed out ).

 

Hello Erwin,

Could you please clarify whether the files are missing only if the image is stored in Acronis Secure Zone? Also please mount the image with the help of "Explore Image" wizard, open this virtual drive and create the screenshot of the root folder content. Please send the screenshot to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread indicating in the subject of the letter that you want to contact Ilya Toytman.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

I had the same problem just yesterday. I created an Image and tried to restore to a larger disk (on the same PC). The system had the same NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM issue. I copied them from install CD and got back up (with still a missing BOOT.INI)

Is there something we should be doing during the image creation to capture these files? WHen I explore the image, these files are not part of the image

 

Hello blamoureux,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please see me answer to Erwin above and provide me with the same information. If this is a common problem I will contact our Testing Lab and they will try to reproduce it. Does your problem appear when you create image to Acronis Secure Zone? Also please let me know what build of Acronis True Image you use?

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

For people with NTLDR problems, most of the time it's boot.ini not finding the partition in the exact same physical location.

To easily fix this, boot Windows XP disk and access "recovery console" - enter admin password and you're in a kind of DOS environment

Use FIXBOOT

This will search the exact place of your XP install, and alter boot.ini accordingly.

 

Quote from Microsoft for Windows XP:

Did you see any reference above to boot.ini? Maybe you missed that he already ran bootcfg /fix which does rewrite boot.ini.

 

Of course, my bad,

I did mean bootcfg, I keep mixing these up... that is what working late does to you.

 

I am having the same "NTLDR missing" problem after restoring my image on a new disk (see my post https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=80703). The ntldr & ntdetect.com were indeed in the original image and have been restore on the new disk, but for some reason, they were not taken into account.
I will now reformat and reinstall the image again. I hope to make it work this time, but must say that using Acronis TI has been far from painless and Acronis email support has been of very little help so far...
Thanks to the forum participants for your great contributions !