Am I wrong about restoring?

I think I screwed up. I made an ATI-9 image of a WinXP system drive 40GB partition (call it "DriveC-Old") onto an external 153GB USB drive partition I call Images, but I imaged it AFTER swapping it out physically for another "DriveC-New" (with the same OS) as the now active and primary 40GB partition.

In other words, I removed the old Drive-C and connected it to a different IDE connector as a Slave, imaged it, AFTER adding a different Drive-C as Master.

The added DriveC, however, had errors, so I bought another new 100GB drive, partly to use as DriveC, and installed it with a very basic WinXP OS on a 50GB partition - thinking I would then be able to restore the "DriveC-Old" image to replace it.

This gets confusing........

I would like to restore the DriveC-Old image onto DriveC by selecting Disk1 (including the partition and the MBR), but when I do so using the Rescue Disk, the restore SEEMS to have worked, but the computer will not boot after that. All I get is a black screen.

The computer won't even boot using the Acronis Rescue Disk. It provides an error message about the MBR needing to be fixed.

Is there a way to solve this problem? If you don't understand, I will be happy to elaborate further.

 

Is there no help for this? My computer is "dead"! I can't restore anything except restoring folder/file at a time (this could take weeks - literally, as the program said it would take 8 hours to restore just the Docs&Settings folder), and restoring the DriveC-Old image is really critical to a lot of people. Please help.

Zeico

 

Take a look at this article which should help fix your problem.
http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=313

 

I will definitely try the link you provided, but need to make an image of THIS installation first! Ha!

I will let you know a.s.a.p.

Zeico

 

Well, how interesting!

I went through, and tried - meticulously - all the steps mentioned in the link you sent me: http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=313, and I did it several times.

(Note, however, that the /f option on chkdsk /r /f is not a valid parameter, so I could only do a chkdsk /r.)

After giving the FIXBOOT command, it asks me if I want to accept putting the boot sector on Drive E: (my images drive) - NOT Drive C:! I went ahead and did that and rebooted. The same danged error message came up: "The \Windows\System32\Config\System file is missing or corrupted".

So I unplugged my images drive (USB) and went thru all the steps again using my XP install disk. This time, it did put the boot sector on Drive C:. I rebooted after exiting, and the same error message came up again.

By now, my boot.ini file is much more than a single-boot OS option. It is now "quad-boot". There are 4 diffent boots to choose from, and none of them work. When I use the Type command for the boot.ini file for the restored DriveC-Old on Drive C:, it shows the choice of 4 OS's, so that seems to be correct in view of what I have done thru the Recovery Console.

Last of all, I restored the \Windows\System32\Config\System file from the image of THIS setup to the supposedly restored image and all I got then was a blank screen. This is driving me batty!


Thank God, at least one good thing happened: I was able to restore THIS drive image so that I can try to get some more info on how to solve the more serious problem through the Internet.

I don't know what to do next, but this is getting to be a desperate situation.

Help!!!

 

This is my BOOT.INI file yours should look similar to this:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut

Delete the boot.ini file and run BOOTCFG /ADD on drive C if this is your boot drive and add that windows installation. The rerun BOOTCFG /Rebuild. Also look at this Microsoft KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545.

 

This is the boot.ini I have in the OS I am using right now. (It isn't the one that won't boot.)

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Obviously this works with my current OS system setup.

Question: You said, "Delete the boot.ini file and run BOOTCFG /ADD on drive C if this is your boot drive and add that windows installation. Then rerun BOOTCFG /Rebuild." Could you clarify that a bit more? Is the BOOTCFG /ADD where I input all or some of the information contained in my current boot.ini? And after the BOOTCFG /Rebuild, is that where I enter the OS options? Also, do I need to re-run chkdsk /r and FIXBOOT again afterwards?

 

OK You now have a bootable new drive C ( I think). I think all you to do is restore the partition only from your old drive C. Just check the partition not DISK1 and not MBR.

 

I understand. I'll try that, but it seems like I did that yesterday and got the same error message. I'll let you know, for sure - either way. Cross your fingers and toes, ok?

Zeico

 

I give up. Tried that, but it didn't work, either.

I just restored an image off an old hard drive. Perhaps 3 months old, but it will do. Thanks for trying.

Zeico