Backup Windows XP Professional system

Did anyone backup the system drive C successfully?
I didn't.

I used full backup option to backup the drive C and restore the image to another HDD. When I rebooted the system with the new HDD, I had the follwoing error message as follows. It won't let me run Windows XP.

Error finding BIMAGIC.IMG
Run BootMagic install
Press any key to boot active partition

NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+del to restart


This is my laptop.
Windows XP professional
Acronis True Image 8.0 build 1,018
40 G HDD
I have 13 G data in drive C.
I restored it to 15 G HDD for testing.

Thank you for your help

Jeff

 

I don't think there ever was a build 1018 of TI ver 8. Last know good build for that version is 937. So are we talking of the same TI?

Try the demo boot CD of the latest version (9 build 2323).

 

1) Is this Build 1018 perhaps a German version ?

2) If you backed up only the C partition and not the entire DISK, you're missing your MBR and would need to use recovery console to "fixmbr" the disk you're trying to boot from.

 

Chunpo,

Do you have BootMagic installed on your laptop 40 GB drive? How many partitions? Where did you store the image or did you do a partition clone?

 

I did not install BootMagic in this 40G HDD.
This HDD has two partition, C and D. I create the image for partition C on the external HDD.

I use low level format tool to format the testing HDD, which is 15 G HDD.
After doing it, I did not see BootMagic error. I think Bootmagic error came from the testing HDD.
However, I still had "NTLDR is missing"

Thank you

 

And that is your problem, right there. You need to fix your MBR. If you had imaged the entire physical drive, you would have imaged the MBR at the same time.

 

crofttk,

This is what I still don't understand. Say my C drive is 5 GB with 3 GB of data and D drive is 240 GB with 200 GB of data. Assume that the D drive data is backed up on an external HD and network shares. Now the HD fails and I replace it with a new one. Are you saying that I need to have an image of the entire drive to restore to the new HD so that it will boot? That image would be well over 100 GB. A C drive image would be around 1.5 GB. Isn't that sufficient with my scenario?

 

Hi Brian,

To restore seamlessly from Acronis TI, in the example you cited, yes you would have to restore the whole drive image to have it be bootable.

It's indeed ludicrous when highlighted by your example. I used to simply image my C drive separately anyways (about 21 GB, E partition on same drive has data at about 55 GB) because I'm not really uncomfortable using fixmbr. Besides, I had the operating system and programs redundantly covered with First Defense-ISR installed.

So, I COULD answer you question this way: "No, not if you're comfortable using fixmbr, especially if you have a redundant backup of your system partition in some other form."

Why it was set up that way, you'll have to ask Acronis.

 

Hi crofttk,

As you suspected, I deliberately chose a ridiculous scenario.

I only image the C drive. Before I restore an image to a new HD, I partition the drive to look like the old HD. I guess this creates a similar MBR to the old HD because the HD boots after restoring a C drive image. I then copy my data via Windows Explorer. I don't image data partitions.

 

Chunpo,

Why don't you try Method #3 (towards bottom of the page)

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

 

I was pleased to find this thread as I have the same problem, but have not seen a solution here. Method #3 looks a bit hairy for me. Is Bootmagic a solution?

I have a 120Gb laptop partitioned 20Gb OS and apps, and 100Gb data which is already backed up on the network. I just want to use ATI to create an image of the 20 Gb OS partition and restore it bootably.

Is there an approach along lines of creating an image of the whole 120GB then applying exclusions which would prevent the 100Gb of data being imaged.

Thanks

Mike

 

Restoring only the C: partition of a multi-partition system drive shouldn't be a problem if merely restoring it to the original (serviceable!) hard drive. However, try that with a new, unpartitioned, replacement drive and you will likely find that it doesn't boot. In which case you will need to create a new MBR. Probably the easiest way of doing this is to download and run the mbrautowrite.exe file (either the self extracting boot floppy creator or the CD ISO) as detailed in the Acronis Support sticky titled <Please Read Before You Post>

The reference to Dan Goodell's <Method #3 ("Kawecki's Trick")> is a bit of an overkill as this really only needs to be used in the event of a DiskID problem, normally after an incorrect CLONE operation.

Regards