Defragmenting Backup Location?

This raises another question. The CD that I have is for the version just previous to the one that I have installed (4942). This was necessary because the older version was incompatible with x64, so for uniformity I'm using it on MCE also. Does the difference between the CD and installed versions matter? Could this be the reason for this problem?

 

I assume that when you say previous version you mean the previous build? i.e. 4940 and not version 9 of TI, as far as I am aware you should be able to carry out any operations from the CD without problems, except in one of the builds in TI 9 Acronis changed the "engine" and earlier builds could not be used on later images.

This is the screen you should see when pressing F11

 

You are correct, it is the previous build of TI 10.0, not 9.0.

I have never seen the screen that you posted at any time. What I see is similar, but without any booting options. I am using the factory CD, rather than a rescue CD created by TI...would that be different?

 

It may be the factory CD that is the problem. Create a new CD with Media Builder and see if you get the screen shown above.

The factory CD may be booting directly into the Full mode. I have never used the factory CD as I've always purchsed the download version and made my own.

Once you press F11, you get the window where you can input the command options.

 

It worked as it should, after burning a new rescue CD, so I guess that the factory CD is total trash for me. However, even though I got the mouse to work so that I could navigate through the setup, once it began the recovery, it stopped a few minutes later with an error saying that the image is corrupt, and giving an error number of 00070020. The log also gave a tag=0X82DB939B70C3AFC...whatever that means. Throughout the entire time I kept getting random beeps, but not in any pattern that would be coming from the bios...is that normal? The bottom line is what next? Does the corrupt image mean that something is wrong with the hardware or software, or I just have to keep trying until it works?

 

I haven't read back though all the posts so maybe I missed this...

Where is the backup image stored? If it's on an internal drive, have you tried booting to the Safe Mode version of TI and trying the restore?

Does the image validate okay from Windows?

 

Yes, I have the image stored on the second partition of a SATA drive located internally. I'm trying to restore it to a PATA drive that is also internal. No, I have not tried Safe Mode, because I had no idea of what it is. If validate = verify, the answer is yes, everything seemed to go smoothly in Windows. I was a bit surprised that the progress window during the attempted recovery indicated that it would take 2 hours...that seems like an awful lot of time.

If I try Safe Mode, what does that do?

 

I don't know if it is relevant or not, but I just checked in my file manager, and there are two files that TI apparently put there...00007E00-A0A2D210 and a second one of the same label with a .bak extension. There are also a System Volume Information and Recycler folders put there by Windows (of course).

 

Validate/Verify, same thing.

Safe Mode is DOS-based and uses the comptuer's BIOS to access the drives. Usually it does not allow USB devices to be accessed (though some newer computers do). The program is basically the same and you use the same methods so you don't have to re-learn anything.

If you didn't include the Safe Mode version on the CD, then you'll have to create another one with it selected.

 

No word from support yet, except an email apologizing for the delay, and saying that it was being forwarded to the appropriate person. At this point, I'm at a loss for what to do next? I've scrolled back through the thread to see if I've missed anything, but I haven't. I did notice that one question was unanswered...about the beeps during the recovery. Is it normal for there to be random continous beeps? These are not of any kind of pattern, such as BIOS beeps.

 

I made my last post between waking up and my first cup of coffee. After the caffein drove away the fog, I realized that I had not yet tried using safe mode. When I did, everything seemed to go smoothly...for a while. Instead of it showing 2 hours to complete, it showed 44 minutes, and there were no beeps...except one. That was when the verifying process was nearing completion and an error popped up. It was thus:

BootSector Write!!
Virus: Continue (Y/N)?

I tried to continue but TI had froze and wouldn't accept any commands. I use Nod32 and it has never said anything about a bootsector virus, or any other virus for that matter. I did not have the BIOS bootsector virus protection enabled until a couple of days ago, but wouldn't it still find it after the fact? At the moment, it is one program's word against another, how can I verify it. If I understand, while it may take a special program to remove such a virus, you have to know which one first. I don't know whether to treat this as real, or as just a snafu in TI?

 

If you disable bootsector protection in the BIOS, does TI Safe mode verify the image okay?

I doubt you have a bootsector virus.

 

Yes. that was the answer. It should have occurred to me, but I made the false assumtion that the error came from TI, instead of the BIOS, because it occurred during the verifying processs, not while I thought it would be writing anything.

The recovery got a bit further, but it still hung about 5 minutes before completion. There was no error message of any kind. I kind of think that this may have been due to the fact that it may have run out of space to complete the recovery, but both the original (~30GB)and archived (21.7GB) sizes were much smalller than the free space on the target drive (37.26GB). Then I thought that TI may have used some of the extra space for it's own functions, but oddly I found what appearred to be these files on the source drive, instead of the target drive, as I had before.

I can repeat this again, with a new 80GB drive that I got from WDC, but a couple of things have me wondering if I should, because for some reason, Windows insisted on setting it up as a simple drive, without partitions and as dynamic, instead of as a basic drive. I'm not clear on exactly what a dynamic drive is?

 

Just be aware that TI does not support dynamic drives. Use windows disk management to set it to basic.

 

That's good enough of a reason for me...done. I'm still wondering if my speculation about the cause for TI to hang during the recovery was good or not.

 

Finally, I got a successful recovery performed! I'm not sure what was different this time from before, except that I used a different target drive, with a partition size equal to the original and I skipped the verification process, since it had been successful on the last attempt. In any case, I feel much better now that I know that there is a safety net in place.

I want to thank everyone who had the patience and took the time to respond. Without your help I would probably have thrown up my hands long ago.

However, I'm not quite ready to put this thread to bed yet, because this has been a learning experience for me, and a test phase for TI, and I'm hoping that someone might be able to explain why TI failed on the last recovery attempt? Is a recovery simply a roll of the dice, or is there a method to the madness?