Normal mode impossible but USB backup

Hi,
Thank you for reading my request for help. I followed Paragon's instructions by backing-up my hard drive onto a USB drive. Now that the laptop's drive has failed, I boot with the Paragon CD and choose the normal mode. I soon get the error...

"Ancient bootloader
This kernal requires the following features not present on the cpu: pae
Unable to boot - please use a kernal appropriate for your cpu"

Using the Safe Mode I cannot see the external USB hard drive.

Eventually I find in the Paragon 10.1 manual on p 109 "In the boot menu select Normal Mode to use the Linux recovery environment, since it's the only mode that enables to work with USB devices."

Since I didn't know this in advance, am I shot in the foot? Is there any other solution?

 

Hi,

See if you get hold of the V9 Linux boot disc - it uses a different kernel.

Beeter still - make a pe 2.1 or 3 boot disc.

It's quite straightforward.

You obviously have access to another pc to post up here - what o/s is on the pc you are using now?

 

XP on both machines.

 

iF you install DB 10 on the working machine - you can add it to a winpe 3.0 disc quite easily. It shouldn't have any trouble seeing all your drives.

The 32 bit Win7 recovery disc is good for that - Download Windows 7 System Recovery Discs — The NeoSmart Files

Am just finishing a little app. that will make the boot cd for you.

 

So are you saying I'll use my working machine to create a boot CD using an app that you will send that will enable NORMAL mode on my dead laptop?

Will I be using the Windows 7 System Recovery Disc I create along with your app?

Any compatibility concerns with the W7SR Disc and my Compaq Presario V2030US laptop?

I have downloaded the W7SCR Disc (never did bit torrent before) and the DB 10 on working machine. Note that I'm using the free version of DB10 on both machines.

 

Yes that's it- not hard to add the Paragon app. to the 7 recovery disc ( or the Vista one) . It runs from there exactly like it does it does in windows - even looks the same, tho. obviously you can't do any scheduled tasks.

I don't know about booting the 7 disc and your particular machine - don't imagine there will be any difficulty - plenty of people are booting the 7 install disc ( same environment as the recovery disc ) and on all manner of machines. So it should be fine.

 

So I'll wait for your app. Thanks for all the guidance!

 

Here you go.

Suggest you add a Paragon Partition manager as well - so you can partition from the winpe cd.

If you don't already have one, at least install PM2010 free.

1. Copy the contents of the 32 bit win7 repair cd to your HD.

2. D/l this http://cid-b0a22789320e3247.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/pe/XPVistapecreatorV3.zip

3. In Vista/7 you need to rt click and run as admin on the XPVistapecreatorV3.cmd ( I think on XP you can just dble click on it )

It will do everything for you in a couple of mins.

It will ask you to browse to the boot.wim of the win7 repair cd files you just copied to the HD (It is in the "sources" folder )

Then it asks if you want to include Paragon PM - if so, it asks you to browse to the launcher.exe. You need to have PM installed to do that.

Then it asks if you want to include Paragon BR - if so, it asks you to browse to the launcher.exe. You need to have BR installed to do that.

There is also the option to include Easeus Data recovery Wizard. You need to have Easeus DRW installed to do that. It's free at the moment from http://www.megaleecher.net/Legal_Free_License_For_Easeus_Data_Recovery_Wizard
( use the RS link they provide - mediafire link doesn't work ) .


Boot the cd , and you will find everything in the start menu. You may want to run "Initialize plug 'n play" , or PENetwork from the start menu .

To use the browser, you have to run PENetwork first to establish a connection, it is automatic, just click Apply then OK when it asks.

WinPe 3 allegedly runs if you have 512mb ram - I suggest you need 1gb or it will be very slow.

 

OK...beginning your process but have a question. I will install and add Paragon Partition manager to the boot CD. Why would I want to partition the new hard drive in my laptop? I am using a 160 GB hard drive to replace the dead hard drive, so there is room for partitioning...I've used partitions on a video editing mac 10 years ago but I'm not sure of the value of a partition on the laptop. Any enlightenment on why I would want to?

 

You might not want to do it now.

But you may as well have the facility on the cd - just in case you want it in future - or if you want to boot it up to fix a friend's machine.

There are some basic partitioning features in your BR 10 anyway - the one that is missing is the Move/Resize function.

You don't have to include PM - it is optional - it also makes the boot disc bigger, so don't include it if you don't want.

Btw - when you run the .cmd you will get a message efi is missing - just ignore it - it's not necessary and it's because we are using the 32 bit recovery files as the base.


NOTE: You might want to d/l and install this , http://www.paragon-software.com/free/giveaway.html instead of your BR 10 Free, and browse to that
when asked for the BR 10 launcher - it includes a couple of useful extras like p2p adjust wizard. also partition undelete - those features are really worth having.

It is an enormous download, though - 300mb as the 32 and 64 bit installer are in there, as well as a Linux boot disc self burner ( that probably won't be any better for you than the Paragon Linux boot disc you already have now as it uses the same kernel)

 

"1. Copy the contents of the 32 bit win7 repair CD to your HD."

I have the downloaded file Windows 7 32-bit Repair Disc.iso and it is associated as an Easy Creator CD file. So I'm thinking that if I browse to boot.win by going to the .iso file, it would find it...but it doesn't, so I must be missing a step. What more do I have to do to the iso file to make it usable?

 

If it was on a cd you would put the cd in the drive. Rt click the dvddrive and select COPY. Rt click your HD and select PASTE. That will copy the contents of the iso - not the iso wrapper itself onto the HD.

If you can't be bothered burning a cd first, extract the contents onto your HD , e.g make a new folder on you C drive, and extract the entire contents of the iso you have downloaded into that folder.

Use any of the free (unregistered) versions of PowerIso, MagicIso, or UltraIso, to do it

http://www.poweriso.com/ click the download button - the unregistered lets you burn and extract all iso's - it only let's you edit iso's up to 300mb - perfect for most things.




I am not familiar with easycd creator - it might have an Extract function - make sure you extract the contents into a folder - otherwise the extracted files will be all over the HD.

 

WinPe is quite big and may take 30 seconds to boot up.

This is what you will see:

 

What a very long day, my friend. I successfully used PowerISO to extract the contents. I successfully (so I think) created the new boot CD iso.

I had big problems burning ( I believe very unrelated ). Tried 4 burns on the working machine (took forever to do) but none of the CDs worked. Tried burning CDs on my Mac through my network. CDs didn't work.

I went back to the laptop and reinstalled the failing drive ( sometimes works, sometimes doesn't ) and I burn a CD through the network but again, this CD doesn't work.

I've been going around 10 hours straight on this so I have to ask a clarifying question. After burning the CD the contents of the CD include:

Folder - BOOT
Folder - SOURCES
File - BOOTMGR

Is that how it is supposed to be? If so, I am up a creek for an idea on how to make this work.

 

LOL.

Well done - it sounds right - those are the same files in the original 7 recovery disc - it's only the boot.wim ( inside the sources folder) that has been altered.

I assume you let XPVistapecreatorV3.cmd make the .iso and burn it for you?

It should work - that is a special burner which burns the entire iso as an image file.

It won't boot if you just burn it to cd as data.

Try this:

Use PowerIso to pick up the ,iso you created and it should say at the bottom left of window that is a bootable image. ( see screenshot a couple of posts back)

You can use PowerIso to burn it as well.

If PowerIso says it is a bootable image - you burn it with PowerIso - yet the cd's won't boot , there may be an issue with your cd burner or firmware.

 

Burn number 2 was using PowerISO and the created iso file to make a CD which didn't work. Burn number 7 was using the failing laptop and Roxio Creator DE and the ISO from the working machine, thus I tried three different burners.

No, I didn't take notes on all of the burns, but I remember this much now.

 

When you pick up the iso you made with PowerIso - does it say it is bootable?

I am pretty sure it does.


What happens when you try to boot the cd - do you get press any key to boot from cdrom drive message?

Or does it start to boot but won't load?

 

"do you get press any key to boot from cdrom drive message?"

I got that only with the 7th burn...I pressed any key and it immediately went to starting from the normal Windows start...so it "dropped" the cd boot for whatever reason.

 

I am pursuing a new approach. I can transfer the arc... file to the working machine and put the new hard drive in my external case. I should be able to run Paragon BR and make this transfer, shouldn't I?

 

Attempted the transfer but Paragon would only accept the internal hard drive as the destination so I was unable to complete this approach. I did format the new hard drive while I was at it.

So, after using Easy Creator CD, PowerIso and Windows to attempt to burn CDs, I next had the brainwave to use Paragon to create the recovery CD using Parpe.iso. Though it took some time (30-40 minutes), it finally created the CD. Are we getting somewhere?

I place the CD in the laptop and it seems that things are going well until it gets to this point:

"Windows Boot Manager

Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer.

This error can be caused by unplugging a removable storage device such as an external USB drive while the device is in use, or by faulty hardware such as hard drive or CD-ROM drive that is failing. Make sure any removable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer.

If you continue to receive this message, contact the hardware manufacturer.

Status: 0xc00000e9
Info: An unexpected I/O error has occurred."

The external USB hard drive only clicks like there is something wrong with it, but when I plug it into the working machine, there is no problem accessing the hard drive.

Is there any logical next step or are we hopeless.

 

Hi any progress ?

If there is a problem with your dvd drive/firmware you could try visiting your pc manufacturer and see if there's a firmware update available.

Otherwise, can you boot from usb with your machine?

 

Any progress has come to a screeching halt. Any great ideas from your side of the world?

I couldn't find any thing on the web as to whether my Presario V2030US would boot from USB, so I tried placing the working but failing hard drive in the external USB - no luck on it boot from it.

I'm left to you creativity. There is no firmware update for the DVD burner.

Greg

 

If you can boot from usb - you could use a bootable flash drive instead of cd to boot winpe.

You will have trouble trying to boot an installed windows from a usb drive.

 

So what is the method? Copy the same files (created for boot CD) onto a USB flash drive and boot from there?

...I copied the files to a flash drive and removed the hard drive. The lights on the flash drive flashed as it gave the message No Operating System, so I'm guessing it can boot from USB.

 

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-c...-flashpen-drive-with-a-single-click-must-try/