Restoring a C: Drive from a IDE-USB Adapter

I have been backing up with Acronis True Image for quite some time, but this is the first time I've actually needed to restore a failed drive. My backup images are on a different computer than the failed computer and the failed drive was the system "C" drive on the failed computer.

I purchased another drive and connected it to the working computer using a USB to IDE adapter. I followed the prompts to restore to a previous backup and then installed the drive into the correct computer via IDE.

I'm now getting a boot error. I think I might know what's happening, but I don't know how to fix it. During the restoration, Acronis asked me if I wanted to assign a drive letter. I didn't know the correct answer so I let it assign a drive letter, but not "C" because I already have a "C" drive in the computer I was using to restore this drive. It automatically assigned "L" to this drive.

Now I'm not sure what to do. If I assign drive letter "C" while it's connected to the working system, I'm certain that it will do something bad. I'd rather not have to deal with the complexity of restoring the drive with a rescue disk unless I have to. Doing it on a working system seems so much easier.

Do I run the restore again and select the option to not assign a drive letter?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Mandy

P.S. Forgot to mention that I'm using True Image Home 11 on XP Professional NTFS.

 

Are you sure this is easier?

Did you replace the MBR/track0 as well as the C partition when you restored the image? I would do that and not assign a letter. After completed, shut down the machine and put the drive into the proper machine. I don't know if assigning a drive letter at this stage really has any effect when the disk is put into the other system as the boot partition.

Actually, I think my first attempt at fixing the issue would be to boot up the TI rescue CD and run things as intended. It that gives you serious grief then try the above.

 

I thought it would be easier on another machine because I used to use Norton Ghost years ago and I remember having a lot of headaches getting the Norton rescue application to read my external drives that contained the images. I figured that fixing the drive on a working machine and then moving it to the broken machine would save time and aggravation. Apparently that may not be true.

Now I've booted the target machine with the Acronis Rescue CD and it is seeing my external hard drive with the backup image but it's not seeing the target hard drive (the new hard drive).

The drive shows up on the initial BIOS boot screen but isn't showing up in the Acronis Restore dialog box. The new drive came out of a Dell PC that wasn't needed anymore and it has a hidden EISA partition for restoring the Dell computer that it came out of. I understand that these EISA partitions can be very difficult to remove, besides it's only using a few MB of space so I left it alone. I've tested the drive and it passed all tests.

Would that EISA partition cause a problem?

Any thoughts?

 

Is the target drive setup inside the machine as an internal drive? If so, then I'm surprised TI doesn't see it especially since it has partitons on it from being in the Dell.

The TI rescue CD is Linux so the drive letters may not match. In other words, look very carefully at the TI tree to make sure it isn't really there. Another poster had this very problem the other day.

Go into the TI new disk prepartion area and see if the drive is seen there.

 

Don't worry about assigning a drive letter, I always leave it blank.

Download the free "boot corrector" found inside "Rescue Kit 9.0 Express bootcd" (it's a 47mb download), use that to bootup your computer that has the restored drive that won't boot. With this "boot corrector" you can change the drive letter and get your computer to boot. It'll take 5 minutes to fix.

Windows xp pro is "notorious" for having "partition ID drive letter" problems when restored. In your case more than likely your source "windows xp" had previously been exposed to the drive that it was going to be restored on, it added the drives ID into the registry and that cause it problems. With a "boot corrector" drive letter problems are a non-issue.


https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=237785

 

Amandaville,
A few questions.

1. Referring to the failed drive, did it have any hidden or diagnostic or recovery partitons as displayed by the graphical view of XP disk management?

2. If the answer is yes, when you performed your backups, does your backup file include all these partitions? In other words, when you performed your backup creation, did you check mark the disk option or did you checkmark only the C partition?

3. Is the new drive the same size or larger or smaller (in capacity) as compared to the old drive?

4. Do you have an external usb drive with sufficient free space that you could copy your backup archives from its current location onto the usb drive? This would be the backup archive you intend to use or produce your new drive.

5. When booted from the TI Rescue CD, you may have to open the MyComputer tree to see the new drive.

6. Your best option to use the Dell disk is to remove all the existing partitions. This link shows you how.
How To Delete Disk Partitions Using TrueImage Home
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=213446

When booted from the Rescue CD, use the Add disk option and see if the dell disk is visible. If yes, you can delete the existing partitions using this function as just described in the preceding link.

7. Depending upon your response, we may be able to offer a few additional suggestions.


Addendum:
Post #12 is another possible option for your use.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=238066