Start Up Console and Recovery Media Not Working

Starting a new thread on my issue as the old issue moved on.

I'm using ATI 10 latest build.

Rebuilt my system last night on a new Motherboard (ASUS).

Everything works fine, new drivers installed et al. Decided to do a quick backup of my working drive to capture updated drivers - backup worked fine. However, on rebooting my PC I noticed that the system recovery console that normally displays the mesage 'Press F11 to enter the ATI recovery console' did not display between POST and the OS booting in. So, reactivated it on boot up from within Windows, completed OK, closed system down and went to bed. This morning on booting up the PC froze just after hitting POST, blank screen, flashing sursor on the left, this is normally the point where I get the 'Press F11' message. It is still freezes. I then tried the recovery CD (also ATI 10), the PC hits POST and displays the message 'Loading ATI ...', the cursor flashes but it does not do anything else, it freezes again. Tried removing the SZ (reformated to NTFS) to see if this would fix the issue, it has not.

I do have another HD with a pristine copy of my OS with nothing else on, this loads fine and boots into the OS. I have just loaded ATI 10 onto this HD and re-created my SZ (on a third HD) and made a backup of my working drive onto the SZ (phew!!). I then created a new bootable CD (but did not invoke the recovery console) and tried it to see if it would work - same thing, freezes just after POST stating 'Loading ATI...'.

I now have a working HD that I cannot access (and I need to), a recovery console that I darn't invoke or I'll not be able to use my standby, pristine HD/OS and the recovery CD does not work!

Where do I go from here?

OS - XP Pro Sp 2
Processor - AMD 3500+
MoBo - ASUS A8N 32 SLI Delux (Default BIOS)
Video - GeForce 7900GT
On-board sound
1 IDE Drive (pristine OS and currently working)
1 SATA (Working OS Drive - currently cannot access)
1 SATA with the SZ on it.
2 SATA Raided (stripe).
2 IDE DVD/CD Burners, both Phillips

Dave

 

Do you have any wireless devices (keyboard or mouse) or multiple usb devices including hubs attached to that system? These have been know to cause problems in previous versions of TI, but I don't know if it carried over into ver 10.

 

Ralphie - Thanks for the reply. I have a USB hub installed (but that worked fine on the old MoBo with ATI 10 installed) and no wireless devices.

Dave

 

True Image has always been prone to problems with certain hardware combinations. Maybe yours is one. In the 3 plus years I've been using TI I've never had to use that F11 feature. Perhaps it's because I believe in using the bootable Rescue CD for all Cloning, Backups, and Restores/Recovery.
In addition when TI is installed, it puts about three or four entries in the Windows Startup sequence - a totally unnecessary feature. It seems that every software maker wants to have some feature of their software starting up when Windows starts. When you have too many pieces of software doing this it lays the groundwork for disaster.
But <getting off my soapbox> I'm at a loss as to what to suggest next. Maybe someone else will come along with something.

 

Ralphie - Thank-you, however the real issue still exists I now have a PC that will not boot into my OS and I can see no way of getting there without being able to get around the system trying (but failing) to load some instruction placed there by ATI.

Dave

 

If you have your original Windows install CD, you can try a Repair in this manner. You will need the windows product ID handy:

When you boot with the CD, ignore all options to choose Repair or Recover until you get to the EULA page. And after you agree to the EULA, by pressing F8, I think you then have to enter the Product ID and right after this is the Repair option you need. From here on out, just let Windows do its thing. When done you'll have your Windows repaired and all your programs will be intact. And of course, save your data first before doing this.

 

Ralphie. VMT, trying now.

Dave

 

Colin, Ralphie

Nearly there. Have gone through the XP Recovery Console and used:

FIXMBR
FIXBOOT
BOOTCFG /REBUILD

System has now booted into my Working OS HD - Thank you.

Just for belt and braces just tried to boot from the ATI 10 Recovery CD, still no joy. Looks like I will not be able to use ATI 10, even though I've always felt safe using it and have used it in anger recovering files or OS's in the past with little problems. Can you suggest another alternative - I just want peace of mind.

Again, many thnks for your help today.

Dave

 

Actually that wasn't quite what I recommended, but, hey, if it works ....

Not being able to boot with the bootable CD .... I wonder if it is a combination of your burner and the media. Just yesterday I had this issue on another problem. Some HP cds would not burn correctly on my Lite-On burner. I used the same media on an NEC burner and it worked fine. This was in fact making a BartPE cd with the TI plug-in. They would not boot when burned with the Lite-ON, but were okay with the NEC.

 

SOLVED!!! (But it cost me £39.99)

Out of frustration I went and purchased the new Norton Save & Restore. Tried to install it and it would not, nor would the Norton boot disk work either. Same issue as existed with ATI.

So uninstalled both ATI (should really have uninstalled that before installing Nortons) and tried again. When I booted my machine back up 3 of my programs threw a wobbly - each used a dll that had been uninstalled when I removed the two programs - MSVCP71.DLL, the culprit. Reinstalled the DLL file into C:\windows after finding a copy on the net and bugger me, both ATI and Nortons now work fine.

£39.99 worse off but a happy teddy!!

Dave