technical question

Does ti version 8 back up the MBR and other bootfiles with the partition image?
One of the reasons I decided to go backup crazy was that I played with a partition manager which left me with an unbootable pc and the ominous message.... hard disk read error, corrupt MBR, .. I lost all my partitions, all my files, everything, so will acronis backup these files in case the mbr is destroyed for some reason?
Thanks
John

 

The Acronis Disk Editor is a great tool that may help you creating a backup of your MBRs/Partition tables.

The Acronis Disc Director Suite even claims to be able to recover "lost" partitions - no idea if that works because I never needed to use this function so far.

I do not think that the MBR should be backed up unless you take a backup of the whole disk and not only partitions. If you restore just a partition, restoring the MBR from a backup would be destructive in case you already have partitions on that hard disk.

 

What about just backing up the C: Active System Partition by itself Tom, do you think the MBR should be eliminated from that backup? If so then you couldn't resore the C: partition back to an active operating state.

Hate to say it, but the Support team has been requested to answer this question, but they flip flop on the answer, and I do believe your suggestion is very misleading. One should always backup the whole disk with your logic if one wanted to recover the complete system (Active Operation System and more) after a crash. As you are not registered, but a guest, have you been reading the threads on this subject and see all the different replies as to *if* the MBR is copied or not when imaging?

Frankly I don't see how you can copy the active C: Partition and *not* copy the MBR as the program is supposed to copy all the root files and hidden system files, including the MBR, on any disk or partition. In fact, how do you set the program to not copy all the disk if you only check, say, the box for the C: Partition? If if doesn't, then support should come forward with an explanation in it's advertising that say's the *whole* partition (which is basically a disk in itself, as that is why we partition our computers) is either copied, or if only part of it is copied.

All the other imaging programs back up the complete, (and I mean complete including all files, hidden, MBR's, etc. on the partition) of the disk (or partition) being imaged, why wouldn't Acronis?

Allen L.

 

Allen,
The MBR is not part of any partition but located in sector 0 of each hard drive.

When you restore a single partition with TI 7.0 it is asking you if you want to restore it to an active or a primary partition. There is imo actually no need to back up the MBR in this case.

If you back up the whole hard disk and perform a whole hard disk restore too, they either need to create a new MBR or backup/restore the old one. But even in this case, if you restore your prior active partition to a new active partition and the remaining partitions as extended/secondary this would give you the same results (at least theoretically - I did not test it).

Again, the Master Boot Record resides in sector 0 of the hard disk and not in any of the partitions. The MBR is the table of content for the partitions that exist on your hard disk. Additionally it flags the one "active" partition. This flage is being read by the Bios of the PC to determine where to load the operating system from. Hidden/system and other files are located in the partition and obviously are being backed up - like with any other partition oriented backup program.

 

Thanks Tom,

I keep getting the MBR and the partition boot files mixed up. For me, at least, it is very hard to understand, but you have made it much easier, for now I remember about the MBR just residing on the very first sectors of the hard drive and only really 'flagging' or 'pointing' to the active operating system partition after the BIOS load it (MBR) in memory. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

What has me confused is that I 'know' that at one time, I restored my C: drive partition with Powerquest's Drive Image to a new hard drive that would have no MBR on it, and it booted. Haven't not had to try this kind of restore with Acronis as yet, only a restore back to the same partition as before on the same hard drive due to OP system being 'messed up'.

This does make if difficult to break an old habit of thinking your safe backing up the C: (active system partition) to an .tib image and assuming it will be bootable if you restore it to a new hard drive due to failure of your original one, and it might or might not be bootable. If it was not bootable, could you use the Recovery Console of the WinXP CD and use the FixMBR and FixBOOT commands to solve this issue of non-booting? Or in Win98 or WinME use the Fdisk /mbr command from a boot disk and accomplish the same thing?

Thanks for the clarification Tom, now I wish Support would jump in with a little of their expertise and explain what we should do all the time.

Allen L.