Vista Restore & MBR Issue

RE: TrueImage 10 build 4942

I restored a complete disk-image for Vista Business edition on my Sony laptop (starting from the Vista front end of TI). It was drive C: to drive C:. The only other parition on the HD is a hidden "restore" partition Sony includes which I did not touch.

The restore went okay, but upon booting I had the winboot.exe/MBR error.

Following some threads here, I booted the Vista DVD and performed a "system restore" and all SEEMS well. I understand I will not have to do this again with subsequent image restores.

My question is: does the "system restore" of the corrupted boot record/file system info in any way affect future stability on this computer?

As we all know, once system settings get messed up, problems often compound themselves and crashes start popping up in the future. Should I worry?

 

ss_blake:

You should be fine. The reason that a repair operation was triggered was that you restored only the Vista partition instead of the entire disk. When ATI 10 restored, the Vista partition location was changed slightly. Subsequent restores will now go to the same location and will not trigger another repair.

The Vista repair modifies the Boot Configuration Database (BCD) that Vista uses to boot. After repair, the BCD now contains all of the correct information to locate the Vista partition. This should not affect stability. You should not worry at all.

 

I performed a repeat restore of the same disk image (c: to c, and I still had the MBR error that required manual repair.

Do you mean that I will no longer had this error if I make a NEW image from the repaired c: ?

Anyways, reassuring that the fix will not affect future stability.

 

ss_blake,

There are some cases where restoring the pre-repaired partition image will cause a repair to be needed again. If you restore a pre-repaired disk image (the entire disk) and then restore just the Vista partition a repair will be needed.

If you have repaired the Vista partition and create a new backup image of the repaired partition, then further restores should not require a repair.

The repair fix needed is because the starting sector of the Vista partition is changed. It does not affect stability. Vista's bootloader is just looking for the boot file in the wrong place and the correct place needs to be updated in the BCD file.

If you want to read up on it, the details can be found in this thread: Vista: Are there issues with the disk ID?

 

Hello ss_blake,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

I would like to add to what k0lo and MudCrab said, that Acronis Development team is aware of the problem and already fixed it. Most likely the fix will be included in the next build of Acronis True Image. I'm sorry, but the exact time-frame isn't decided yet.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Marat,

Thanks for the confirmation that this bug has been fixed. However, you've said that for a long time now and always no date for a new build. This is a MAJOR bug and has caused a lot of problems. I would think that even a build with JUST THIS FIX would be much appreciated for Vista users. In my opinion, the bug has not been fixed until the build with the fix is released. Being fixed in your "labs" does nothing to help your customers. A lot of Vista users don't have a Vista DVD available to do a repair.

I sincerely hope that you will release the updated build of TI 10 before TI 11 comes out. Otherwise, I will assume you have delayed on purpose to get users to upgrade to TI 11 to get the fix.

 

Marat - I will second what Mudcrab said. I moved to Acronis after repeated failures of another clone software that I had used for 10 years, moving through upgrades from a version that was originally issued on diskettes to V2003 and then 10. After repeated difficulty using that product with the newer drive controllers and XP Media Center I moved to Acronis. That other product is now off the market.

I am a regular on a more general forum and have advocated cloning of boot drives. It is the only secure quick way of restoring a PC. It is much quicker to install the second drive and swap cables than to try to restore any backup.

Acronis has worked smoothly for me on XP, but its performance with Vista is terrible. Yes, cloning from the CD works, but it takes 3 to 4 times as long. This is no way to gain confidence within the marketplace. Computer users are all alike, they will abandon quickly software that "sort of" works for that which really works well. At the current time, Acronis "sort of" works with Vista. There may not currently be a viable competitor, but the longer Acronis "sort of" works, the more enticing the opportunity for a competitor becomes.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would personally rate Acronis a 10 on XP and a 3 on Vista.

 

I fully agree with what you have said and have called out ACRONIS to please release this FIX for us, using version 10.x. Teir last release is from April 2007 and that's just unacceptable.

It's like Acronis doesn't want to commit to anything (date of release). Reminds me of a doctor who has the antedode for a diseases but doesnt want to give it out until "its the right time". Meanwhile, people are dying (Acronis customers going over to different programs).

Not smart PR Acronis. Not smart.