Testing the backup HD

I'm using TI v 11 and did a full backup (automatic) to an external HD. Everything went fine. I then booted and went into the BIOS and made the external HD the bootable HD (first disk). Well, it seemed to try and work, but when the xp splash screen tried to appear it was dull, like there wasn't enough power to the monitor, then the boot sequence aborted and it went into another boot sequence. So I put the external HD in place of the original C: drive....same thing. I thought you could make an image of your C:, then if it dies, you could install the image drive in its place.
Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks
Never Quit

 

Hi,
an image (it consists of one to 'n' *.TIB-files) is not bootable.

Or do you mean that you have cloned a HDD?
With cloning you don't create an image-file but you create a 'mirror' to annother HDD.
After cloning you are able to substitute your destination disk with the target disk.

The question is now:
Did you create TIB-files
or
did you clone a drive?

 

You said you did a full backup to an external HD. So, you did a backup and not a clone. What you should have done next was to do a "recover" either from TI in windows or from the Acronis bootable disk (which presumably you have already created.)

The recover process would have wiped out your hard drive and put the image of the hard drive (which is now saved on the external HD) back onto it. So you would have been back where you started and you would have confirmed TI is working properly on your hardware.

I'd suggest you undo the bios changes and try what I described above. Be sure to validate the image first. Also, if something goes wrong, you might very well have wiped out your good C drive. For that reason, the expert practioners on this forum will strongly recommend you do your first "recover" process to a spare hard drive.

 

As has been noted, if you make a backup, the external drive wouldn't have been bootable. However, your computer may have searched the other drives for a bootable partition and found your internal hard drive. Since the USB drive was specified as the boot drive, part way through booting the process hung.

How the system could have tried to boot when you removed the original internal hard drive, I have no idea.

Therefore, I suspect that you tried to clone your internal drive to the external drive instead of backing it up.

Repeat the cloning procedure, but do it by booting from the TI Rescue CD. If there is a problem, you are more likely to see what's wrong doing it this way.

 

Hey, thanks a lot, I really appreciate it. What I did was a backup, and after reading the replies I should have done a clone....My mistake. I did put the BIOS back to boot from the original C:. When I opened the HD that I backed up the files were all there, and not one *.TIB file. The TI software came on a CD and from what it said, the CD is a bootable disk. So the next step is to verify the backup. Then, I'll get another HD and use that as the target and do a backup to it, to confirm it works.
So, in a nutshell, it looks like I should make a clone, but also make a backup to restore files that may get lost or whatever? Now, the question is, can I put the clone and backup on the same HD?

Thanks, I REALLY appreicate your help!

Never Quit

 

If your using windows xp (which seems to be the case) , I see your problem that you made. More than likely the source hard drive windows has previously seen the external drive that you restored it on an has that hard drive partition ID in it's registry.

Now when you restored the backup image on your external and swapped the hard drives. During bootup windows xp gets confused because the partition it's currently on has a different ID in the registry (c: drive is now located on partition ID e: drive or whatever was the drive letter of the external drive when it was attached to the computer), that is what causes the reboot at the logon screen. In order for a proper boot, c: drive needs to be located in partition ID c:. The only program that can change a partition ID is a "boot corrector" otherwise you will need to try and do a clone or try the restore on a new hard drive that was never exposed to the source windows xp. Fixmbr/Fixboot , windows repair installation , win98 floppy disk won't fix a partition ID drive letter problem.

Once the source windows xp has the "partition ID" of the hard drive it will be restored on in it's registry, the only thing that might work to overcome that, is a "sector by sector" clone which should overwrite everything. But it's a repair I have never attempted, but have heard of other people having some success using it.

The answer to that is No, a clone will automatically overwrite everything on the destination drive, including any backup images that you have stored there.

I never do clones, I just backup and restore images. Every once in a while I encounter the problem you describe and just use a "boot corrector" to change the "partition ID" on the restored drive. It's a 5 minute fix that gets the restored drive to boot correctly. I don't have time to be doing clones or spend hours fixing a simple insignificant partition ID problem.

This is a "classic" drive letter change problem. You can use the free "savepart" boot cd (the name of the file is "spartiso.zip on there website). The savepart bootcd will let you check both "mounted devices" drive letters and the "partition ID" drive letters on the non-booting hard drive. The only way this is not a drive letter problem is if the operating system is "Vista".

 

Terminology

Clone or or restore with resize comparison.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1299861&postcount=9

 

Hey, thanks a LOT for your help! I just didn't realize how powerful this software is! And, here's where I'm coming from: I "only" wanted to upgrade win xp to sp3. One of the things MS recommended was to backup your files. Well, after doing all that, and during the install of sp3 I got the blue screen of death. So, trying to find out why it won't install is a challenge. I even tried again, but this time I took a picture of the screen, so I could read everything before it went into a restore mode. Why MS doesn't want to make it easy for the layman to understand stuff is beyond me.
Again, thanks for your help, you guys are EXPERTS!

Never Quit

 

"Why MS doesn't want to make it easy for the layman to understand stuff is beyond me"

I couldn't agree more on that one!