Beware: TrueImage restore destroyes hard drive partitions

I tried to restore an image from CD to an existing 80gb partition of a 120gb hard drive. There was a fully functional system on the last 30 gb of the drive, until the Acronis restore failed. Now the entire disk drive is useless--nothing will boot because of an invalid partition table. It is bad enough that the software is difficult to use, but it shouldn't destroy what you have in place! I tried to ask Sales Support for help 2 or 3 days ago, but they apparently only read from scripts and have no true "knowledge"
Does anybody know how to fix this invalid "partition table problem" that Acronis created?

 

I had the same problem once. After failing to restore an image, it was impossible to even reinstall windows or format the HDD. However, reckoned it was a problem of your image CDs cos after that I cleaned the CDs and retried to restore. It was successful after a few attemps.

 

Try to use a TI 8 rescue cd (boot with that cd and do a restore - that worked for me!)

 

Yes, it does destroy existing partitions on a drive that you're restoring to ... AND TI tells you this and gives you the option to go back and choose another drive. It is your choice to go back or continue the process.

 

Can one do the following?

1. Boot from the restore CD, which I understand is Linux.
2. Create/verify that partition sizes aew correct.
3. Restore JUST the files and directories from each image.

 

I believe only the latest version (9, build 2302) has the feature to restore files and folders written into the bootable rescue CD. I've only restored a few files as a test and it worked on one system and not on another. So depending on your hardware, it may or may not work. But, generally, yes, you can restore files and directories.

 

Version 9 added the capability of backing up files without using images. However, you cannot do a restore from a file backup, you gotta use images.

I would hope that when backing up to an image there is a way to restore files from the image as well.

I would never use software that automatically changed my partitions.

 

Hi,

I've used this program for restoring partitions a lot of times. You need to just pick the partition you want to restore to, not the whole disk. I've used the restore CD and I've also told TI to restore the partition I was live in. It gave me the choice to reboot and brought up the restore dialogue the same as if booting from the CD.

Mark

 

If I cannot restore from a file backup what point is there in creating a backup? Am I missing something?

 

Hello johnwarfield,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please clarify what exactly do you mean when saying that "the Acronis restore failed"? When exactly the image restoration process failed? Have you received any error messages? What exact messages? Please describe actions taken before the problem appeared step-by-step.

Have you tried to restore an image of the entire hard drive or an image of a separate partition?

Please find the full version name and build number as it is shown here.

Please also create Acronis Report in the way described below:

- Download Acronis Report Utility and run it any other healthy PC;
- Select the "Create Bootable Floppy" option;
- Insert a blank floppy disk in the A: drive and proceed with creation of the bootable floppy;
- Boot the computer having the issue from this diskette and wait for report creation process to finish;
- Collect the report file from the floppy.

Create an account, then log in and submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected information to your request along with the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov