Failure To Image All Sectors...

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by bobdat, Nov 11, 2005.

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  1. bobdat

    bobdat Registered Member

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    Acronis Tech Support:

    I suspected that TrueImage was failing to copy all sectors from a hard drive that it was supposed to create an image of. That is now confirmed.

    Here's what happens:

    1) Dell sends out warranty replacement hard drives with a preloaded image of the customer's op system, trial and purchased software. When the warranty drive is installed and booted for the first time, a Dell setup program autoexecutes and creates the C partition. This setup program installs the operating system and all other software, and also creates the hidden diagnostic and restore partitions, automatically restarting as necessary.

    2) When the autoexecuting setup program has completed its task, the warranty drive is fully functional and includes the C partition, the Dell Diagnostic partition and the Dell PC Restore partition just like the hard drive that was originally installed when the computer was built.

    3) I received a warranty replacement drive with the Dell autoexecuting image on it and decided to create a TI8 image of it for later restore.

    4) I installed the warranty replacement drive in an external USB enclosure and booted from my BartPE CD with the Acronis plugin. I created an image of the warranty replacement drive and saved it to a second USB external drive.

    5) I disconnected the warranty replacement drive and rebooted with my BartPE CD and restored the image from my USB external drive to my internal hard drive. I shut down and disconnected everything from my computer.

    6) I tried to boot with the restored image of the Dell warranty replacement drive and after POST, the boot process failed with the message "PBR 2 complete, Missing Loader".

    True Image failed to copy all sectors of the warranty replacement hard drive. The image was restored but with missing critical boot data such as Dell's autoexecute setup program information.

    Just to be sure, I repeated this exact process using the TI8 build 937 CD and the TI9 build 2302 boot CD. None of these CD's captured the missing sector information.

    Then, I tried creating an image of the warranty replacement drive using TI8 build 937 and TI9 build 2302 installed on my internal hard drive. The image was created and saved to the external USB drive and then restored to the internal hard drive and it also failed to boot with the same error messages.

    Of course, when I actually installed the Dell warranty replacement drive in my computer, it autoexecuted and created partitions, etc. and worked perfectly as it was originally imaged by Dell's facility to do.

    This indicates to me that TrueImage does NOT capture all sectors of the target hard drive that contain data but rather captures what Acronis developers have previously determined is relevant, in their judgment.

    What is really happening here and why can't images of these warranty replacement drives be successfully created and restored?




    Edited to clarify this sentence:
    Of course, when I actually installed the Dell warranty replacement drive in my computer, it autoexecuted and created partitions, etc. and worked perfectly as it was originally imaged by Dell's facility to do.
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2005
  2. bobdat

    bobdat Registered Member

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    Acronis Support:

    When you return from vacation could you look at this potentially serious product flaw and comment please?
     
  3. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

    Joined:
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    Hello bobdat,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    We are really sorry for the inconveniences.

    You always get multiple Failed to read from sector... error messages during creation, am I correct?

    Please install the below update with disabled logging and see whether the problem persists.

    http://download.acronis.com/ul/s/g/w/i/egmgigwbnudnopvuetqt/SnapAPI_l_s_e.exe

    If the problem does persist, please enable logging by running the update once more, reproduce the program failure and send the c:\snapapi.log file and Acronis Report (please see Acronis Help Post for the instructions) Please try the "acpi=off noapic" workaround and if it doesn't help please create the sysinfo.txt file (please see Acronis Help Post for the instructions) to Acronis Support along with the link to this thread. This will allow us to investigate the problem thoroughly.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
  4. bobdat

    bobdat Registered Member

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    Irina,

    Thanks for the reply. Are you sure you're replying to my question and not someone else's?

    I don't get any such messages from TI8 or TI9. As far as TI is concerned, the image completed successfully. It is only after the "successful" restore and upon reboot that the drive is useless either because some critical data was not captured when the drive was imaged or the critical data was not written when the image was restored.

    Please re-read my original post and try to absorb what I'm trying to describe for you. This could be a serious flaw in TrueImage.

    Thanks.
     
  5. bobdat

    bobdat Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jul 6, 2005
    Posts:
    316
    I hate to keep bumping this thread so Acronis Tech Support will pay attention to it but......

    bump.

    Any other users have any comments on why TI8 and TI9 failed under these circumstances?
     
  6. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

    Joined:
    Apr 28, 2004
    Posts:
    25,885
    Hello bobdat,

    I am very sorry for my misunderstanding.

    Could you please do the following?

    - Download the Acronis Report utility from http://www.acronis.com/files/support/AcronisReport.exe;
    - Run Acronis Report utility and select the "Create bootable floppy" option;
    - Insert a blank floppy disk in the floppy drive and proceed with creating the bootable diskette;
    - Boot the computer (with the restored image of the Dell warranty replacement drive) under consideration from this diskette and wait for report creation process to complete;
    - Send the 'report.txt' file from the floppy disk to Acronis Support along with the description of your problem (or the link to your post). This will alllow us to find out the reason of your problem.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
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