restore works except desktop wont appear

Made the mistake of installing vista service pack 1 on perfectly functioning computer. It started crashing programs etc. In the past when I had problems with new installs I simply restored to earlier version using Acronis disk image. But this time had all sorts of problems but finally got it restored, Acronis said it was successful, and it stared up normally but instead of deasktop appearing the "preparing desktop" came up like it was a first time start up and then the screen goes to blank light blue. Machine is not crashed, and task manager works and it appears everything is loaded and running. I have repeated this several times with same result. Is there anyone that can help - It will take a zillion hours to reload the programs and start from scratch.

 

beatlejohn:

When you get to the blue desktop (it's a temporary user profile) then start Task Manager, go to File, New Task, and enter "Explorer.exe". This will start up Windows Explorer. Open the Computer view and check the drive letters assigned to your different partitions. How do they differ? (Which drive letters are switched).

 

thanks for your fast response Mark, but I already tried that with the Dell tech and the thing says path not found or rights not authorized . wont let me do it.

 

Could you describe the disk layout of your PC when it was working?

How many disks?
How many partitions on each disk?
What (roughly) were the contents of each partition (Windows Vista, Documents, etc)?

Don't give up yet and reformat and reinstall - there is probably a simple way to recover.

 

this was a very simple setup - one internal disk C drive, with operating system and document , 200Gig out of total size of 300. I have already started reformatting but I still have my backups and I am going to try another restore after I reformat. I definitely will not start the long process of manually reloading programs etc until all hope is lost. I am not a computer tech but in laymans terms it seems like the new partition got installed but it was looking for the desktop in the wrong place - an error message came on the first try at boot up after restore that said path not found or not authorized.

I am reformating to attempt to erase every bit of data on the disk before restoring. I dont know if this will work or will lead to more problems.

 

The symptom you described in your first post sounds like what happens when Windows is installed to a particular drive letter (like C, for example) and then is restored and a different drive letter is assigned. In cases like this, your user profile cannot be located or loaded, so you get (in Vista) a temporary profile that is basically crippled.

This should not have happened with only one hard disk present. Try the restore again, and for the first boot, make sure that any additional drives including external USB disks, are not attached.

 

thanks so much - I'll post the results when I'm done.

 

question for Mark (KOlo) re acronis assigning drive letter on restore and no access

Mark, you were right - I restored and the same problem we discussed yesterday, but I was able to access a crude version of the explorer window and saw that the C drive is now named V - but I cant make it let me rename it - it says path no found or no admin rights -- the whole C drive is there is tact and working -- If I could just rename it -- is there a way to boot from the V drive and then make the change ? Does anyone have a suggestion -- I'm very close to finally getting my files restored!!

 

beatlejohn:

When you get to the "crippled" temporary desktop can you start the Registry Editor (regedit)? Or, start it from Task Manager.

Go to HKEY_Local_Machine\System\MountedDevices. You will see a list of all of the USB keys, hard disks and other devices that have been used by your system. Look near the end of the list for the section on DosDevices. Find the one for C: Right-click on it and choose "Rename". Change C: to some unused drive letter (like X:, for example). Then find the entry for V:, right-click on it and choose "Rename" and change it to C:

Reboot your PC and you should be back in action with the Vista system on the C drive.

 

Oh my God- it came back --- MArk give me your address and I'll send you money -- this has been such a nightmare!!

 

beatlejohn:

I'm really glad to hear it, but am still at a loss to understand how this happened in the first place.

Has your system always contained only one hard disk with just a single Vista partition? Did you ever have a second disk attached that contained any version of Windows?

For some reason, when you created a backup image of your Vista system there must have been another disk attached to record an entry for it in the registry. This is confusing, but at least you're back in action.

 

I dont but I would advise using not just one but 2 or more disk imaging programs on different hard drives because this software has worked in the past but boy was it a pain this time. Im not sure the system is stable but at least I can make an inventory of everything and if I do have to do a clean install I will have everything written down.

The only difference in the retore that worked last time and this time when it didnt was that last time I actually restored using the C drive to operare the acronis softward and this time I used a CD.

 

One thing that I would recommend doing is going back to the MountedDevices registry key and deleting any of the DosDevices entries that are not in use by your system. Obviously, you need the C: entry and the one used by your CD drive, but delete the temporary one that you recently renamed and any others that don't belong. Then create a new backup image. Restoring the new image should be problem-free.

 

I also would report that I had the corrupted image problem frequently discussed here. This all happened before I got to the drive letter problem. I tried to backup and got the corrupted image message. But it went ahead and installed 50 megs of the image and named a new C drive. I had two OS C drive and the computer wouldnt get past the dell diagnostices window-- got dell on the phone and figured that one out after quiet a while. Then wiped the drive and the second issue started.

 

Hello, just registered here. Was having sam prob as beatlejohn,only dif is that i had 2 disk, my c drive is now f: when i try to run regedit it says that specified path does not exist.any advice

 

OK - that's probably the source of the extra registry entry claiming the C partition. Windows did that to you. If it ever sees two system partitions that are alike it will change one of them.

 

Are you having the same problem with Vista booting to a "crippled" user profile? What happens if you remove the second hard disk and restore your image again?

 

Yes im in a "crippled" user profile, If i remove 2nd drive i no longer have access to image. I was trying to upgrade from a slow 5400rpm 80gig HD to a 7200rpm 320gig hd. Currently the 2nd drive is not in machine. and my drive is now labeled as f: instead of c:. I am currently deplyed to iraq and this computer is my way to call home. So i really need to get it back up.

 

Does it do this outside the drive partition itself because I did the drive clean thing and it should have wiped it out and then did a fresh windows install and it worked ok -- all before I tried to restore the second noncorrupted image.

 

That's OK - you need the drive with the image to be attached while the image is being restored. But after it has been restored, shut down your PC and disconnect the second hard disk. Make sure that the first boot into the restored Windows system is with only the one hard disk attached. You will need to do this:

1. Repeat the restoration of the image (from the Boot CD)
2. Shut down
3. Disconnect the second hard disk (the one with the image on it)
4. Reboot

If this is successful then you can shut down again and reattach the second disk.

 

got it to work. I re-installed vista on a blank drive. regedit worked when i restart.. changed drive letters then restared everything worked fine. thannks for the help

 

Glad to hear. Be safe over there.

 

Thank you for your service! And as Kolo/Mark said, be safe.

Sandy

 

I would like to say to all that read this that this forum is a great resource and the people who take the time to respond to pleas for help are the greatest. I was assisted very quickly and my problem fixed, whereas I e-miled Acronis support back on Monday and have yet to receive anything other than an automated response that "we got your message."

I again reccommend that while it is impossible to get absolutely safe protection, I am going to use multiple back up drives and multiple imaging programs, along with direct document back up, and store some in remote locations unplugged. Drives fail, archives become corrupted, and anything that can go wrong does. Sometimes you can go for years without any problem, but when that day comes as it always does you'll be glad you went to such extra precautions.