Restored laptop disk will not boot

I am a new user, trying to create a bootable laptop drive on a larger disk. I attached the old drive to my desktop via USB and made a successful FULL BACKUP to a drive on the desktop (Acronis is licensed on the desktop). then I attached the new, larger drive to the desktop via USB and proceeded to do a successful RESTORE to the new drive, including the MBR. I have tried it twice, once restoring the drive signature, and the second time not restoring the signature. In both cases, when I install the new drive to the laptop, it will not boot (FAILURE TO LOAD OPERATING SYSTEM) While the drive is attached to the desktop, I can see all the files, so it seems to be ok. While watching the restore, it did say it restored the MBR. Of course, it's drive K: on the desktop and needs to be C: in the laptop, but that should just reset.

Is there a problem with what I'm attempting to do? Since I do not have Acronis licensed on the laptop, cloning did not seem to be an option. I had a "free" backup software with the drive case I bought, and was successful doing the same thing with that, but I have purchased Acronis because I thought it would be "better". So far, I'm not impressed.

 

Rob B,

What brand is your laptop? BIOS Geometry issues could be a problem here.

 

Hello Rob B,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

Can you please clarify the following:

1) The exact title of Acronis program and the build number?
2) Have you performed full backup under Windows or using Acronis bootable disc?

From your message I understood that you made backup under Windows, if it so then create Acronis bootable disc within the program (Tools -> Media Builder). Boot computer using it and create full backup. Then replace drive with the new one and restore the image.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev

 

I have Acronis True Image Home 2009, but I have no idea where to find the build number. The program does not have a Help -About like every other program written for Windows. I'm sure it's buried somewhere but I was unable to find it in a reasonable amount of time.

I think you should reread what I said I did. I backed up a laptop disk while it was attached to a desktop computer, so the Windows on the laptop disk was not active. Then I restored to a different disk, again while it was attached to the desktop. So I fail to see how not having the desktop booted to Windows would affect what is happening on the laptop drive.

It also begs the question: If I always make a full backup of the desktop disk while Windows is active (it has to be in order to schedule the backup), how would I be able to restore that disk in the event of a disk failure? I realize I might have to use the emergency disk to get things going with a restore, but if the full backup done while Windows is active is no good, what good is your product I still think the free product I got with my case is better than your product, because at least it works.

 

with laptops you have the chs geometry of the hard drive that comes into play when restoring.

With laptops most people recommend you have the new drive installed in the laptop when you restore it from an external hard drive. They call the procedure a "reverse clone".

For desktops it doesn't matter but on laptops that always produces problem.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "chs". However, I don't own a license for the laptop, so that would not be a legal option for me. As I said in my ealier post, I was successful earlier doing this with a different laptop using some free backup software. I thought Acronis would be a better option, but since it apparently won't work, I guess it's not. It's quite frustrating to find that some supposedly high quality and high function can't do something that a pice of free software can do.

 

Try booting the desktop computer from the TI Rescue CD. The repeat what you have done. Make the backup of the old drive to the desktop's internal drive. Swap the notebook drive for the new drive and restore the image to the new drive while still booted from the Rescue CD. At no time boot into Windows until the external drive is disconnected from the desktop computer.

Only your high moral standards prevented you from installing TI on the notebook.

 

I am giving in and temporarily have installed Acronis on the laptop so I can clone the drive. I think it is probably because the laptop had a hidden partition which I did not create on the new disk that I had a problem. The MBR would be wrong, and that must have prevented booting.

But since two people have insisted I should boot to the recovery disk in order to make a bootable backup, what is the point of making full image backups of the C: drive if you can never recover from them in the event of a disk failure? This was what I was told I could do with the product when I bought it. Something seems to be wrong here. Personally, I really don't like the hidden partition, but I guess I'm stuck with it (cloning carries it forward to the new disk). The real problem with restoring to the hidden partition is you load a version of XP that is many months old, and have to do all the reinstalls and updates which can take a lot of time. So I would say "True Image" is only true if you don't have to do a complete restoration (at least when you have a partitioned C: drive) Very disappointing.

 

Thank you John. I now have a new problem. I did clone the drive, and it created the two partitions. When I installed the drive, it booted fine (once) and Windows identified the new drive. While checking the status of the drive in Hardware Config under Control Panel, it reported that changes had been made to the configuration and a reboot would be required to make those changes (words to that effect). So I commenced a reboot. The machine did not shut down for at least 15 minutes (the screen saying Windows is shutting down just stayed there). So I shut it off, and then tried to reboot. Same as before- I see the IBM Thinkpad screen, then blank and nothing. I guess I could remove the drive and attach it to another machine to look at the boot.ini file, but I'm not sure what that would do for me. Any other ideas? The drive and the data should be functional, as it did boot once, but now nothing....

 

I have removed the drive and searched it for a boot.ini file. There is none on the drive. I also searched the original drive, which is now installed and booted into Windows, and it has no boot.ini file. I was searching everything-hidden files, system files, everything. I searched on the Dell desktop, and found a variety of boot.ini.backup files, and they look like I would expect. The file that shows in C: has weird stull (4 partitions- there are only 2), and Windows XP Professional (it's actually running Windows XP Home) so that is just confusing. I'm going to try cloning again, just to see if there is a different result. I had heard that Windows is sometimes finicky about config changes, thinking you've pirated a copy to another machine- but that has not happened with a disk change before. I'm really at a loss. I really want the bigger disk, but I'm beginning to think it's not possible. Working with my old Dell (no partitions) was a lot easier!

 

Thank you to all who posted advice. I finally was successful cloning the disk, and it has rebooted several times. Don't know what went wrong last time.
All is good. I now need to figure out how to get a complete image backup with both partitions for resotration purposes. Time to study the manual!

 

I create/restore my laptop images using the rescue CD, never had any problems with this method.

 

Hopefully, your cloning of the IBM Thinkpad was done
1. Blank target drive installed in its intended boot position.
2. Original or master drive placed in an alternate location--such as external or network or added internal.
3. Cloning performed when booted from the Rescue CD

 

Rob,

In Post #2 I asked the brand of your laptop as that is important. In Post #10 you mentioned IBM. That's the problem one.

 

The boot.ini file is a hidden file. Unless Windows Explorer is set to display hidden files, you won't see it.

In Windows Explorer, click Tools, then Folder Options. In Folder Options, click on the View tab. Scroll down to Show Hidden Files and Folders and click the radio button. Click OK.

Windows Explorer will now show boot.ini in C:\.

 

Hello Rob B,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

In addition to user guides here are some useful video tutorials I would recommend you to take a look at. You can see some basic actions with backup and restore procedures using this link.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev