Disaster with Acronis Disc Director Suite - noting works now!

Disaster with Acronis Disc Director Suite - noting works now!

Can someone help me, please!

I have a disaster on my laptop. I have downloaded from the NET demo
versions of

Acronis Disc Director Suite 9.0 and

Acronis True Image 8.0.

I was trying to install them on my laptop. I must have done sth wrong
during the installation because nothing works now:

when I boot the laptop a window displaying Acronis message: 'Processing,
please waite' appear. And it hangs forever (I was waiting yesterday two
hours and NOTHING!). Windows does not start at all! And it is not possible
to do anything on my C-drive using a bootable Windows disk. Pressing of
F8-key during booting also does not help.

I was phoning to Acronis, they told sth about downloading once again
Disk Director and starting it without selecting OS-Selector (but how I
can start the program when my laptop boots immediatelly to this stupid
page 'please waite' and does not go into Windows). Acronis people told
also sth about Media Builder... Well, it was too fast for me to understand
all the instruction by phone. Maybe someone from you had a similar problem
and can give me an advice?

Thanking in advance,

Monika

 

Hello Monika,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis products (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/).

We are really sorry for the inconveniences.

Please uninstall do the following:

Windows 95/98/ME – boot from Startup Disk and run "fdisk /mbr" command;
Windows 2000/XP – boot from Installation Disc into Recovery Console and run "fixmbr" command.

That should allow you to boot into Windows. Then please contact support@acronis.com, describe the situation and send us report.txt file:

Please download Acronis Report utility available at http://www.acronis.com/files/support/AcronisReport.exe and run it, create a report and send it to us. This would provide us with detailed information on the hard disk partition structure.

Thank you.

 

I had the same issue (PC freeze on boot-up) and it was due to installing OS Selector. All my hard disks are attached to a Promise Ultra ATA133 PCI controller and for some reason OS Selector and programs like GoBack don't play nicely with these controllers and I had to restore a TI8 image to get back in business. True Image works perfectly with this controller, though...
I hope you find a quick solution!

howie

 

Thank you very much for the reply!

>Please uninstall do the following:

<Windows 95/98/ME – boot from Startup Disk and run "fdisk /mbr" command;
>Windows 2000/XP – boot from Installation Disc into Recovery Console and run "fixmbr" command.

Does it means I have to take Windows installation CD, place it into my CD-drive and run fixmbr command?

- But how I can run a command from installation CD
- how I can fix sth if I have no access to data on my hard drive (I can see only content of it) - I was checking it already with an Windows installation CD
- moreover, as far I have understood fixmbr runs only from the Recovery Console, which means formatting a hard-drive, right?

All this probably means that the only way to solve my problem is to make all Windows installations from the beginning (I will loose all important data on my disk, including recently written paper - few weeks of work!), and never ever touch Acronis software in the future!!!

Acronis (support@acronis.de) is not replying to my e-mails, also nobody is available at the support telephone 0190-151315 (in spite it's rather expensive to call there: 0,62 EUR/min).
I am totaly disappointed!

Best regards,

Monika

 

Hi!

Can you tell me what it meas to 'restore a TI8 image'? Thanks!

Best regards,
Monika

 

I copied this from the Microsoft website.

To start the computer and use the Recovery Console to replace the MBR
Insert the Windows XP Professional Setup CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive.
Restart the computer. If prompted to press a key to start the computer from the CD-ROM, press the appropriate key.
When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts. Press the R key to repair a Windows XP Professional installation.
If you are repairing a system that has more than one operating system installed, from the Recovery Console choose the Windows XP Professional installation that you need to repair.
Note

If you press ENTER without typing a number, the Recovery Console quits and restarts the computer.
The Recovery Console might also show valid installations of Windows NT 4.0/XP. However, the results of attempting to access a Windows NT 4.0 installation can be unpredictable.
When prompted, type the Administrator password. (or press Enter if you have no password) If you do not have the correct password, or if the security database for the installation of Windows XP Professional you are attempting to access is corrupted, Recovery Console does not allow access to the local disks and you cannot repair the MBR.
To replace the MBR, at the Recovery Console command prompt, type: fixmbr

You do NOT have to reformat the hardrive.
"Restore a TI8 image" is done by running TrueImage8 (usually from a boot CD you create from within TrueImage) and selecting Restore to restore the image to a hardrive - either the original or a different one. This operation should return your hardrive to the exactly the same state it was in when the image was created.
HTH
John

 

The problem is that if you are not pretty cluey with computers and Recovery Console fails or you do something wrong because you are confused you can't repair the Windows installation by reinstalling Windows because once you have used the Recovery Console this choice is no longer available. It may be safer if you are not very computer literate to insert the Windows XP or 2000 CD and reinstall Windows XP choosing to repair the existing installation or if you are using Windows 98 etc doing the same using the emergency start up floppy.

I’ve attempted to use the Recovery Console a number of times and while I’m no expert in computers I am reasonably computer literate and I find using it daunting and when I have used it, it has never solved the problem I had and I cursed not taking the longer option and reinstalling Windows choosing to repair the existing Windows installation and saving all the hassles of doing a new install and then having to install all the other programs again.

 

It means I have to insert installation Windows CD and start to install Windows using some 'repair' option, right? How this 'repair option' works? Does it allows to save data stored on the drive?

The problem is that I don't have an installation WindowsCD (I will have to borrow it), my laptop was sold with recovery Windows CD only (it means once I use this CD my drive will be formatted and I will loose all my data.

Monika

 

A Windows "repair" reinstall shouln't destroy your existing data. Follow the instructions in this <post> by TheQuest.

Regards

 

Thanks a lot! I will try tomorrow, I hope it will work!

 

Hello Monika,

There is no need to repair Windows. All you need to do is to fix Master Boot Record (MBR). Please follow the instructions given above by John Farrar (thank you, John, for detailed instructions).

Thank you.