Why the MBR option?

Can somebody explain a situation or circumstances that might prompt one to also restore the MBR? Just wondering if that is something I need to do when I attempt to restore my C (system) partition.

So far I have been unable to restore the system partition since updating to the last two version of Acronis True Image. I am prompted to "reboot" and when I do, the acronis loader loads, the progress screen appears, but there is no progress bar and the cursor arrow is locked up.

I'm running this on XP Home Edition, Asus P4P800-E Deluxe Motherboard, 1.5 Gig Corsair RAM, 250GB Seagate hard drive.

 

You would need to restore the MBR on a new disk, any disk that doesn't have a valid MBR for your system. The caution when restoring the MBR is to ensure that your disk has the same number of partitions as the disk the MBR was copied from.
For regular backup and restoring as you might do when making a backup, testing some software, then restoring the C partition to get rid of all traces of the testing, you do not need to restore the MBR (unless the testing modified it). I have yet to restore an MBR.

Have you verified your images after creating them?

Where are you storing your images? If they were written to DVD using the new direct-writing feature, that may well be the problem. It is not ready for prime-time.

 

I'm storing the images on a partition of the drive that is exclusively for Acronis images. Verification shows them to be just fine.

Would a motherboard BIOS flash be in order? It is using the stock BIOS, version 1009 I think. Just a possibility I wanted to bring up, although version 8 of True Image presented no such problem for this system configuration.

 

From what I see, 1009 is the latest non-beta BIOS for your board so I doubt if that is a problem. Also this board has been around for a while now. I have a regular P4P800 that works well.

Do you have the option to validate the image before restoring checked? If so I gather it does this successfully. If you aren't doing this validate, give it a try since verifying from the Linux environment which is what your PC boots into to restore C isn't exactly the same in terms of memory locations used etc. as in Windows.

Usually the HD to HD backup and restore method is the most likely one to work. I wonder if it is choking on something in the image itself. You can check this out by running: chkdsk C: /r to make sure that the source is in good shape for creating the backup?

You can also run chkdsk X: /r on your destination partition for good measure (substitute the drive letter for X) although since your images verify OK I wouldn't think this will reveal a problem.

May be a chance something running in Windows is upsetting the process. Making the image with the rescue CD would eliminate this as a cause.

 

My mistake, i'm using version 1002.

From where exactly? In the extra options feature? Or are you referring to pulling up run-->cmd-->[enter command here] ?

I tend to lean toward this one.

 

Yes, the Windows Run cmd and then enter the command in the "sortofDOS" window. It will tell you that it has to wait until the next reboot to do the test. Type Exit at the prompt and then do a restart.

 

Thanks seekforever, but I went ahead and just tried a recovery to an older image made from version 8. I had to use a bootable media to do this because I previously borked the system when attempting another recovery with version 9, and I was no longer able to boot up to Windows XP.

After a successful recovery, I was back on version 8 again (remember, the image had version 8 installed). I then proceeded to uninstall version 8 and give version 9 (3363) a try once more. But after this, I still had the same problem where version 9 reads and verifies images that it creates, but simply locks up after the PC is rebooted and the Acronis Loader loads. I get the same "Operation progress" screen, but the cursor is locked, there is no progress, and no hard drive activity whatsoever.

One final thing I did was attempt a recovery with version 9 by simply using a bootable media to access the v9 image. It booted to the Acronis menu screen properly and allowed me to choose my options (although the mouse cursor was intermittent in it's movement, freezing and moving, never staying true to real-time movement). So, I proceeded to attempt a recovery of a version 9 image. It actually appeared to be working (the progress bar indicator came to view), but the mouse was still intermittent in movement, and I felt the whole process was ungodly slow, showing 40 minutes+. After waiting a while, no actual "progress" had been made, and the cursor behavior was just too discouraging, so I cut the PC off and did another recovery to a version 8 image, which worked just fine.

I guess version 8 is still the winner for me, but I did enjoy the new features and GUI of version 9.

 

Try booting from the Version 9.3633 Recovery CD and pressing F11 during the bootup. Modify the Linux command line so that it reads:
quiet acpi=off noapic

Then, press the Full TI button and let us know if things work better.

Since you are restoring from an internal hard drive, you could also try the Safe version of the recovery software.

 

Okay, will give that a try.

Out of curiosity, what does "quiet acpi=off noapic" mean?
And what is the "safe" version guard against?

 

Hello Wedge1,

acpi=off is a Linux command that switches off <Advanced Configuration and Power Interface>, whilst noapic is the Linux command that disables the <Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller>. Click on these terms and the embeded links will take you to more detailed explanations.

The "Safe" version of the Acronis rescue environment uses a combination of DOS and your motherboards BIOS routines to access the hardware. However, it may not support certain USB devices and probably wont support SCSI or PCI Cards.

On the other hand, the "Full" version is Linux based and supports any hardware that Acronis has included the device drivers for in that particular version/build of True Image.

Regards

 

Well, it's been a while but i'm reviving this thread....

Instead of using the command line (quiet acpi=off noapic) on the original PC this thread is about, I decided to test it on a different PC. Maybe this isn't useful since it doesn't tell me if version 9 will actually work with the system it is intended to work with. But for the sake of experimenting (and leaving the original PC untouched), I used the command line and version 9 restored an image correctly on the test PC. My complaint now, however, is that it took about an hour to make the recovery, whereas, version 8 only took ~ 20 minutes to do so.

I have searched a bit and I see others complain that version 9.3363 is slow to do backups as well. Maybe I am one of just a few who complain of recovery being too slow. Not sure. But this is another reason that I think I will stick with version 8. Or, maybe I should try sticking with my retail version 9 without updating?

I'm curious to hear what most are seeing in terms or recovery time. Taking an hour+ to recover the drive just seems excessive.

EDIT: Wow, I just re-installed version 8 on my "test" PC. I made an image of the system drive, then I ran a restore. It took 13 minutes. Something in version 9 is really slowing it down. I'm not exaggerating either. Version 9 takes almost an hour to recover the same partition that version 8 recovered 13 minutes.

 

Okay, I wanted to test this out on the original PC.

I am getting this message at the Acronis Loader screen:
SMP mptable: no processors registered!
Loading, please wait...

But it is doing nothing. Stuck. Any ideas?

 

Hello Wedge1,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please boot your computer from the Acronis True Image rescue disc and press F11 key when the selection screen advising you to select either "Full", "Safe" or "Boot into Windows" option appears. After you get the "Linux Kernel Settings" prompt, please remove the "quiet" word, click on the OK button and choose "Full Version". As the startup messages stop scrolling, you can use Shift+PgUp and Shift+PgDn keys in order to scroll the screen manually. Please write down the last few lines of the output, or use a digital camera to make shots of the output screens and send the captured information to us.

Please create Acronis Report as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva