Invalid Partition Table, Acronis screwed up my hard drive

I backed up my hard drive using Acronis TI 10 Home. After making the back up i verified it twice to see if the image was valid, it said successful twice. I had to restore my drive, i booted from the restore disk, tried to do restore the disk to the right partition. It kept having an error message that said "corrupted image", i tried this multiple times. Now i really need my desktop up, so i give up on the Acronis product, and used the Microsoft XP load disk. It installs ok, but now it says "Invalid Partition Information". Also, the second partition on my disk is completely gone. I am very very displeased with this acronis product! Now help me retrieve both my data on my second partition and make my first partition bootable without errors!

 

Hi Colin

A couple of questions:

1. Did you download and read (from cover to cover) the User Guide?

2. Did you do a few simple test backup and restores to check that your system was compatible with the software?

3. Did you login to this Forum and read some of the posts to get a "feel" for the type of problems that new users often experience?

I need to understand your technical ability and the amount of time and effort you have already put into learning Acronis True Image to understand how best I can help you.

Look forward to your reply.

 

Another false positive for the validation process. Seems like there are more and more of these recently. This must be a Ver 10 specific bug.
You may have to resort to specialized data recovery software.

 

Or maybe more recent hardware is just more frequently triggering the condition which causes the corrupt archive problem.
Or maybe Acronis has made an attempt to fix the corrupt archive problem and has made it worse - if so that's good (although not for colin59) because it might give them a clue how to really fix it (particularly for my AMD CPU / ASUS A7V133 motherboard).

 

colin59,

I see that you had corrupted images before, using TI9. They may be due to bad memory.

I'd suggest you download Memtest86+, run it overnight and replace the memory if anything but zero errors are reported. After that you may be able to restore successfully the images you have.

 

It can't be my memory, i've run memtest for a night, and there were no memory errors. I figured acronis wouldn't be rocket sceince just doing what it basically says to do. i think i first need to find a software to possibly fix my partition table. After that is done, i need to get my box bootable again.

my system is a P4 Via system with a SATA hdd. previous versions of the acronis software would not recognize my hdd in recovery mode, (version 9 home did not). However, version 10 recognized my drive after booting into the acronis environment.

1. Yes
2. No
3. Yes

 

Does anyone else, apart from colin59 amd me, have problems using TrueImage with motherboards using VIA chipsets?

 

I wish Acronis could refund me my money so i can now get a copy of Partition Table Disk Doctor so i can get my partition back.

 

Couple questions.
1. Did you restore from an internal or external or DVD?
2. Did you original drive include more partitions than what you restored?
3. When you created the backup, did you use the full disk option which includes ALL partitions? Link below.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=182029&d=1154752686

 

1. Internal PATA hdd
2. Yes
3. I did a full backup on the one partition.

This was not a backup to a new hdd, it was to the exact same hdd with the same partitions active...

 

I use Windows XP Pro SPII. I tried to clone a RAID 1 Hard Drive on an external SIMPLE USB Hard Drive using Acronis True Image 9.0.
When I boot from the external Hard Drive, Windows XP starts correctly, then I get a STOP error.
Maybe TI9 does not allow cloning RAID 1 on NON-RAID
Thank you for your help,
dbessis

 

colin59,

It's not looking good. A few questions to clear up confusion in my mind.

Did you install a new Windows XP? Over-writing the original WinXP?

How have you confirmed that the partition is completely gone?

 

I overwrote the old WindowsXP

The partition was not completely gone.

I actually bought Partition Table Doctor for $40, i got both partitions back, and my primary partition is bootable again. Thank goodness...i'm never using Acronis again...Thanks for all your help guys!

 

That's great news. Up and running again.

 

I did a full image backup of my hard drive to an external hard drive using Acronis 9. I had the goal of getting
Windows working and complete again, then restoring all of my settings and
programs with Acronis. I had to do a complete format and reinstall Windows because neither Windows
restore nor recovery could solve the problems I was having with Windows.

On my computer "D" partition is a backup copy of Gateway's version of
Windows, so with Acronis, "D" was backed up as "K" and "C" backed up as "L".

Using the Acronis manual I attempted to restore folders from "L" to "C" using the
"Restore Data Wizard", but it restored to the "D" partition and corrupted my
backup.
The replies to my attempts to contact support were VERY slow and apparently they did not read my email because the questions they asked were covered in my email. I need to recover the data from the backup but I do not want to use Acronis because what the manual says it will do and what it does is not the same. I would appreciate any suggestions .

 

I share your frustration with the support reply. I've contacted them more than a week ago, and still no response which is why i posted on this board.

 

I have been trying to get a straight answer out of them for 2 months

 

As far as I know it is Windows XP which can not boot from an external drive even if the BIOS does allow that.

 

Will Acronis ever release a version that will work without any user orientation necessary? You know... something as simple as a light switch? One click and it works. No technical knowledge required - Nirvana for the masses? Or is it to be as your post hints - that we will always have to workout our own salvation?

 

Well you can slag off Acronis on lots of fronts and I would agree with you, but if you are saying the user interface is poor I would have to disagree. With what (apart from a light switch) are you comparing it.

Some things are more complicated than a light switch and the user interface sadly has to deal with that. Do you think the cockpit of a fighter aircraft would look the way it does if life were that simple?

F.

 

No slagging intended here at all. I rely on Acronis and believe its interface is intuitive compared to other imaging software I have used. I was wishing aloud that troubleshooting it didn't have to be so oppressive at times. There's no argument that Acronis 9 (which I use) is a superior package compared to GhostPE (which I used for several years). Yet GhostPE never gave me a bit of trouble from start to finish - never once failed me in time of tribulation. Never once! Yet I had not made it 60 days with TI9 when at a critical moment I was shocked that an intended image could not be restored to my drive. Fortunately I had another stored away on DVD that saved my butt. I would have loved to install Acronis TI and forget about it. But as it is - I am here almost every day reading the threads, gathering information schooling myself for the next unexplained glitch that I hope will never come.

I was wishing aloud is all....

 

What made you switch from GhostPE?

 

NTFS on WINXP SP2

 

I know what you mean. The irony for me is that I think they got their tagline wrong. "Computing with confidence". Confidence is all I need, and though there is not a product to touch ATI at this moment, confidence that I can always restore my system everytime is not something I have. Dont get me wrong it works a lot. Everytime it works again is great. But that one failure every 30 or so is just enough to make every single recovery a rollercoaster nailbiting hairpulling wait for completion. Hey, maybe that's the attraction and the reason for its success

 

Have you ever tried using just the Recovery Boot-Cd? There's a small handful of folks here (myself)...that only use the Boot-Cd for everything.

I for one - don't do Differentials, Incrementals, use the Secure Zone, or Schedule Automatic backups, so I don't see it necessary to even have the software installed on my computer. (I do have it installed though, to learn about it.)
I choose this way because I like to run "Chkdsk", and "Defrag" BEFORE making an Image. Also, I like making the Image without having to boot into Windows.

IMO...I feel a better Image is made when the OS, drivers, and software is NOT loaded up.
This is the simplest way to use Acronis. And it works great!!!!