MBR recovery or not? Beginner wants to know.

I got True Image 10 and decided to try it out. I created a partition with one 5MB folder and backed it up as an image. Then I recovered it. TI said it needed to reboot. The system posted, announced it was staring Acronis Loader, the said "No command for boot operating system Press enter to reboot". Pressing Enter just repeated the same thing.

So I booted from the TI bootable CD and restored the image. TI said it was completed. Exiting got "restarting system" but it didn't restart so I used the reset button. Got into the same loop. After screwing around with numerous other possible settings, I redid recovery numerous times. Finally, when I recovered the MBR and track 0, I could boot my (XP Pro SP2) system.

So here's the question. Should one always include recovery of the MBR when recovering? If so, why isn't it automatic? If not, how do you decide when or when not to include it?

Are ther equirks like this if I just do file rather than image backups. I'm a little gunshy about just trying it without asking first.

Thanks.

 

ocostich,

Could you confirm that you imaged a data partition, not the Operating System partition. Then you restored the image to the data partition and the computer wouldn't boot. You used the same hard drive for the procedure.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/archive/index.php/t-63239.html

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=164608

http://forums.techpowerup.com/archive/index.php/t-9255.html

Sounds like a Acronis Boot Loader problem. Did you use Acronis Disk director Suite?

 

I always include the MBR when I recover, which sounds very logical to me.
You have to mark the "MBR and Track 0", because it isn't automatical, which was also a problem for me in the very beginning, when I started using FirstDefense-ISR.
I assume there are certain situations, where recovering the MBR isn't allowed or can cause a problem.
I don't have these special situations, nothing but normal backups and restorations.

 

if you are restoring to the same pc, use MBR. If not then use universal restore without mbr.

 

ocostich,

Could you tell me about the Acronis Loader/ OS selector? I haven't used it. That was your problem. Do you use Acronis DDS? I think OS selector is part of DDS.

 

I do use Acronis DDS, but I have never installed the OS Selector. Should I or not? Unless I know what things are going to do I tend to not instal them and it's not clear what it does. I do see it available on the boot.

Thanks for all your help, by the way.

 

I don't use OS Selector either but those links I provided above seem to indicate that you have it. I'm confused.

As far as restoring the MBR is concerned, it seems to have corrected your problem but your problem was very strange. Contrary to others, I never tick "Restore MBR and Track 0" and I've never had a failure, whether restoring to the same HD or to a zeroed new HD. Unless you have a special MBR, restoring the MBR isn't necessary. Acronis TI creates a generic MBR if there is no MBR on the HD. In my testing at least.