A little clarification, please, regarding Startup Recovery and NTLDR

I'm happily using my full version of TI9 and have successfully tested backup and restore multiple times. I'm currently backing up to a second SATA internal hard drive which is used exclusively for that purpose and is almost all used as the Secure Zone. I understand that there is some risk in having my backup (disk image) where it is (electrical problems, etc.), but that's a risk I'm reasonably comfortable with and I do have a networked third hard drive (Ximeta NetDisk) to which I back up all data files (only data files, thus far), using a different software product.

When I set up TI9, I activated Startup Recovery. I have since learned that having it activated precludes me from booting into safe mode. This is not a monumental problem but after reading many posts on this forum, I am still not clear under which circumstances it is advisable and under which it is not to have Recovery Manger activated, as opposed to having to use the Acronis Recovery Disk I created.

Regarding the famous NTLDR is missing, this occurs with every recovery attempt, at least with every attempt I've made by imposing F11 Startup Recovery Manager. Rather than run through another recovery to try it, could someone inform me whether I will get the same bootup error if I used the Recovery Disk? If yes, how about if I deactivated Startup Recovery and used the Recovery Disk, would I still get the NTLDR missing error?

Finally, without getting rid of the Security Zone, what is the proper way to get rid of the Startup Recovery Manager, so that I could boot into Safe Mode if I wanted? Does running FIXMBR get rid of it and is that the proper way to do so?

Thanks!

 

Hello jsher,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

As for the inability to boot into Windows Safe mode while having Acronis Startup Recovery Manager activated, please be aware that this issue is known and will be fixed in the future builds\versions of a particular product, but exact time frame for this is not decided yet.

What concerns the situation when you should use Bootable Rescue CD rather than Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, imagine that your hard drive's MBR got corrupted for some reason or you need to replace the hard drive because it got physically damaged. In these cases you will not be able to use Acronis Starup Recovery Manager in order to restore an image and will need to boot the computer from Bootable Rescue CD.

Please note that you can deactivate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager either by deleting Acronis Secure Zone using Manage Acronis Secure Zone wizard or by fixing your hard drive's MBR.

As far as I can understand, you receive "NTLDR is missing or corrupt..." error message each time you restore an image and try to boot into the restored operating system.

If that's the case then please take a look at the respective Microsoft Knowledge Base Article for possible reasons and resolutions.

Please also note that there is absolutely no difference between restoring the image using Acronis Startup Recovery Manager and using Bootable Rescue CD, so you will most likely get the same results.

Actually, there can be a number of reasons for you to receive "NTLDR is missing or corrupt..." error message while trying to boot into the restored operating system. However, the most probable one is that your image archive contains already corrupted NTLDR file.

I would therefore recommend you to defragment your hard drive using Windows Defragmenter, boot the computer from Bootable Rescue CD created using the latest build (2337) of Acronis True Image 9.0, create new full image, verify this image by means of the Check Archive tool, restore this newly created image and see if the problem still persists.

If the problem still persist then please fix the "NTLDR is missing or corrupt..." issue according to the above mentioned Microsoft Knowledge Base Article, boot into Windows and do the following:

- Create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post;

- Launch Acronis Report Utility once again and select the "Create Bootable Floppy" option;

- Insert a blank floppy disk in the A: drive and proceed with creation of the bootable floppy;

- Boot the computer from Bootable Rescue CD and restore the image;

- Do not fix the "NTLDR is missing or corrupt..." issue on this step;

- Boot the computer from the beforehand created diskette and wait for report creation process to finish;

- Fix the "NTLDR is missing or corrupt..." issue according to the above mentioned Microsoft Knowledge Base Article, boot into Windows and collect the report file from the floppy;

- Rename the reports created to report_before.txt and report_after.txt accordingly.

Please also describe actions taken during the image restoration process step-by-step.

Please submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov