Acronis Loader Won't Allow XP Bootup

I have XP on one internal hard drive and the Vista Beta RC-2 on another. I installed Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 in Vista yesterday and then installed their Boot Manager from that suite to enable double booting. It did not find Vista, but booted into XP as the only choice. Today I turned on the computer so I could remove the program from Vista, but the computer will now not bootup at all. I see: "Acronis Loader: No configuration file present. Press <Enter> to reboot." When I do that it does not reboot but repeats the above message. I cannot get into Safe Mode because Acronis has blocked the function of the F8 key where that menu is available. I can boot from a bootable CD, but I don't have a Windows boot disc except XP Pro Setup disc. In short, Acronis Loader has brought my system to a complete halt. I will appreciate any suggestions for a solution to this serious problem.

 

If you have access tot another computer this might help
(the section in BOLD)

"You can remove Acronis Loader from MBR (Master Boot Record) by the following:

– boot your computer from Installation Disc of Windows XP into Recovery Console and run "fixmbr" command.

You can also use the 'mbrautowrite' utility in order to return your MBR to the initial state:

- Download http://www.acronis.com/files/support/mbrautowrite_en.exe file;
- Insert a diskette into the floppy drive and run the downloaded file;
- Once the floppy is written, boot the computer from it and confirm that you want to fix the master boot record."

 

Thanks for the reply. That MBR fix didn't work for me. Fortunately I had done a C: drive image with Acronis True Image 10 Home on February 1, but I did not make a boot disk in that program (should have done!). At that time, two days ago, I could get into my Vista partition so I installed True Image there and ran it to restore my C: drive. It took three hours, but worked perfectly.

Today, out of nowhere, up came that dreaded Acronis Loader message on reboot and then I was locked out of both XP and Vista. But now I have the True Image boot disk which I used to once more restore the C: drive (XP Pro) and after another three hours all was well until I rebooted and now I get a boot error trying to get into both XP and Vista. Acronis has locked me out of both operating systems on my computer! I again used the True Image boot CD and resotred my MBR partition which has solved the problem.

Based on a week of Hell and hours of work trying to get my system back to normal, I cannot recommend Aconis Disk Director Suite to anyone. I did not ask for activation of Acronis Loader, and it totally screwed up my MBR. I will ask Acronis for a refund of my $40 (bought it 32 days ago), so wish me luck.

 

GOOD LUCK!! DD10 often works fine on day 1,2 or even 3 days or more then unexpectectly it dysfunctions. Other times it works perfectly even on operations which one would expect trouble (like "COPY PARTITION" or "COPY OPERATING SYSTEM"). This unpredictability is bore out on many different machines and different versions of operating systems. The only way to go is with an exact model Hard drive to "practice" on before using it on your "REAL" HDD. After a week of good behavior under a "trial by fire" (manipulating all of DD10's functions deliberately) it probably is safe to use it on your "REAL" system (of course take care not to defragment your system too often {some systems don't tolerate defragmentation AT ALL so this should be one of the practice operations conducted}).

 

Good luck with that. I too have asked for a refund. But considering that it took 7 days just to get a response back from my support issue, I don't have much faith in my request for a refund. I could never get the product to even run correctly and lucky for me I couldn't after reading horror stories like yours in the forums here. Let us know if Acronis gives you the refund.

 

- Download http://www.acronis.com/files/support/mbrautowrite_en.exe file;
- Insert a diskette into the floppy drive and run the downloaded file;
- Once the floppy is written, boot the computer from it and confirm that you want to fix the master boot record."[/QUOTE]

Very valuable feedback Snapscan, and not discounting it's value, you must forgive my confusion, but when you say (here and now in 2007); "diskette into the floppy drive" do you mean the 8-inch, 5¼-inch or 3½-inch HD https://www.wilderssecurity.com/images/smilies/blink.gif
?
Cuz you see, none of the four PC's I have has got such a thing - I even put my glasses on to check. Though as I recall the oldest of the four did have such option but i skipped - huh, i guess the joke is on me.
[noffence SnapScan, I know it ports]http://www.wilderssecurity.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif


~Off topic comments removed. - Ron~