Archive corrupted, restore hangs, MBR gone

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by sjeter, Dec 1, 2005.

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  1. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    I tried to restore from a backup created on my secondary HDD. I started in Windows, and it asked me to reboot, and then I selected verify image and then restore. I got an error window that the archive was corrupted, and I clicked OK 3 or 4 times and then nothing happened after that. The window was at the beginning of the restore process. I tried Ctrl-Alt-Delete without success. I had to do a hard reset and then restarted, just to confirm my worst fears that the MBR was gone :'( .

    I'm writing this on another PC. I tried to put the "fix MBR" file on a floppy, but it wouldn't fit. Is my only solution to boot from my operating system recovery cd, format, reinstall and then try to recover the "corrupted" archive somehow?

    My OS is Win XP SP1, and I was running TI9, build 2227 :doubt: . I never got around to creating a rescue floppy or CD :oops: . Please post back in this forum.

    Thanks.
     
  2. Whoops

    Whoops Guest

    Your primary drives image backup is corrupt, and your MBR (and probably the entire "C" partition) has been deleted.

    There is no method of recovering from that situation within TI. You will either have to use other software to recover the "C" partition which TI has deleted, or reload your OS and programs from scratch.
     
  3. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    OK, that's what I thought. What other software can I use to recover the "C" partition?
     
  4. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    Or could I take it to a PC repair shop and have them put the "C" drive in another PC and copy it to another drive and then back to mine?
     
  5. Whoops

    Whoops Guest

    Errhm... not the PC shop route... and it's up to you whether you reload or restore - but if you are attempting to use the "C" partition in any way then be aware that you are overwriting the data you might want to recover!

    There are programs like, dare I say, Acronis Recovery Manager (cough...) for restoring accidentally deleted partitions... and you'd need the emergency boot CD-ROM alone to do what you want...

    It's not freeware though! :((
     
  6. plover

    plover Guest

    Too late but..... use a bootable CD next time.

    Why do a restore to an active boot/system partition from within Windows that adds additional 'stuff' that can go wrong? Like rewriting the MBR and whatever else is done to make booting into the TI standalone environment possible from Windows.

    You just added another step that can go wrong and apparently did for you.
     
  7. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    Point taken on bootable CD...

    I had the Disk Director Suite installed on the clobbered PC...so how do I get there from here...
     
  8. plover

    plover Guest

    Let me see if I have the facts straight.

    Your boot and/or system partition is clobbered and your backup image is no good?

    o_O
     
  9. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    Yep...
     
  10. plover

    plover Guest

    How bad is your system driveo_O MBR gone? Partition(s) gone? Can you get into Windows at all, even just the boot screen?

    Depending on the severity you could boot up the XP recovery disk and do such things as Fixmbr and Chkdsk.

    If the problem is more severe, as in partition problems, you could boot a partition fixer program and try to fix and/or recover them.

    Unfortunately, the thing you were counting on the most, namely your backup image, is FUBARed. You don't have another one handy? I make one every other day if not more often if needed.
     
  11. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    I don't remember the exact message, but it was something about inserting a boot floppy...
     
  12. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    BTW, last night when I was disconnecting stuff on my PC in order to take it to the PC shop (before I had second thoughts), I discovered that one of the connectors for the DVI-I cable was attached to the cable and not the video card...it was probably connected loosely and that accounts for the crashes I had been experiencing (IRQL NOT LESS OR ZERO etc. etc.). That might have accounted for the corrupted archive, as well.

    I did a google on "mbr insert boot floppy" and found a program that will run from a floppy - costs $30. I might go that route because I don't have any convenient way to create a bootable CD.
     
  13. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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    Can't you boot from the XP CD and from a console do an fdisk /mbr I forgot the command to get into recovery console but believe you hit a key during setup...look on bottom of setup screen.


     
  14. MPSAN

    MPSAN Registered Member

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  15. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    Great; thanks!
     
  16. crofttk

    crofttk Registered Member

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    I'm flyin' with MPSAN ! If the ONLY thing, per your initial post, that you lost is your MBR, that's the route to get you back where you were.

    If anything in the other operating system files got cotrrupted/overwritten, the worst you're looking at is a repair install of Windows XP. Sometimes the result can "flakify" some programs already installed, not all, and then you would just need to reinstall the programs that have flaked out.
     
  17. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    "Flakify" - I love it!

    I looked at the M/S web page and then remembered that the last time I tried to get into the Recovery Console it wouldn't take any password I entered :( so I looked at another link to create a set of 6 XP boot disks.

    Then I looked at this forum again and found a thread about mbrautowrite (which I had missed when I looked at the "Please Read Before You Post" sticky). I created the floppy and it looks like I'll be good to go.

    As far as the whole subject of backup is concerned, with TI8 I had been using DVDs but had a problem where it said insert disc 4 when it should have been the 3rd disc (or something like that) and about that same time I acquired a secondary hard drive and started using that instead.

    So now (once I fix the mbr) I'm going to review the DVD faq and get all the rescue stuff created so I don't have to go thru this again...but at least I know how to do it thanks to all of your help.
     
  18. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    OK - ran autowritembr - got blinking cursor.
     
  19. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    Bump - any ideas?

    Another thread mentioned waiting for awhile after running autowritembr...

    I went into recovery console and tried FIXMBR, as well.

    Waited 30 minutes...still blinking...
     
  20. crofttk

    crofttk Registered Member

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    How about going back into recovery console and trying: bootcfg /scan

    Does it find your Windows XP install on the drive in question ?
     
  21. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    Thanks - I'll try that next. I printed the description of bootcfg from Microsoft support - it appears that if the output of the command displays C:\Windows I could use bootcfg /rebuild...I'll keep my fingers crossed...
     
  22. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    Bootcfg didn't work; msg was something like "Corrupted file system". Used another company's boot floppy program and even though they fixed sectors 0 and 63, I still get a blinking cursor. The files are there, it just won't boot.

    They suggested disconnecting the cable to the secondary drive & rebooting (no joy), or getting a new hard drive, putting Windows on it, slaving the old hard drive, copying the files I need, and doing a Windows repair. I would be copying folders from the old C:\ drive (that aren't in "Program Files"), plus I would copy everything from "My Documents". Why would I need to do a Windows repair?

    Also, another forum suggested Start --> Run --> cmd --> xcopy <slavedrive:/folder/*.*> <masterdrive:/folder> /s /e /c /h /o to avoid any errors with ownership, error messages, etc.

    Anyone had to do this that can give me some advice?
     
  23. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello sjeter,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Please accept my apologies for the delay with the response.

    Please be aware that build 2227 of Acronis True Image 9.0 is rather old and has two problems which are most likely caused the problem you encountered:

    - The program creates incorrect image restoration scenario: it deletes the destination partition first and only after that verifies the backup;

    - The program sometimes verifies actually non-corrupted images as corrupted.

    Please also note that these problems has been already investigated and fixed, so first of all please download and install the latest build (2323) of Acronis True Image 9.0 which is available at: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/updates/

    To get access to updates you should create an account at:
    http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/
    then log in and use your serial number to register your software.

    Please uninstall any previously installed build prior to installing build 2323.

    Please also create new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update, boot the PC having the issue from this CD and try to restore the image once more.

    If you are not able to restore the image for some reason then please create Bootable Rescue CD using Acronis Disk Director Suite (either version 9.0 or 10.0, since you have not specified what exact version you own), boot the PC having the issue from this CD and try to recover the accidentally lost system partition using Acronis Recovery Expert.

    Please note that you can always download the latest build of the respective version of Acronis Disk Director Suite from the Product Updates section of your account on our web site.

    You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis Disk Director Suite 9.0/10.0 in the respective User's Guide.

    If your PC still does not boot after the successful image restoration or recovering the lost system partition then please fix your hard drive's MBR using Windows Recovery Console (Windows Installation CD) or one of the methods described in Acronis Help Post.

    Please let me know the results.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2005
  24. sjeter

    sjeter Registered Member

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    Alexey,

    Thanks for your reply. I put XP on a new drive last night, and tonight I plan to download TI9 build 2323, create the rescue disk, as well as upgrade to version 10 of Disk Director and create its rescue disk as well.

    I admit to a lazy methodology of creating backups :oops: which got me into this mess in the first place but thanks to this forum I have a better understanding of what to do from now on.

    If I can recover the old drive it will save me a LOT of work...
     
  25. milleron

    milleron Registered Member

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    You're incredibly generous. What really got you into trouble was TI9. Any programmer that would code the software to delete the partition BEFORE verifying the backup image, is simply too stupid to tie his own shoes.
     
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