Bootable CD nightmare

I just bought Version 10 of both True Image and Disk Director. There are some issues with both when run from the installation on the hard drive, but they are relatively minor.

Then, through True Image, I made a bootable CD with everything but the stuff related to different OSs, since I use only XP Pro. To test it, I rebooted and sure enough it booted and I chose Disk Director Full. It did not find the system hard drive, only my external USB backup drive. Makes it pretty useless for partioning a new drive for cloning, but OK.

Here's the big issue. Shutting down Disk Director and rebooting gave a blank black screen. Nothing short of pulling the battery to clear the CMOS would fix it.

Needless to say, I'm a little gun shy about Acronis's bootable recovery abilities. I didn't try the bootable True Image since I'm sure it won't find the system hard drive either. (I had a similar problem of losing the system hard drive from BOTH programs when connecting the external USB drive while XP was running.)

Anyone else running into problems like this? The hard drive is a Western Digital SATA.

 

Is this a laptop or PC?

Just so that I understand, when shutting down is this from the rescue CD or from within Windows?

Colin

 

It does not shut down either way. After running the rescue CD it won't boot into Windows.

The rescue CD boots and opens the menu. Chosing Disk Director Full opens the program but the system hard drive does not show, only the USB external drive. Then close Disk Director and try to reboot into a normal startup gives a black screen.

It is a newer desktop with Intel G695 motherboard and WD SATA hard drive.

 

Have you by any chance enabled OSS?

There is some talk that TI 10 is having problems with the latest Intel chipsets. According to another post Acronis have already brought out an update for TI10 - this won't help with DD10 though.

I can only suggest trying the latest version of TI10 and make a rescue CD only from the DD10 - without the TI components and see if this CD will boot your system.

If not, what might help is to get hold of your XP CD (if you have one), and do a repair install - if you're not sure how to do a repair install, I'll post instructions. XP will re-install all it's own files and remake things like the boot sector, boot.ini etc.

You should then be able to get back into your system with out drastic action such as removing the CMOS battery.

If the DD10 rescue CD allows you to boot - at least you know you have a definite bootable CD. Then assuming you have downloaded the TI 10 updated version, make a rescue CD from that and see if your probelm ahs disappeared.

I would suggest using a RW CD -as everytime TI has an upgrade you'll need to burn another CD.

Colin


Colin

 

I don't use OSS at all, if that's the ability to use multiple OSs. I didn't install any of that.

I have had some other issues with DD10 as well, like turning on an external USB drive while the program is running makes the system drive disappear (similar to what I posted here) and show only the USB drive. Rebooting with the USB drive on fixes that.

My TI10 should be the latest as I only bought it 3 days ago. I am reluctant to try again given it's such a hassle if it repeats the problem. I'm not sure a repair install of XP would work since the problem was it wouldn't post. It's just as simple to pop out the battery and reset the CMOS.

I will definitely try your suggestions for making a new rescue CD when I have time and in the mode for being annoyed if the problem repeats. I think Acronis TI10 and DD10 do have some problems with some SATA drives. Having the latest stuff isn't always the best idea, like a Intel motherboard G965.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

What happens if you boot with the restore disk, and when you get to the menu where you select Disk Director Full....

Hit F-11

You'll see a box come up with the word quiet in it.

Make it like this...

quiet acpi=off noapic

hit enter.

Now select Disk Director Full

Can you see your HD's?

 

No luck with editing the Linux commands. Still can't see the system drive, only the external USB one. It does see the system drive in Safe Mode.

True Image has no problems seeing anything.

I guess that it has enough capability for what I need to do.

 

OK looking at problems caused by parts of the S-ata chipset on some of the newer boards as far as TI is concerned, this might be a similar one with DD. especially as it hasn't been updated in a while.

It might be worth trying one of Mustang's BartPe setups.

Colin

 

right, time for a update to Disk Director!