Can Read a Mounted Image - Can't Restore from Image

Local built XP-home/sp2/all MS updates.
One HDD partitioned to C drive OS and programs
...............................to D drive all data / TI9 image backups.

PROBLEM
Computer will not boot - ERROR ......
Windows Root\System32\ hal.dll (Corrupt or missing)

Using TI9, tried to restore C partition from image stored on D partition. TI9 says it is NOT a image or corrupted.
So I rebooted broke compter into Linux/SLAX/cd,
I copied the SAME image file over local network, to my other attached XP Home (Kids Compaq).
Loaded TI9, chose MOUNT image and have no problem reading or viewing image backup (C-partition).
So how do I convince the broke computer the C-image stored on D-partition is fine.?

ADDITIONAL Info
I have DD10 - What I've done ...
It will mount bad HDD - See's C partition, states correct size, but "Explorer View" will not display any files.
It also sees the data partition (D but Director calling it E-data) on this drive (which stores the image backups). I can read/view all the folder/files on this partition.

 

Dennis:

If you have or can borrow a spare hard disk that's big enough to hold your C drive contents, try restoring just the C partition to this drive as a test. Do the restore in the recovery mode version of TI9. If it works, it proves that your backup image is fine. The advantage of this method is that you don't risk your main drive, although it sounds like it's already in pretty bad shape. If you can't do it this way then I would first get your data on the D partition copied off to somewhere safe before doing anything else.

Your symptom sounds like the Master File Table is damaged and unreadable on the C drive. I recently had the same problem after a software glitch hosed the filesystem on my drive. I couldn't fix this with any method that I know of, and I tried a lot of different tools and tricks before finally giving up. Fortunately, I had a TrueImage backup that I restored and all ended well. I hope that you can get your backup working too.

 

Dennis L,

It's not unusual that an image file that fails validation can be mounted. This will at least let you recover some (perhaps even most) of you files even if you can't restore the image.

Make sure you have the latest build of TI 9 (or at least build 3,667). There were lots of bugs in the earlier builds.

 

Did you make the TI Recovery CD with version 9 build 3677 or 3854? You want to use one of these two since they are the final two builds of version 9 and most likely to read your backup .tib file.

If you are not using one of them, download the installation file from the Acronis web site, install it on another computer and create the bootable Recovery CD there. Then, use that CD to boot your system and try the restore again.

 

I would like to THANK all of you for responding - very much appreciated.

Thanks jmk94903
Can't believe I did what I did. I purchased TI9 via NewEgg in July of 2006, so I had an original install disk.. which I was using as a bootup disk -- duh!!!
I keep TI9 (3854) and DD10 (2160) current on computers, so I created a current TI9 boot disk. Put it in the down computer and it is currently RESTORING the C-partition. I've owned it for over a year, made dozens of archives, but have never needed to restore, until today.
I do have a restore question .....
One of the options for target restore partition was question referring to MBR 0 and track something (??).
I did NOT take the option --- Was this correct??
If YES - should I run the restore again??

 

Dennis:

If the restored image boots OK then there is no need to restore Track 0 and the MBR.

 

Thank you folks for all of your support - TI9 performed a perfect restore. Me one happy camper.
Owned program for over a year - dozens of archives created - 1st and only time I trashed the drive, program did it's job.

Questions

• DD10 current update download is DiskDirectorSuite10.0.2160_s_en.exe, but when installed states build #2077. Is this the latest build??

• TI9 and DD10 allow you to create a rescue CD with both programs on CD. Is this recommended, menu choice driven per which app loads? If yes will burn to a RW CD, to keep disk current.

Reviewing - reThinking my backup regime.
I like to keep things simple and efficient. My C-partition is all programs including their required data files. Everything else is on my D-partition, including C-partition image files.
I manually create a full C-archive every 2 weeks using TI9. For Data backups, I use SyncBackSE (Pro-Version) (also available Free version SyncBack) (Both commercial grade - Pro version can backup with active file(s) being primary difference from Free) for automatic Daily backup of constantly changing data files (eMail and Browser profiles - WORD - plus a few more). What I like about SyncBack is it requires NO running services to do this. All managed through Windows scheduler and running SyncBack script associated to backup run.

• Why can't TI9 managed itself the same way? When time to run, start required processes, when done term processes. Makes for a efficient process.

When I complete my manual C-partition archive / stored on D-partition (once every 2 weeks), I then follow up with a manual D-partition copy (use SyncBackSE) to my external drive. This ONE copy creates a redundant set of Data files, Data backup files(s) and C-partition archives .. all in one location protected on an external drive.
So what am I going to change? I have another new drive (Seagate 250GB/16MB/IDE) which will become new C-system/D-Data. Current 120GB will become a 2nd internal drive. Will be a protected drive for archives (and data?) .. but as far as automatic TI9 archives, don't know. Having 4 additional running processors all the time just adds to system resource / failure issue. Will automate backups to reasonable risk / system performance.

 

Dennis:

Glad to hear you got everything working. It is really gratifying when you have a completely trashed disk and can restore everything to working order in 15 minutes. That's happened to me twice since I started using TrueImage and it makes this program worth its weight in gold.

If you see the wrong DD version displayed, that was a bug in the installer that occurred when installing the new build on top of the old build. You actually have the new build installed but the version just displays improperly. You can fix it by uninstalling DD 10 and then reinstalling the new build 2160.

Yes, you can put both TI and DD recovery versions together on a CD-RW. The program starts up into a menu that lets you select the module that you want to run. You can also store these on a USB flash drive instead of a CD.

Having four TI services running is widely misunderstood. They do not use any memory (they only reserve memory) and they do not use any processor time until they become active. There's no harm in leaving them and a lot to gain if you want to schedule automatic backups. See the following post for more about this and other issues: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=29880

Your backup scheme sounds a lot like mine. I have TI create full backup images of the C (programs) and D (data) partitions on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month (remember that the 2nd Tuesday is Microsoft's patch Tuesday, so I grab a current image before applying patches). Inbetween I rely on Vista's shadow copies for short-term file backups. The images are stored on another partition on the drive. Periodically I copy them to an external drive that is kept off-site. Twice a year I burn the latest image to DVDs.