Can't Restore Linux - Please Help

Hello forum,

Greetings. I am having a problem restoring the Linux OS using True Image after making an image. Once the restore is complete and after a reboot, I get an odd message that consists of one L and ten rows of the numeral 99. Does anybody know what this message means?

I am supposed to get the Linux boot manager instead (LILO) after the reboot since I have a dual boot computer configuration with both Windows XP and Linux, each on a seperate partition. With XP installed first, Linux automatically installs this boot manager for you during its install process which enables the dual boot feature.

I know my computer is working properly because once I reinstall Linux again, everything works fine. I just can't get the restore to work after making an image.

I have tried to restore the image as both active and inactive but it makes no difference. I have also tried both EXT2 and EXT3 file systems under Linux but that makes no difference either.

Another point is that I get the same error message with Drive Image from Power Quest, a competitive product. As a matter of fact, that is why I switched from Power Quest's Drive Image to Acronis's True Image, hoping that would correct the problem.

I heavily rely on mirror imaging software whenever I mess up my computer beyond remedy since I am not a computer guru. Can anybody please help me?

Thanks much in advance,

Roy

 

Welcome to the forum, rrssss,

I have moved your thread from the General Topics forum and into the Acronis True Image forum where it will receive better attention.

Regards,

snap

 

Hello Roy,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please create Acronis Report in the way described at Acronis Help Post and send it to support@acronis.com along with the link to this thread? Also please create the screenshots of your actions and send them to us as well. All this information will help us to solve the problem.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

I think that is normal behavior. I get the same evey time I restore my Linux partition.
I simply boot with my Linux installation cd and restore my boot loader, I use SuSE and it is very easy to do the restore. What Linux do you use?

 

Thanks for your reply.

The only way I can reinstall the Linux bootloader is to do an upgrade install and let it run its course until it gets to the end where it will reinstall the bootloader. Is there an easier way to reinstall the Linux bootloader?

I am using Mandrakelinux 10.1 super pack on a DVD. Everytime I use the method mentioned above, it wipes out my modem driver causing me to rebuld the modules by running the config program, which is really no big deal because it beats having to reinstall Linux as a clean install, wiping out all of my added programs and personel settings. I'll be waiting for a reply.

Thanks much,
Roy

 

Hello again,

After reading other people's posts a while ago, I read this line from jimmytop in the thread called "Questions I Did Not Find Answers For In The Manual " ---

"If you want to restore the MBR, you need to Image and Restore the entire drive including all partition. Images of individual partitions do not include the MBR. Therefore, restoring a single partition image may make the drive unbootable".

If this is true, that is my problem in a nutshell because I both backed up and restored the Linux partition only - not the entire hard drive. The entire hard drive contains two partitions - one for Windows XP and the other partition for Mandrakelinux 10.1.

So, is it true that I would have to both backup and restore my entire hard drive, letting True Image first delete everything before it performs the actual restore?

Thanks again,
Roy

 

Hi RRSSSS:

Your answer makes sense. I also dual boot XP and Xandros. I messed up my Linux OS and restored only that. I got my LILO boot loader okay and selected Xandros after rebooting.............but it never managed to load. I will try restoring the entire hard disk and get back to this thread with my results. First I will try restoring only Xandros and see if the restore on my Xandros disk works. I would be the faster option.

Bryce

 

Hi:

Yesterday I restored the Linux (Xandros) partition of my hard drive and I could not boot to it. I was going to try the two methods described above so I reloaded my Xandros OS and did a incremental backup. Then I restored the Linux partition of my hard drive. Unfortunately (now that I think about it this is not really unfortunate at all!) after I restored the backup of Xandros and rebooted my computer I was able to use my boot manager and quickly boot into both Windows and Xandros. Perhaps my original backup of Linux was bad but I have no problem now. This does prove that there should be no requirement to restore the entire hard drive. In retrospect I can see that if I restored only the Linux partition I would not have touched the LILO boot manager which is not normally kept there.

Cheers

Bryce