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My one year old Dell Dimension 24000 hard drive failed. I replaced the hard drive with a Dell supplied unit. The new hard drive is the same capacity but a different manufacturer. Since my Image is located on a USB hard drive, I had to install Windows XP Pro from the Dell supplied XP CD (if booting from the Acronis recovery CD it did not see the USB drive) so I could access it. The machine loads XP and runs fine.

I then installed True Image and performed a successful Restore of the C: partition. When I reboot, I get a black screen that states:
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware." ALso tried restoring by booting from the recovery CD and got the same results.

Nothing I do will load XP. I even tried running Recovery from the XP CD.

Have restored restored several replaced hard drives on my Dell Latitude laptop without issue ... True Image is the best!. This should be a slam dunk on a new desktop. Have been waiting for Acronis Support to answer this question for two days and no response other than to ask for the Report Utility.

Any ideas? Thanks. ~snipped email to prevent it being harvested by spam bots - snap~

 

Hi Ronnie,

1. Did your original hard drive have more than one partiton? Dell systems often have one or two hiden partitions in addition to the C partition. However, you can see these hidden partitions True Image.

2. If there were additional partitions, either hidden or with a drive letter visible in Windows, did you back up all the partitions or only the C partition?

3. Did the new hard drive from Dell have any partitions on it when it was delivered?

4. What version of True Image are you using? (Version number and build)

Answers to these will help identify why you could not see your external USB drive when you booted from the True Image Recovery CD and why your image didn't restore properly.

 

1. Only one visible partition to Windows Explorer and to True Image (when restoring, only one is listed in the selection).
2. I backed up the entire partition, which was seen by True Image as C:
3. The new hard drive was unformatted as received from Dell. When I loaded XP from the Dell CD in order to see the USB hard drive (image location), it formatted to NTFS and only one partition, C:, was created.
4. 7.0 was used to create and restore the image, Build 584.

Thanks for the awesome response. Wonder why Acronis doesn't support their products in a like fashion to the public forum?

 

Well, with only one partition on the original hard disk and none on the new hard disk before the restore, the restore should have been a slam dunk as you said.

I would repeat the restore unless you have already done that. You might want to download the trial version of True Image 8 or get the latest update to True Image 7. Your external USB drive is much more likely to be supported by the Recovery CD directly with the latest builds. That would eliminate having to reinstall Windows and then True Image to access the external drive.

If a second restore gives the same failure to boot, then follow the instructions in this Microsoft KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654

You want the section on booting from the Windows CD and running the Recovery Console. The first command you want to give is FIXMBR.

Try rebooting. If it still won't boot, try FIXBOOT.

Finally, you can try an "upgrade in place" which is a fancy way of saying to reinstall Windows to the same folder to fix problems. Here's another Microsoft KB article explaining how to do it:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

I hope the easy steps work, but at least this gives you things to try.

 

I'm confused. Assuming your C: partition was the primary, active system partition how did you manage to restore it without booting into the Linux based rescue mode? Surely the external USB drive (and hence your image) wouldn't have been detected, irrespective of whether you rebooted out of Windows mode when prompted or booted direct from the TI rescue CD?

I must have missed something here (it wouldn't have been the first time!!).

Regards

 

Hello rfree,

Thank you for choosing Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

We are really sorry for the inconveniences.

Could you please let me know your Acronis request # which was sent to you in autoreply to your first letter? I will take care of the situation as soon as I get this number and find your letter using it.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Attn: Ilya Toytman

As requested: [Acronis #206291] True Image 7.0 Issue Restoring.

ronniefree@maglobe.net

 

Attn: jmk94903
Both the FIXMBR and FICBOOT ran succesfully, but the same symptom persists. If I run the "upgrade in place" by selecting "install", it simply overwrites the existing XP installtion and the machine powers up like a fresh XP installation and I loose the restored settings ... defeats the restore process.

 

OK, but is the system now able to boot from the hard drive?

The upgrade in place doesn't overwrite the current installation, so all your applications and data will be there. The key is to do it this way:
1. Boot from the Windows CD.
2. At the "Setup program prepares Microsoft Windows XP to run... screen. press Enter. (Do not press R to repair with the Recovery Console.)
3. Press F8 to agree to the license.
4. Select your current Windows installation and press R to repair.
5. Follow the on screen prompts to to reinstall Windows XP.

Menorcaman raised an excellent point about how you were able to access the USB drive after installing TrueImage vs. booting from the Recovery CD. I think the key is to download and install the latest build and create a new Recovery CD. That CD should let you restore directly from the external drive.

After the restore, run the "Upgrade in place" as described above if the system doesn't boot normally.

 

Hello refree,

I got your letter and will answer you soon. From now on we will investigate the problem via e-mail.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman