Hard Drived Failed Help!!!!

My old harddrive failed. I have an image backed up on an external drive in 7 separate image files. I boot up using the cd and then restore the image to the new hardrive. When I boot up the new harddrive i get the following message '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. please check the windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manual for additional explanation.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305595&sd=tech

This should get you going after you have first checked that the HDD is correctly jumpered.

Xpilot

 

Restoring Acronis images is mainly intended for when something goes wrong with the operating system or some other software problem while replacing the hard disk Windows is on should ideally be done with a disk clone so it is not surprising you encountered a problem.

If I were in your situation I would check that the hard disk is correctly installed and check the bios to make sure the disk is set as the one that Windows boots from. If your replacement drive for the one that failed is identical to the old one the image should have restored OK but if they are different then the reinstallation of Windows choosing to repair the existing Windows installation is probably the most likely way to get out of trouble.

Provided it allows you to repair the existing Windows installation almost all your programs should work as before and you won't lose any important data. You would however have to apply the Windows updates again. If you can’t choose the repair option and have important data on the disk there are ways to access this and save it.

 

pete44,

I would have expected it to boot without a problem. Have you checked the jumpers (if PATA) as Xpilot suggested?. Is the HD setup OK in the BIOS. Is it SATA and is plugged into a different port from your first HD?

 

I bought a different hard drive.
western digital. Ide. What do you mean about the SATA

 

The jumpers on the old drive were set to CS. So that's what the new drive is set at. Is it something else?. I have been working at this for a day and a half and it's very frustrating. I have tried to email acronis and no answer. I emailed them on Tuesday. Somone talked about PATA . what is this?

 

Hi, Pete44

P is for Parallel, S is for Serial :- ATA-ATAPI.COM


Take Care,
TheQuest

 

Here is a site to explain the cables/jumpering.

http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/howto_connect_ide_hd.html

Even though cs with 80 pin cables is supposed to be easier, I still preferr to master/slave them.
I would try putting your new drive jumpered as master on ide channel0 and boot the computer and see if it is recognized by bios, also checking your ide settings there. Further you could use a 98 boot floppy or xp cd to further check the functionality of the drive.
If good so far, then just restore the drive again with ti booting fom the ti cd.

 

Pete44,

With Cable Select, your single HD should be on the end plug of the IDE cable. Is that how it is? If you jumper the HD as Master, then you can use either plug.

Did you have a single partition on your old HD?

 

The drive also came with a cable, do I have to use the new cable it came with? The only difference with the hard drive is the speed. The old one was 5400rpm and the new is 7200 rpm. Does that make a diffence.

I only had one partition on the old drive.

 

Hi Pete 44,
You have confirmed that your replacement drive is correctly jumpered so that can now be left out of the equation.
The error message that you were getting is the same wording as contained in the Microsoft link that I posted. This strongly suggests that part or all of your boot record is missing or corrupted. When making your backups if you did not image the whole HDD the boot records will be missing. If you can create a boot floppy as detailed in the link and then follow the instructions you should be OK.

If you are still stuck a bit more detail as to what operating system you are using would help. I have been assuming that you are using Windows XP but this may well not be the case.

Xpilot

 

Hi Mareke,

I must point out that you are mistaken as to the capabilities of TI when used in imaging mode. It is the method of choice as far as I am concerned to restore from an image to a new hard drive following a hard drive failure or even upgrading.
The method works without fail for HDDs of all sizes bigger or smaller and can be of a different make from the original.
When I test out a new TI build I pull out my main HDD and put in any spare drive I have to hand. The restore process is then run to prove that all is well.

Xpilot

 

Pete 44,

I should have supported Xpilot more. His idea for a boot disc is excellent. With WinXP you can copy the 3 files from the C drive. You have to untick "Hide Protected OS files" to find the files.
This floppy works if there is an incorrect boot.ini.

 

I agree again.

 

Western Digital drives can be touchy about the jumper placement, try pulling the jumper completely off.

 

I will try all of the requests. I just got an email from acronis and gave me this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314477

 

Thanks for everyone's help. I did get it started by the the microsoft link:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314477

Pete

 

Thanks Xpilot. I thought the disk clone was developed for this and I didn't know Acronis worked well restoring an image to any new hard drive (equal in size or bigger than the old I presume). This is nice to know in case my main drive fails.

 

Hello mareke,

Whilst you can certainly restore a "whole disk" image to brand new hard drive, you may have to avail yourself of the workaround I posted <here> in order to utilize the additional space of a larger drive.

Regards

 

Hello Menorcaman,
Do you think that this method of bringing the unallocated space into use would work? I do not have a larger HDD available so I have not tested it myself.
Create a Secure Zone in the unallocated space. Then delete the Secure Zone using the Wizard. This allows
the user to assign the newly released space to existing partitions as desired.

A PS to Mareke,
The target HDD can actually be smaller than the original drive in an emergency, provided that it is big enough to hold the data.

Xpilot

 

Hi Xpilot,

I have often recommended this procedure to recover the unallocated space created when a user has manually deleted the SZ rather than via the Manage Acronis Secure Zone Wizard. I therefore see no reason why your method shouldn't work when restoring an image to a larger HD.

The only slight problem I can see is that, when restoring a multi-partitioned disk image, your method will only recover the unallacted space to one or other of the multiple partitions. Using my workaround you can share the unallocated space between partitions by carrying out a second restore of each individual partition.

Regards