It's Show Time (Recover Time) for a Newbie

I have been told by Linksys product support that my IP protocol stack is corrupted - this prevents my system from automatically obtaining an IP address and my wireless router isn't working properly.

Linksys Solution: reinstall windows

So I am about to do an image recovery (ATI 9 - current build), which I've never done before. My question is this - should I run the rcovery from Acronis in windows or should I do it from the recovery CD? (Windows sems to operate properly other than this router issue so presumably I can run ATI from Windows). Also, should I recover the entire disk image (active partition, hidden system partition and MBR) or should I recover just one of them?


Thanks,
Len
SAN (Still-a-Newbie)

 

You only need to recover the active partition which is your C drive. I assume the hidden system partition is a vendor partition to aid in system recovery by their methods.

The MBR is not corrupt and is present so there is no need to restore it.

It doesn't matter if you start the process in Windows or from the boot recovery CD. Windows can't be running when it restores the system partition (the first thing it does is delete it) so after it collects your restore information it will reboot into the recovery environment anyway. It is the same as the one on the CD so like I said, it doesn't matter. Perhaps a little more convenient since you don't have to boot from the CD.

Be sure you check the box to validate the archive before restoring. If you don't and it has trouble with the archive file, the partition will be deleted and you will end up with only unallocated space. Also, make sure you do indeed have the bootable rescue CD created just in case!

 

You might want to try this first: http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/tips_xp/index.html#anchor12531

A Windows reinstall seems like a drastic solution to rebuild a TCP/IP stack.

 

Hi Len

why not turn off DHCP on your router and use static addresses. Note that if you are using multiple machines on your network you will be unable to reliably interconnect with DHCP unless you are running a DNS Server.

In any case I would be amazed if this was a corruption problem - misconfiguration perhaps.

If you really believe you have a corruption problem you should start by using SFC to check your system DLLs, and then if that fails look at doing an OS 'repair' from your OS boot disk. I don't think this is where your problem is though.

Good luck.
F.

 

Thank you everyone for your helpful responses. I tried TheWeaz's tip first - that didn't help. I recovered an earlier version of my harddrive from TI - that also didn't help. At that point, it was pretty clear to me the problem was with the router. (I should have thought of that sooner as a potential issue.) So I replaced the router and everything is fine.

 

Glad it all worked out.
I remember pounding my head against the wall trying to get my wireless PC connected to the internet. Finally went downstairs to get another beer and saw all the lights on the WAP going nuts. Unplugged and re-plugged the WAP and all was well again (except for my headache).

 

I always said the solution to everything is a Beer. or a few