Problem Restoring with Drive Snapshot

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Wendi, Nov 14, 2016.

  1. Wendi

    Wendi Registered Member

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    I have made a great many backups & restores with Drive Snapshot over the years without issues on any of our family PCs, that is until yesterday! I attempted to restore a recent .sna image of my son's PC system partition (Windows 7 SP1 x86). DS reported a successful restore and restarted the PC. Windows booted up through the Welcome message but not to his desktop; going instead to a completely black screen (no cursor). Deciding to try restoring another .sna image file, I again wound up with a black screen, and a 3rd restore also produced the same result.

    Curiously, I discovered that I'm able to successfully boot to his desktop in Safe Mode. I would appreciate any suggestions as to how I should proceed to troubleshoot this problem.
     
  2. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    You could restore to the BLACK SCREEN then use the x86 Windows REPAIR CD to see if it can fix the issue, or the REPAIR function of a standard Windows 7 x86 installation media. That's all I can think of at the moment.
     
  3. Wendi

    Wendi Registered Member

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    Froggie, thanks for the quick reply. Actually, I did try that and it didn't find any errors!
     
  4. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    My guess would be a graphics driver problem (corruption most likely), especially since it displays fine (using the DEFAULT Windows driver) while in SAFE MODE.

    I would BOOT into SAFE MODE, use the DEVICE MANAGER to access the installed Graphics driver and uninstall it (removing the driver as well). reBOOT into normal Windows, it should come up using the DEFAULT driver. Set some sort of usable resolution and go get a fresh copy of the needed driver.
     
  5. Wendi

    Wendi Registered Member

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    Well, nothing to lose by trying that, BUT if the graphics driver (or any other driver) had recently become corrupted wouldn't restoring one out of the past 4-weeks worth of backups have replace it with a (then) working driver? :doubt:
     
  6. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Hi Wendi

    Do you have anything that automatically updates any software. If something like that is going it could update any image restore.
     
  7. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Wendi,

    With a missing SRP and a non Active Windows partition you see a black screen. Can you look at the HD with a boot partitioning app. Is a SRP present? Which partition is Active?
     
  8. Wendi

    Wendi Registered Member

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    Pete, when I questioned my son about what he was doing on his PC the day before his PC 'booted to black' he said that he noticed that MS updates occured on Shutdown. Otherwise, nothing new or out of the ordinary.
     
  9. Wendi

    Wendi Registered Member

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    Hi Brian, my son's PC was purchased in 2011, so I don't think SRP is applicable! The C-partition is active and as I already mentioned, Windows boots just fine until AFTER the Welcome screen, at which time it goes to Black. Furthermore, he gets his desktop with functionality when booting in Safe Mode!!!
     
  10. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Wendi,

    I misunderstood. If Win7 is Active I assume he doesn't have a SRP. Strange as Win7 bought from the shop usually don't have Win7 as the Active partition. Dells (for example) have the Recovery partition as the Active partition.

    A black screen after the Welcome screen could be a drive letter issue but then Safe Mode wouldn't work. So could you look at the partitions and let me know what you find.
     
  11. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Don't restore it... just go to the OEM site and download the latest version, to be sure.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2016
  12. Wendi

    Wendi Registered Member

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    Froggie, I uninstalled the display driver and that did the trick!!! - but I can't understand why none of DS' image restores didn't replace the (apparently) corrupt driver with the then working one? o_O
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2016
  13. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Hi Wendi! I surely can't answer that question definitively but I do know some drivers, depending on the hardware subsystem they drive, will set some persistent settings (remain over reBOOTs) down inside of the hardware. If that "hardware" setting got whacked in some way, even a properly restored driver (a good one) would still fail based on that persistent setting.

    That's why I suggested dumping the good driver, getting your system back, then heading off to the manufacturer's site and getting a new copy and installing it. The installation and initialization process may knock the graphics hardware back into its normal state.... just a guess.

    It may have gotten whacked during a power cycle...

    PS- of course, if the System works well with the DEFAULT Windows driver (it tends to use slightly different hardware in the graphics sub-system), maybe that's good enough for the user!
     
  14. pandlouk

    pandlouk Registered Member

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    Was it a normal DS restore or the "during next system restart" restore?
    I have seen such problems with some 1.40.x DS versions when they initially introduced the feature restore "during next system restart" in 2010.

    Panagiotis
     
  15. Wendi

    Wendi Registered Member

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    HI Panagiotis,

    Yes, from within Windows 7, where it restarts into DOS to do the restore. I never actually did attempt any cold boot restore (DOS or Windows PE).

    Wendi
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2016
  16. Gaddster

    Gaddster Registered Member

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    Hello Wendi

    I would recommend you try the below in a batch file (use it with extreme caution)

    SNAPSHOT --RestoreMBR HD1 Backup-file.sna -W -Y
    SNAPSHOT Backup-file.sna HD1:1 -W

    Run this in Windows PE (change the above to match your files / partitions etc).
     
  17. Wendi

    Wendi Registered Member

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    Hi Gaddster, would you please elaborate on those batch files?
     
  18. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    TRF, great call!
     
  19. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Wendi, Gaddster's MBR restoration suggestion would not have helped your situation. The fact that you made it to your WELCOME SCREEN unabated means that your BOOT path was just fine during the process, especially with your simplified Legacy-MBR System configuration. After the WELCOME SCREEN, Windows takes over and sets up your graphics interface (as well as a lot of other required drivers). It looks like your MBR was just fine.
     
  20. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Lucky guess... :rolleyes:
     
  21. Gaddster

    Gaddster Registered Member

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    I completely disagree. I have seen it multiple times where a computer has issues booting to the desktop (or Windows starts detecting new hardware and messes with drive letters on the internal hd) but restoring the mbr (partition layout) before restoring the actual image boots Windows perfectly.

    I personally have never found out what causes it though

    My sisters own batch file is

    for %%f in (C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S) do if exist %%f:\Images\ set SOURCE=%%f:
    SNAPSHOT64 --RestorePartitionStructure HD1 %SOURCE%\Images\OS-Partition.sna -W -Y
    SNAPSHOT64 %SOURCE%\Images\OS-Partition.sna HD1:1 -W
    SHUTDOWN -S -T 10

    She did something one day that did exactly the same as the op and restoring just the image would not work properly and chkdisk kept checking C: again and again.
     
  22. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    Bad or corrupted MBRs may cause a littany of errors, especially if the partition table has been "modified," but the operative words in my response to Wendi are "would not have helped YOUR situation." The MBR in a Legacy System has certain responsibilities... it must know the ACTIVE partition and it must know how to enter the PBR (proper address in the Partition BOOT Record) on that very same partition. The only way to get to the WELCOME SCREEN, and especially to SAFE MODE requires the FULL pathing to the proper place to start up Windows in that PBR. If the MBR vectored into the wrong address (or even the wrong partition) within the ACTIVE partition, neither of the above operations would be possible. PBR data structures are part of the partition being restored.

    Blank screens, black screen without any other activity can mean almost anything... but successfully entering SAFE MODE says a whole lot about the MBR/PBR structures in place.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2016
  23. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Gaddster,

    Do you know the difference between...

    --RestorePartitionStructure and --RestoreMBR

    I looked at them a few years ago and couldn't tell the difference. They both restored LBA 0 to LBA 62. Maybe things have changed.
     
  24. Wendi

    Wendi Registered Member

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    Froggie,

    Your intuitive (not just lucky) call was the right call - I (and my son) thank you!!! A bit of detective work seems to reveal the following...
    The problem appears to have come about due to an NVIDIA driver-update from Microsoft. My son's HP Win7 PC has an NVIDIA nForce 430 card/chip, but visiting the NVIDIA support site I couldn't find the correct driver for Win7, just for Vista? So I then went to the HP support site and found they no longer provide driver support for their legacy PCs from 2011. So I though I'd download ad try the NVIDIA driver for Vista, which turned out to be a mistake, as it also precipitated Windows 'Welcome to Black'!

    So I again went to Windows Device Drivers and uninstalled the Vista video driver, which again remedied the problem. Since Win7's generic VGA driver seems to work well enough and most importantly, circumvents the Black screen issue, I've decided to leave well enough alone. :p

    Thanks again! :thumb:
    Wendi
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2016
  25. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Wendi,

    Froggie gave great advice. Not lucky at all.

    I'm confused about your restores. Did you restore an image created prior to the nVidia update? I thought you did.
     
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