removed Acronis driver from Device Mgr, BSOD on reboot

I have an older Acronis (I think 6) installed on a Win2k system with NTFS. One partition, one OS. Under device manager, I disabled the Acronis driver and on reboot the Windows logo appears and system loads part of the way but then:
Innaccessible Boot Device
message appears.

Safe mode also cannot be booted.

One of the "stickies" mentions a tool to fix the MBR:

http://www.acronis.com/files/support/mbrautowrite_en.iso

Will this restore my system or is there another problem?

I have an older Acronis Partition Expert also and used the boot disk, it shows the data is intact

 

Bump.

I hope someone can help, please

 

Maybe someone will help you, but you should not delete anything unless you know why you are deleting it. It is put there for some reason, don't you think?

This is the way we learn the best, from negative experiences.

Good luck with a solution, as I'm sure there is one, such as reinstalling the same Acronis program and letting it overwrite the old installation, as it will re-install the device manager deleted object. This would be one way in my opinion. I'm sure their could be others also.

Allen

 

Alot of stuff gets loaded up for no good reason on startup that needs to be deleted- do we really need the Java and Real running processes 24/7 just to tell us when an update is available? Or HP running junk in the background when all I needed was a driver? I routinely disable such things (especially needed on this 2001 hardware) and rarely have a problem. If I did, I just reenable them. For example, the freeware antivir BitDefender is a scanner only (no realtime protection), yet runs 2 services that eat up memory in the background. I disabled them, and just reenable the services whenever I do a scan. Never thought disabling (not deleting) a 3rd party driver would bring my system to it's knees, including safemode.

I can't reinstall Acronis since Windows won't boot up. I have should have .tdi image files I made earlier this year- don't know if that makes a difference in repairing my current setup.

 

I understand stopping certain applications from running. I do the same thing, but not from Device Manager. But that is not the issue.

If you have the .tib files still somewhere on your computer, then be sure to keep them safe. I really don't believe that deleting an Acronis file, or driver from the Device Manager would completely disable Windows from booting, however.

Can you use the recovery CD you made on install of Acronis (whatever version) to boot with from the CD or from Floppy Disks? If so use it and it will boot into the linux interface and then you can locate your Acronis .tib files and restore the active partition from them. Do you have the .tib files? You don't need Windows to boot if you use your recovery disk and can located the .tib files...restore them to your HD and you are back up and running.

Allen

 

I'm quite certain disabling the Acronis driver caused the system not to boot. (Anyone else wanna try it? Better backup first...) After the non-boot, I searched and found Acronis changes your MBR, so that pretty much confirms it.

Yes, I know how to restore my old .tib files from the boot cd already, I just don't want to since they're a few months old and it seems like it shouldn't be difficult to fix this problem since I know exactly what caused it. I only mentioned those .tib files in case they would be useful in extracting and replacing a certain file in my current setup.

 

I have done the experiment of removing the Acronis driver in device manager. There was a warning pop up which I OK'd.

The computer re-booted normally. All the operations performed as usual. True Image ran but when trying to mount an archive there was a message that TI should be re-installed. I continued with the process which failed as no drive letters could be assigned.

AFAIK the only time True Image makes a change to the MBR is when the start up recovery manager is activated and again when this facility is removed.

I suggest that your problems have little to do with removing the Acronis item in device manager. Should you ever need to mount an Acronis image as a virtual drive you will need to re-install the True Image program.

Xpilot

 

Thank you for trying the experiment. What version are you using? I have 6.0 and I think results are different. For instance, there was no warning popup when i disabled from device manager.
I'm really quite sure Acronis caused this error. Never saw it before, and when I disabled it from device mgr, I didn't do anything else to the system, I rebooted immediately, and up came the error.
If anyone is brave enough to install 6.0 and try this experiment that'd be great. If nobody has 6, maybe we could work something out...

 

You did not get a warning message because you merely disabled the Acronis device. I went the extra mile and deleted it.

Just as you are convinced that disabling the device caused a problem with your MBR I am totally convinced otherwise.


Xpilot

 

Me too.

 

I appreciate the input, but still I'm betting we aren't using the same versions which may well be the difference. Like I said, if someone wants to try an experiment with 6.0 maybe we can work something out in private- emazur(AT)yahoo.com

One other possible variable is the OS, I'm on Win2k and you guys are probably on XP

 

I'll check my 2K CD, but I seem to recall that 2K had the same option as XP in being able to repair system files. It also of course has the console mode.

If the problem was the MBR, then I would expect to see a message to the effect of 'MBR# error' #= a number, or NO OPERATING SYTEM FOUND etc.

What might be helpful is the error code that comes up with the BSOD!

Now the fact that SAFE mode can't be booted into is the significant thing I think. After all NO DRIVERS but the bare essential 2K (in this instance) drivers are loaded in this mode so TI wouldn't be loaded anyway.

I think boot.ini or the MBR have changed.

First thing to check is the BIOS. Is it still reporting the drive correctly? Wrong geometry info here would cause a BSOD.

Second thing would be to remake boot.ini for which the 2K CD will be needed unless you've got the umpteen floppies to boot from.

Hopefully the clue will be in the BSOD number that ought to be popping up.

Colin

 

Hi, the error code is:

STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF282384C, 0xC000000E, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

The HD shows up in the BIOS. By Geometry I guess you're talking about #heads/sectors and such, this bios doesn't report that information

I agree the no-safe-made gives a hint here, I only know a little about MBR (thanks to a botched linux uninstall many years ago fixed with fdisk /mbr), I've never poked around boot.ini but am familiar with things such as config.sys and autoexec.bat from the DOS days. Also I've never used the recovery console in 2k or xp

 

Only thing is, Colin, is that the file or driver deleted by emazur was not a system file, but a program file. The Win2000 SFC will not replace a program driver, dll, or anything of such...only Windows System files.

Allen

 

I posted this last night - but somehow to the DD forum!

It's too long to print here, but this problem concerns Roxio and IOmega drivers - both very similar to your problem.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822052#6j

This might help.

Colin

 

I looked at that article. Thank you for searching for it, I agree it is very similar to my problem, unfortunately the solution provided by MS gives detailed instructions of particular files & registry entries related to Roxio and Iomega, so it doesn't seem suitable to fix my problem.

If it helps, under Device Mgr this is what was listed:
Acronis TrueImage Backup Archive Explorer

There was one listing under that (which I disabled). I found it these are the associated files with that driver:
oem9.inf
tifsfilt.sys
timntr.sys

Using PartBE to look at my nonbooting HD, I looked under c:\winnt\system32\drivers
and the 2 sys files were still present (don't know where oem9.inf is supposed to be located)

Still hoping someone might be kind enough to contact me and perform an experiment with TI 6.0 and win2k...

 

Also, as a test, I backed up my current registry, and replaced it with the recovery files from c:\winnt\repair
and I was successfully able to boot into safe mode (didn't try standard mode)

 

I have gotten the same BSOD on two seperate W2k3 machines in the past three weeks and they both had Acronis installed. I had my images on a usb drive and when I used the Acronis boot CD to put the image back on the box it saw my usb drive as C: and there was no MBR at all.

Can anyone post the link that says that Acronis alters the MBR?

After a lenghty call with M$, they said there was no recovering the data. There is a neat little trick I learned though. If you boot to the recovery console using a W2k3 disk it couldn't find the windows installation or the C: drive. But...if I used a W2k disk it saw the install but I couldn't do much with it becuase the MBR was toast.

 

“Can anyone post the link that says that Acronis alters the MBR?”

TI will only alter the MBR if you create an Acronis Secure Zone and activate the Startup Recovery Manager. It is the latter of the two that alters the MBR.

 

Ah Ha! The good old (unsecure) Secure Zone! I can really find no really necessary use for this safe 'option'. To use your one HD to store images on in almost insane, so why make it more so by placing a 'Secure section' on it, and give more possiblities of errors? There are many programs that will hide files and folders from snoopers...but I would bet that most of the more experienced users of Acronis products use the product on a one user machine...your own. If you have a secure zone area on a computer with one hard drive, but let your 8 year old play with the computer, well, I don't believe their is anything that is very 'secure'. The OS goes, or the disk fails, so goes your "Secure Zone" thats on the same HD.

I would venture to say that none of the frequent posters with 200 or more posts to the group have a use for this option as they see there is really no valid reason to use it. It sure does get many newbies to Acronis is grave trouble!

Allen

 

AFAIK, the ASZ was designed for one type of user – somebody who only had 1 HD in their system and no external means of storing images. Since restoring to a partition that holds the image is not possible, and many people are unfamiliar with partitioning, the ASZ made sense.

 

Very good point, but the kind of people I know that run one HD with 1 partition only, don't follow back up routines at all, as I've learned the hard way from some of my 'friends' that will call up and cry "HELP!"

Allen

 

The two machines were on completely different hardware and completely different raid configurations. The only thing the two had in common were the acronis install. The fact that all three of the servers mentioned in this thread have exhibited the exact same symptoms leads me to believe that acronis does actually alter or modify the MBR. If not the MBR it could be something at a different layer, e.g. the ACPITABL.DAT or HAL or the interaction between the two.

That is interesting about the secure zone and I have now heard it from another Acronis guru as well. I never install it on any of my servers (or anything for that matter), and it was not installed on these two machines. Can anyone direct me to any links they have stating that Acronis does not alter the MBR?

Thanks!

 

“Can anyone direct me to any links they have stating that Acronis does not alter the MBR?”

I doubt you’ll find that anywhere. The list of things TI does not do is far longer than the list of things it does do. Not to be flip, but you won’t find anything stating that TI does not alter the color of your PC case or increase your CPU speed. There's no reason for Acronis to list all the things TI won't do.
You can find this in the Users Guide though:

“When Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is activated, it overwrites the master boot record (MBR) with its own boot code. If you have any third-party boot managers installed, you will have to reactivate them after activating the Startup Recovery Manager. For Linux loaders (e.g. LiLo and GRUB), you might consider installing them to a Linux root (or boot) partition boot record instead of MBR before activating Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.”

 

"I doubt you’ll find that anywhere. The list of things TI does not do is far longer than the list of things it does do. Not to be flip, but you won’t find anything stating that TI does not alter the color of your PC case or increase your CPU speed. There's no reason for Acronis to list all the things TI won't do."

While your response was cute, it doesn't really address the issue at hand. Multiple people have stated that TI does not alter the MBR unless you are using a secure zone and SRM (yourself included). I'm curious as to how you know this to be true, that's all.

In light of the events documented in this thread, I'm just looking for documentation and not conjecture. Even something as simple as "known issue: SRM will sometimes activate without a secure zone installed. We are working on addressing the issue."

Anything would help at this point.

Thanks.