Startup Recovery Manager vs Standard

Hi - This forum has helped me before - many times last year - and things are going good with my Acronis 8.

Heres my Info before I ask my question

I have set up a secure zone on Win2K Professional after previously doing a conventional TI backup of my fresh install. I also know that my MBR is now overwritten by the Start Up Recovery Manager. In the TI Recovery Zone I have all my critical programs running - keeping most data on other drives. I really want to leave the zone alone now and GO TO CONVENTIONAL TI backups incase I have a total drive crash.

Now the Question

If I back up my C Drive - with a total new Image (leaving the C drive secure zone / recovery manager) alone - will I be able to use that back up to restore my disk or create a new one? What happens to the AI loader? My 2K MBR is gone - so will I have a dead hard drive even though the files are on it - dead meaning it won't boot into Win2K?

I would appreciate advice now as how to return to bootable primary backups stored elsewhere while leaving the Secure Zone in tact.

Thank you - Charles

 

Hello Charles,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Could you please describe whether you have any other partitions on the disk besides C: and Acronis Secure Zone? If you need to restore the standard MBR you may do it either using Windows Installation CD or with one of the methods described at Acronis Help Post. If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Hi and Thanks

Heres the ans to your question -

Ok the disk is a Maxtor - SERIAL - and works just fine with TI. On that disk I have the following

1. An Acronis Recovery Partion with the MANAGER - Its about 30 gig
2. Primary C Drive Containing Windows 2000 Profession - Its about 57 gig NTFS
3. Extended Partition NTFS - Containing my D Drive - It's about 145 gig

Plus
when I boot up there's the F11 asking me to go to the recovery zone.

Ive got a bunch of other hard disks that I interchange with a quick change and I don't think their relevent to TI question here.

Restating what I wish to do

So suppose now I make a backup of JUST MY C - Primary Drive that contains the Win2k operating system - and then subsequently should my hard drive fail - I then replace the hard disk with a new one and use my backup that is NOT FROM THE RECOVERY zone but that was made AFTER I already had a recovery zone backup.

What will happen. Will I be able to boot. I suspect that I won't be able to because I think the info it needs for the boot sector is No longer on the C Drive partion I backed up subsequenty. Did it not remove it from that partition? How do I work around this? OR maybe if I restore it I will get the the F11 notice (and simply ignore it) booting from the drive.

Another way to ask the question - is suppose I have an Acronis Secure Zone and Recovery manager - on my boot hard drive - and subsequently I make a back up of only the partition containg my C Drive - outside of the recovery zone - if I restore that backup - will it boot my machine.

Thanks and I am sorry to be so confusing

 

Hello Charles,

Thank you for the clarification.

When you create the image of a single partition (in your case C partition) and there are other partitions on the same disk besides Acronis Secure Zone (in your case it is D partition) the image doesn't contain MBR. If you restore the image to the new drive we cannot guarantee that you will be able to boot. However, usually you can fix MBR on the new drive using either Windows Installation CD or one of the methods described at Acronis Help Post and that is enough to let the system boot again.

As for the F11 prompt, it appears when you activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. By doing this you write special code to the MBR that lets you boot into Acronis True Image stand-alone mode. Of course, there will be no such prompt once you restore the image of a single partition to the new drive. However, if you create and then restore the image of the whole drive (you may exclude Acronis Secure Zone, however) you will get the exact copy of the old drive and see the F11 prompt if it was on the old drive.

If restore the image of C partition to the same drive and the same place it was before you should be able to boot normally and the F11 prompt should remain as well because nothing is changed in the MBR.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Thanks

You guys did good. Here is what I did on a test I just did -

1.
I backed up to TI drive C - win 2000 - In the Conventional Way - ignoring the fact that I also had it updated in the Secure Zone that Was Also a Recovery Manager - I backed it up to another local disk
2.
I bought a brand new out of the box Western Digital SERIAL ATA drive and formated it for Win2k - I fomated it as a DATA DRIVE - so no system files or boot sector was put on it by Western Digital - (that is an option WD has that I ignored)
3.
The drive came up in my machine with Partition Magic to Not Be a Primary Drive and without any Active Partition
4.
I restored the TI image I made in Step 1 to this new drive. I Did NOT EXPECT it to Boot.
5.
I replaced this drive to Serial Port 1 - disconnecting my Number 1 MAXTOR Serial with the original 2K Drive C Drive D and the Acronis Secure Partition - so the machine was totally blind to the fact that I had previous system
6.
I booted up and much to my surprise - 2K Came Up just fine - only loosing Nortons Registration Info - (I guess their testing machine configurations now - like XP - I have 2005 Internet Security)

So you guys get an A PLUS - another simple minded solution for back ups for dummy power users like me.

After Using Drive Image - Ghost and trying to do this stuff for 5 years now - I now have something that works - (unlike also previouis versions of TI) which had all sorts of drive recognition and NIC card ID problems.

Thanks - so at least now I can make backups with confidence. By the way - how come I have NO problems with my AMD machine. It took me years to switch from Intel to AMD - Maybe it just likes me who knows

Thanks