TI8 Doesn't See Partitions

Hi everyone, thanks for a very helpful forum!

I'm using ATI 8 which has always worked as perfectly as every other version of ATI - never a single failure.

My problem now is that the ATI restore program doesn't recognise either of the two partitions ( C & J) on my system drive (although it successfully imaged the C partiton in Windows).

I have two Maxtor hard drives running on XP Pro on a 3.2 P4 - 120 & 250 GBs.

The 250 GB has the C system partition which is 70 GB and another 180 GB partition to which Windows has assigned the letter "J".

I want to restore an image of the C Drive made last week. It was written to the J partition and that's where I wanted to restore from. But neither the C or J partitions are listed as options in the restore GUI, either as a source for the image or a target for the restoration.

This isn't just a case of ATI changing the drive letters. The only partitions listed are the three on the other 120 GB drive (D, E & F).

So I copied the image from the J partition to the D partition on the 120 GB drive so I could restore from there. But when I had to select a partition to restore to, neither the C or J partitions were visible.

The 250 GB drive was merely listed as "unallocated space". If I restore to that drive I suspect that ATI will overwrite everything, and I have important data on the J Partition - too much to copy to another partition.

I ran the Maxtor diagnostic utility and a deep scan reported that the drive is fine. Windows Explorer and Partition Magic (which created the partitions) both see the C and J partitions.

I'd very much appreciate any advice you may have as to the cause of this problem.

TIA

 

Did you by chance have to install any drive overlay to get your system to "see" a drive as large as a 250 gig? And are you trying to restore via the bootable CD?

 

Sorry, I should have said - yes, I'm using the bootable CD that's always worked before.

I'm not sure what a "drive overlay" is. I have a pretty recent MB that I think can recognize big drives (if the MB is what's responsible).

I just tried to restore again after a defrag of both 250 GB partitions. Diskkeeper also recognized all five partitions. When I get to the "Restored Partition Location" window in the restore sequence, my dual-partitioned 250 GB drive just showed up as:

Disk 1 Unallocated 233.8 GB

On Disk 2 all three partitions are visible.

 

Did you format your hard drive properly. I had the same problem -TI allowed me to save an image to it but could not find the image/drive when it came to restore. Check windows disk management and see what it says about your dirve

 

It shows both partitions and says they're "healthy".

But you're right - I flunked formatting the drive before recreating the J partition which became corrupted as I ran it hot for months, not realising that the power supply's fan wasn't working (there were many crashes).

I was scared that if I formatted the entire drive something might go wrong with restoring the system partition and that's no joke with dozens of painstakingly configured audio programs installed.

I assumed Partition Magic would format the unallocated area left by the vanished J partition before creating the new one.

EDIT: I just looked in TI's Create Image wizard and it shows the C and J partitions together with their correct sizes. Strange?

 

Is this from Windows or from the Recovery CD?

Did you by any chance make the C and J drives Windows Dynamic drives? Dynamic drives are not supported by TI.

 

I was running the Create Image wizard in Windows. I wouldn't know how to make my drives dynamic, so no. They're just plain old Maxtors, no RAID or anything geeky.

 

Hello Carmina,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Quite strange situation, I should say

However, first of all, please make sure that you use the latest build (937) of Acronis True Image 8.0 which is available at: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/support/updates/

To get access to updates you should create an account at:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/my/
then log in and use your serial number to register your software.

Please also check each partition of your 250 GB hard drive by Windows utility. Use Windows menu (Start -> Run), then enter the command "chkdsk c: /r" "chkdsk j: /r".

Note that you will need to reboot your computer in order to scan the system partition.

Please create new Bootable Rescue CD after installing the update, boot your PC from this CD and see if the problem still persists.

If the problem still persists after installing the update and checking your hard drive then please create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please also do the following:

- Launch Acronis Report Utility once again and select the "Create Bootable Floppy" option;
- Insert a blank floppy disk in the A: drive and proceed with creation of the bootable floppy;
- Boot the computer from this diskette and wait for report creation process to finish;
- Collect the report file from the floppy;
- Rename the report created from under Windows to report_win.txt and report created using the bootabale floppy to report_diskette.txt.

Please also create Linux system information (sysinfo.txt file) as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Create an account, then log in and submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

Many thanks for your trouble, Alexey. I'll do as you say and report back.

 

Part or all of the problem may be contained in your statement "I assumed Partition Magic would format the unallocated area left by the vanished J partition before creating the new one."

PM can create/hide/merge/etc partitions. But, since it handles such a wide variety of partitions, it probably does not automatically format. Afterall, which of several formats would it use? Note that after a partition is created, PM can separately format it. This is handy if windows balks at formating, which I have had happen once. But, usually the XP disk management tool is sufficient to format a partition.

In any event, perhaps all you need to do is format C: as FAT32 or NTFS, then try the restore from D: again? I have mixed FAT32 and NTFS partitions and TI8 can see all of them, both within windows and from the bootable CD.

Of course, be sure that C: is not "hidden". I recall tha PM can also do that sort of thing to a partition.

You probably should also format J: before using it again.