True Image wiped our Windows XP folder...

Not sure if this is in the correct forum. The moderators can move it if they feel it's needed. Here is what happened to our computer when we used True Image 9.0 yesterday. We were looking for an important file that we had placed on our desktop several weeks ago. We could not locate it anywhere, so we used True Image and opened up a backup of our C drive in another partition. Apparently, this did something to our MBR, but we didn’t know that at the time. Later, after we rebooted, the computer could not find Windows and all we saw was a flashing cursor in the upper left hand corner of the screen, similar to what you see in DOS. We used our boot disk and started True Image up, and selected Disk Director 10.0 to see if we could find out why Windows wouldn’t start. The partition seemed fine so we installed a new copy of Windows in a new partition and after Windows was back up and running we looked in our C partition to see if we could find an obvious reason why Windows wouldn’t boot up. Well what we found was that our Windows XP Pro directory was completely EMPTY Other folders in C were not touched.

Now here is our question;

What should we do? We have the following programs at our disposal:

• True Image 9.0
• Disk Director 10.0

Should we first use Disk Director to find the lost Windows folder, and then fix the MBR somehow? If so, please instruct us on how best to use Disk Director to find Windows, and what to do afterwards. Thank you.

 

just a note, even though your old XP install may be reporting 0 bytes, it may actually still be there, it is possible for the security features to cause this problem.

To check if this is so, boot into SAFE MODE with NETWORKING and see if your old folders are there. If so you can now associate them with your new install by playing with permissions.

Colin

 

"so we used True Image and opened up a backup of our C drive in another partition."

To help others to make suggestions, what do you mean by the above? Did you *restore* the backup or just try to get individual files.?

 

Yes we found an old backup of our C drive from a few months ago and restored it on a seperate partition (like for example D). We had no idea that it would mess around with our booting up. We thought it would just open the backup file and since the D partition was not a primary partition the files Windows files simply wouldn't work. In hindsight I guess it's a good idea to NOT backup the C partiton, and just backup the Windows folder instead. Then backup the rest of the C drive. What good is a backup if we can't get to the files inside when we need them? Hope that helps

 

The only other computer on the network is a Mac, can we still do this? I'm guessing we'll have to reinstall the whole network from scratch. It might be easier to just restore the files through Disk Director.

Are there instructions for this anywhere?

 

Hi, AngelArs

You should have Mounted the Image if you had wanted explor it and copy files from it, But Not RESTORE it.

That what the Mount and Explor tool is there for.


Please read your Ti Manul?

Take Care
TheQuest

 

OK thanks TheQuest for pointing that out to us We will see if we can download a manual now and read about 'mounting'.

If anyone has any ideas on how to restore the original C partition, please post, as we still need help with that

 

Are you talking about pluggin in the image as a virtual drive (section 6.1)? We looked all through the manual and didn't see anything about 'mounting'. If you have a section number that would be great...

 

TheQuest is probably tucked up and asleep by now, so I will take the liberty of answering for him.

Yes, "plugging" the image is the same as mounting the image. It's just a terminology change from an older version.

 

Thank you Ozmaniac, and I certainly hope that TheQuest enjoys his/her beauty sleep

I was just playing around with that feature (plugging the image) and it is worth its weight in gold! BIG thumbs up to those Acronis developers for that

If anyone has any ideas on how to restore our original C partition, please post, as we are still in need of help with that

 

Are you saying that you had a True Image backup (a .tib file) stored somewhere? If so, do you still have that .tib?

If you had an image of the C drive, was it an image of the ENTIRE drive or just its partitions? The MBR is only included in an image of the entire drive i.e. when taking the image, did you check the top box next to the drive name?

 

Sorry it took us so long to respond back to you Ozmaniac but the other day we went to resize a partition with Disk Director and it messed up another Windows partition, so instead of trying to fix it we just reinstalled Windows all over again. Of course this meant that all of our forum cookies were gone so we had to re-register under a new name because the forum wasn’t sending out activation e-mails. We tried three different times with two different e-mail accounts and never eecived an activation e-mail. It sent one out for registrations though. Finally we got tired of waiting to reactivate the account and apparently no one from Acronis is anywhere around, so we just registered a new name so that we could respond to you. Sorry it took so long

Yes, but it's an old tib file, which is why we need to restore the original C partition VS. using the old tib file.

I believe it was the entire C partition.

Should we use Disk Director to try to restore the old windows information? Wouldn’t that mean that we would have to delete the entire partition to do this? We’re worried about deleting anything…

 

I'm a little unclear here, but ------

If the old tib file is a complete image, then all the drive data should be there.

On the other hand if this just contains the 'C' files including all the windoze (sic) boot files then you should be able to do the following assuming that you have your XP CD to hand.

Recover the image back to the harddrive you want to boot from then --

Option A Using the XP boot CD boot into console mode (recovery option) then run 'fixboot' then 'fixmbr'.

Option B Perform a system recovery using the XP boot CD. With this ignore the recovery option above that will appear first and choose install Windows. This will/should tell you it has found an installation -- it will then offer a recovery option -- this time accept it and all your XP system files including service packs will be wiped. Windows will reload its system files excluding service packs remake the boot sector and boot.ini .

You should then be able to boot into windows and use all your programs and files normally.

Colin

 

The newest tib file that we have is several months old. If we just use that file then we would lose several months of work (which was on our desktop).

There is no way to do this without restoring the windows files is there? Remember just because we can't see the Windows files doesn't mean that they aren't there. When we boot up windows still see something from the C drive because it 'tries' to boot from there, but then it just hangs, probably because the files aren't showing up. I'm just guessing here but that seems to be why it reacts that way when we try to boot from C.

Option B above sounds like it might be what we need, but we are just worried that it might overwrite needed files/programs.

 

It only clears out XP OS files - even registry is left intact and 'merged' with the original OS install version - note by merged, I mean all programs you have loaded, the registry info will remain. Windows will overwrite the core parts of registry.

If OTOH you do an install then Windows will set itself up again, but with no knowledge of installed programs. Then you will have to play with permissions (a nasty business in XP) to find your folders.

So long as you do not use FDISK or DISKPART in any way shape of form, the restore program will only change the OS files and not your installed programs.

Ah yes forgot to say -- the install CD must be of the same version of XP that the original version was that is XPHome for an XP hHome install, XPCorp for an XP Corp install, XPCorp+SP2 etc.

There is a way around that, but you have to have access to registry before starting -- which of course you don't have.

Colin

 

So Colin you're saying that our e-mail won't be touched (overwritten) either?

 

Hi AngelArs,

If it's a Windows "Repair" install (or In-place Upgrade as Microsoft like to call it) we are talking about then, yes, your e-mail etc. will remain untouched. Check out this Microsoft article on how to carry out an <In-place Upgrade>.

Regards

 

Thanks Menorcaman We are printing it out and bookmarking it.

This is the only part that's confusing us;

From Microsofts web site:

Since everyone here is calling it a 'repair' why aren't we supposed to click on R?

 

Ignore the first "R" (for "Recovery") that you are presented with and click "Enter". Later on you will be presented with another "R" for "Repair".

Regards

 

OK we tried to install Windows like this, but it would not work

It did not see the C drive at all, so we could not choose it from the list. The only install of Windows that it located was the one that I installed a few days ago.

 

Strange.

OK, this is the same drive and it hasn't been taken out of this computer and is the master in a master/slave setup or firstboot in a S-ATA setup?

If the other install wasn't seen by the XP installer, then I'd guess that the Windows and Documents and setting folder are missing or corrupt. Or the partition info has altered for some reason causing an MBR alteration.

Just so that no one goes around in circles, I'd suggest getting hold of a partition manager -- perhaps the trial version of DD10 and just see how many partitions it reports.

I've just reread your first post -- you state that all your other files on 'C' were OK, just the Windows files missing and the directory/folder reported zero bytes?

Now when you say Windows files missing do you mean the folder named Windows and also is the Documents and Settings folder missing from the original install?

If the D & S folder is still there, then you ought to be able to attach permissions for that folder to your newer install and then find your required file from the Desktop folder.

You would need to look in the desktop folder of

ALL USERS
ADMIN
YOUR lOGON - that is all the users who had their own log on will have a folder named after them.

Colin

 

Correct.

We have the full program installed.

Correct.

Correct, and program files is also empty (or appears that way).

Folder is still there, but when you click on it it 'appears' to be empty.

These folders do no exist on C.

 

Here is another update:

We tried to boot up through Disk Director 10 to the C partition, but it said that the system32/hal.dll file was missing.

Also, Disk Director 10 DOES report that C is there, and it DOES show all it's files.

Hope that helps

 

Somwhere in the forum is a post on this missing file, there is also a tech knowledge file at Msoft on this as well. I believe that it can be extracted, however as you can't 'see' your system folder, this may not help.

The D&S folder will appear empty as your new install is not (at the moment) allowed to read it.

The other folders I mentioned are sub folders within the D&S folder.

Scoot back umpteen posts, and reboot your current install into Safe Mode with NETWORK, Windows explodered will then allow you to navigate to the old D&S folder, where you'll need to right click and assign the folder permissions to the current logon or administrator. The propagate property would need to be ticked otherwise you'll have to do the operation about 3 or 4 times.

The folder should become available upon reboot.

Colin

PS Just a note! If a program or folder is installed/stored on the desktop or My Documents, then it can only be reached through Document & Settings folder. If OTOH there is just a shortcut on the desktop then the file/folder will be found wherever it was installed

 

Hello AngelArs,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software and Acronis Partition and Disk Managing Software.

Please accept my apologies for the delay with the response.

I'm afraid that it is rather hard to say what exactly has caused the problem you encountered.

First of all, I would agree with TheQuest and recommend you to mount your image archive as a virtual drive using Plug Image tool in order to restore individual files and folders.

Please also note that Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 allows you to recover accidentally deleted partitions only. It does not allow you to recover lost files or folders.

You can find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 and Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 in the respective User's Guides.

Could you please collect the following information?

- What build number of Acronis True Image 9.0 you use?

You can find the full version name and build number by going to Help -> About... menu in the main program window.

- Boot from Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 Bootable Rescue CD, browse the contents of the C: drive and let us know whether you can see any files in Windows folder;

- Have you restored the image of the entire hard drive or the image of a system partition only?

- Describe actions taken before the problem appeared step-by-step.

Please also create Acronis Report in the way described below:

- Download and run Acronis Report Utility;
- 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.

Please submit a request for technical support. Attach the collected report.txt file and information to your request along with the information about your purchase of Acronis software (order number, e-mail, where did you purchase our product, etc.) and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov