TI 11 - Failed to read sector?
Trying to set up for a restore in Safe mode and after the very first screen I get an error that says "Failed to read from the sector 63 of hard disk 3". There is no hard disk 3. There is only one hard disk in the machine, with only one partition. The tib image is on an external HD connected via USB. Again, a HD with only one partition on it.
What does all this mean, and why can't Acronis figure out something as basic as how many HDs there are? Am I OK clicking "ignore all" and moving on? Or is the TI software flaky somehow?
Thank you Scott. I am using a retail CD Acronis True Image 11 Home. Probably 3 years old. The box says Windows Vista Sp1 compatible, but it doesn't matter, it's an XP machine.
I am running ati in safe mode because Full Mode doesn't work. It goes to the blue Acronis screen and then crashes to a blank (black) screen. The other option, Acronis Drive Cleanser, also crashes to a blank screen.
The hd I'm trying to restore does have a Windows issue. It won't boot Windows and is not recognized by Windows. That's the reason for restoring. However, I looked at it with Linux tools such as Parted Magic and TestDisk and it is fully visible in Linux and everything is where it should be. In fact I was able to copy all my data files to a usb stick just in case Acronis messes things up :) Several different tools indicate the drive is 100% OK and no bad sectors.
After my previous post, I clicked "ignore all" and proceeded to let it restore overnight, with archive verify. It reported successful recovery but it's hard to tell if it did, or what it did. The hd still won't boot Windows in any mode.
Ah, the last version before the internal database series. Contact chat and see if you can get a diff iso for bootcd, which might allow ati to run on your system. but first, download the iso on acroni.com ---it might have diff drivers and work on your machine.
Also check the bios to ensure the right hdisk is specified as the boot device.
Acronis advertises they will assist in recovery issues so if contact them, they may be able to assist.
Another option open is to sign up for the trial version of 2013,
Register the serial provided by email into your own pesonal Acroins webpage account.
Download the bootable media iso file and burn as an image onto a new CD using such as ImgBurn.
This newly created TrueImage Homw 2013 Recovery CD can be used restore your vesion 11 backup. As it is a trial version, it does not have clone nor backup capabilities--only recovery.
Its partition resizing capabilities will be little different than the v11 edition.
If the v11 version failed to boot, I dont't know that 2013 will be successful because the issue could be the backup file and the bad sectors--not v11 or 2013 trial--but it is something you could try.
Hopefully, you can have a successful restore but the odds are not in your favor due to issues you have discussed above.
Thanks guys. I took your advice and got the 2013 version. Made bootable cd and tried it. It booted to the 3 choices. Both the "True Image" and "Acronis System Report" start and then promptly crash to a blank (black) screen. The Windows option just takes me to a normal Windows start which crashes as before.
Just to make sure nothing changed, I used Ultimate Boot CD again and indeed under Linux everything looks fine, I can access all my files.
I must say I'm absolutely astounded. Not only Acronis 2013 can't restore my drive, it can't even run itself from CD. It's actually worse than version 11. Version 11 at least ran in safe mode. I'll give Acronis a jingle, but I'm not holding my breath.
Thanks again for your help and let me know if you have any more ideas.
Edit: Grover, there are no bad sectors. I used 3 different programs to test the HD and none of them found a single thing wrong. Also checked MBR. The backup file (image) is irrelevant, it never gets that far. But under v11 in safe I did have it verify the backup image and it called it good.
Did ati run on this machine previously. if not, then probably a driver issue. if so then something went bad on your machine.
Btw, I don't think HDisk 3 means third hard disk-- it's just the enumeration of the disk port-- you undoubtedly have several hardware disk ports on the motherboard.
Yes ati ran on it previously, that's how I made backup images.
And yes obviously something went wrong on the machine (software-wise), it crashed and Windows doesn't work. That's why I need to restore. However Linux tools can access it just fine. Since I did retrieve all data files intact with Linux, at some point I'm just going to wipe it and reformat.
Following the MBR, as defined in the partition table, the first Volume Boot Record (VBR) has traditionally been located at sector 63. That's not necessarily the case on newer machines but should be on an XP machine. It appears, neither Windows nor ATI can address that sector to find the volume info. (The deal with Linux, I can't explain).
At this point, I'd try a diff Hdisk (preferably one not yet formatted) and see if that made a diff. But others might have more helpful suggestions.
This might or might not not cheer you:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/7026
It's along and winding thread and it related to the next version of ati known as ATI 2009, which had a nasty sector 63 problem that was eventually fixed by updated drivers. Yet you have the problem with the trial version of ati 2013 AND windows is muffed. Thus, reason I'd try a diff hard disk just to see if it can work which would narrow down if it's an ati driver issue or not.
sorry I can't be more help.
Scott, thanks for your help. I took your suggestion and plugged in a brand new unformatted hd. Same result. ATI doesn't work. Also an original genuine WindowsXPPro CD will boot, load a bunch of drivers and stop. No errors, just stops at the screen that says Setup Is Starting Windows.
But still, Linux tools run just fine. Clearly I have problems besides ATI, but I'm thinking maybe these recovery tools should be running Linux :)
As a matter of fact, the ATI BootCD does run linux--it doesn't use a Windows OS.