PC not bootable with True Image 8 CD
I have been using True Image 8 to backup an XP desktop for 6 years. The PC failed to boot a few days ago, and the Recovery console on the XP CD did not work as c:\windows is missing from the HD.
I assumed it would be a simple matter to boot from the TI 8 CD and restore from a recent backup file. Unfortunately (as has been noted by others in these forums) the PC would not boot from the CD. As it boots from the XP CD and a UBCD rescue disk the problem must lie with the TI 8 CD.
So what do I do now? I have a Win7x64 laptop, and thought of installing TI 8 on that to try to create a bootable disk. But even if I could install TI 8 on that machine, would any bootable disk created be usable on the XP machine? Could I download a trial version of TI 10 or 11 and create a bootable CD from that on the Win7 laptop, or would that not be bootable on the XP machine?
As a temporary measure, would it be possible to install TI 8 or 10/11 on the laptop, and use that to copy the contents of the *.tib backup data files to the laptop?
Hello Pat,
The original problem appeared when I decided to do a TI backup on this now little-used PC! The backup failed with a disk-error message. I assumed it was referring to the external USB HD, but it was only when I left that to defrag I came back to a dead PC with a BSOD. It failed to reboot, and after several tries reported that "Windows could not start because the following file is corrupt or missing: \system32\hal.dll". That is sometimes not entirely correct, and can be due to a boot.ini problem.
When I ran the Recovery Console, the first odd thing was that I was not asked for an administrator password. When the C: prompt appeared, a Dir revealed the missing Windows folder. There was, strangely, a System32 folder! Unfortunately, the Recovery Console is very limited and any attempt to access a subfolder of C: just results in "Access denied". So I could not check if, eg, Windows had somehow been renamed to Sytem32, or that folder was all that was left of the Windows folder. In fact, using the file manager in Gparted (on the UBCD disk) confirmed that Windows had gone, and that System32 contained only only one file! Chkdsk reported that the disk had errors, but the report after running Chkdsk /r (/f is not an option in the Recovery Console) did not state what, if anything had been done, but no errors were reported. I then tried deleting boot.ini, and using bootcfg /rebuild fixboot. But I got "Failed to successfully scan disk for windows installation...may be corrupt file system." It was at that stage I decided to try a True Image restore, and found that the TI CD was ignored at boot (the CD reader was first in the BIOS boot list).
Before installing 11 on my laptop and creating a recovery CD, I am going to try one more thing. A couple of years ago I test "Restored" an image to the external HD (I had forgotten I had done this!). I am going to copy all the Windows folder to C: on the unbootable drive. I will also replace all the root files (including boot.ini) and see if the PC boots. If it doesn't I can always try TI 11.
This article while old may be helpful http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/repair_windows_xp/
Consider using robocopy for this task
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/160513
After the copy, verify that the partition(s) are of the right type. The partition that contains ntldr, boot.ini and ntdetect.com should be marked active.
The recorevery console should be able to sort stuff out.
My thanks for all the suggestions. Further investigation using a utility on the UBCD to run a full test on the HD revealed several errors. Although none were critical, various parameters were reported and concluded the disk was "old" and some were "pre-failure". I therefore see no point in trying to make this 7-years old disk operational again, as even if I could it sounds as though it is on its last legs. As I have retrieved the data from it using UBCD, I will DBAN it before dumping it.
So now the choice is more difficult. A new IDE HD for this old motherboard, a new SATA disk with IDE/Sata adapter, or a completely new machine? And then restore the XPH OS, or change to linux (or dual boot) and use Wine? Or just get a new Win7 machine, but should that be with Home Premium, Pro, or Ultimate? And should I stay with 32 bit so I can still use some of the old peripherals which don't have 64-bit drivers, or go with x64 and accept that things move on? Decisons, decisions...
As an update, I downloaded TI 11 to the Win7x64 laptop, installed the trial, and burned a bootable CD. This worked without problem and I was able to restore the image to the unbootable HD as a test. This now boots into XP without problem, but a replacement HD or machine is a necessity.
So my faith in Acronis has been restored (no pun intended), but really this rigmarole of downloading, installing, and burning should not have been necessary - the TI 8 CD should have booted without issue.
If the CD worked on that PC once and didn't work afterwards, this is weird. It could happen if there was a hardware change.
If it never worked, that is less suprising. The standard CD works on Linux and general driver issues have been notorious with Linux over the years, but have been dramatically improving; so every year, driver coverage was improving while your CD was not updated...
Just to be completely clear, the TI 8 CD was used 6 years ago to install TI on the XP machine (ie installed under Windows while XP was running). A couple of years ago, just to confirm it was possible if ever I needed to, I "restored" an image from a *.tib file on the XP HD to an external USB HD using TI running under XP (I did not want to risk doing it the other way round in case something went wrong and the XP HD got overwritten and screwed). I did not use the CD at all for this "restore". Until I tried last week, I had never tried to boot from the TI 8 CD; in fact, I hadn't removed it from its case since TI 8 was installed on the XP machine!
I have learnt a lesson here - never assume that something will work until you try it the identical way you will need to at the time. That test restore I did "proved" to me that TI could restore an image. Unfortunately, it didn't do the restore in the way I needed it to last week.