6857 to 6868 upgrade: MAJOR problem
I did a quick backup this morning and TI prompted me that there was an upgrade available. Luckily I declined the upgrade and decided to do my backup first. When it had finished, I did the upgrade.
All seemed to progress as normal, and I was prompted to reboot, which I did. However the upgrade had rendered my PC completely unbootable. It tried to start up and then some Microsoft thing kicked in saying Windows could not boot and it was trying to repair the problem. However it said it had failed and shutdown my PC.
I tried booting again, and got the same thing. So tried F8 and "last known good". Same thing.
So I tried safe mode. Same.
So basically, my PC has been completely wrecked by the 6868 upgrade. Luckily I had just done the backup, so I was able to do a full restore by booting off an Acronis recovery CD.
But what a total pain the ****. I have wasted perhaps 3 hours messing about with this and I am EXTREMELY nervous about trying the upgrade again.
Running Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
Thanks for the reply.
I really wasn't expecting the update to cause such a catastrophic problem... or indeed any problem. So it was pure luck I decided to do the full backup first. Not so smart, just lucky ;-)
I am not so techie, but I agree it looks like some low-level problem. It was like the MBR had been updated or something, because whatever the update had done, it was getting in really early in the boot sequence. I was getting a while scroll bar across the bottom of the screen that said "loading windows" - that you never see with Windows 7 - and then a Vista style boot graphic with the green progress bar like this one:
http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/WindowsLiveWriter/E…
I don't know if this helps anyone at Acronis understand what went wrong. It's a pretty serious and catastrophic failure for a software update to render your system unbootable!
ATI should not touch the MBR unless you activated/used the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager.
It looks like your computer is trying to boot on a WinPE environment. You would see the behavior you describe in that case: the white bar is went the WinPE loads up the drivers, and then you see a Windows booting.
This can happen when Windows is trying to repair itself.
Since you can reach the safe mode, it is unlikely this is a MBR issue. I guess the safe mode starts. Do you see the first drivers loading and then the machine crashes?
As I understood, he couldn't reach the safe mode and had to revert to the backup he made. Looks like during the update the some low-level driver was physically removed, no newer version was installed, but references in registry required it to be there (but isn't it expected to BSOD in this case instead?)
I understood he sees the F8 options (last known configuration) so he can reach Windows... Looks like the registry has been corrupted.
Thanks to everyone who's posted. (Sorry I was out yesterday).
Yes, I could get to safe mode. But the boot still ends in repair mode. Likewise, last known good. All roads lead to repair mode, which fails.
It's a bit academic now because I have done a full restore and it's fixed. I only mention it in case there's some bug that can be spotted which will save someone a whole load of hassle.
Maybe it's just my "unique" configuration. I run a whole load of things like Malwarebytes, Super-Anti-Spyware, Keyscrambler, Comodo and Eset. Maybe there's a conflict with one of these. Anyway, whatever the reason, the upgrade trashed my machine.
I don't think I am going to risk uodating to 6868 again any time soon!
You should be able to uninstall ATI, reboot and install the new build. Since the new build has specific fixes, you can decide whether you want to take the risk.
Thanks again Pat.
I have decided. I reckon there's a 50-50 chance it will trash the machine again, and it's not worth it.