Recovered data partition will not mount!
Hello,
I recently tried restoring two backed up partitions to another drive to test out that the recovery features are working. Well the system partition restored fine, but the data partition is unmountable! In Windows 7, the disk management tools show me that the partition is named appropriately and exists as the correct size, but it is not assigned a drive letter and I can't assign it a drive letter (it fails when I try) and Windows 7 will not recognize it! What is going on?
Thanks,
Justin
Justin,
It is better to make a reply rather than amend your original post in answer to questions, as others who might be trying to find solutions to their problem will have difficulty following the 'to and fro' and possibly the ultimate resolution.
Could you post a Snip image of what you see in Disk Management.
When you restored the image what options did you choose in TI?
Justin,
It is better to make a reply rather than amend your original post in answer to questions, as others who might be trying to find solutions to their problem will have difficulty following the 'to and fro' and possibly the ultimate resolution.
Could you post a Snip image of what you see in Disk Management.
When you restored the image what options did you choose in TI?
I don't know what you are talking about this is my original post. I choose the basic default options in TI and restored the partitions. I didn't do anything special at all.
Justin,
I thought you had edited your first post after my reply.
Could you post post a snip image of what Disk Management shows.
Does your W7 system have the 100MB boot partition or was the disk formatted by XP at one time?
This computer was never formatted by XP. I have been using my business computer straight from Dell for the last month.
I just tried it again and my data partition won't mount after being restored. What is going on!
The disk management software in Windows 7 shows the restored partition, but I can't mount it or access it in any way. How is it possible no one else has had this problem on these boards? Probably because if anyone else had to deal with this crap they would throw away this product which is what I am about to do.
My business data is fundamental to my livelihood and that is why I bought this stupid program. If it can't even make a simple restore then this piece of crap software is going in the trash and I am going to go with Norton's product and at every possible situation recommend people purchase ANYTHING but this product. I have already spent probably 10 extra hours screwing around with this crap product trying to fix this crap. Not to mention I make 100/hour at my current job. There better be a reason why a simple data backup won't MOUNT THE DAMN IMAGE!
Is there any Dell utility software running in the background?
What build of TI are you using?
Have you run chkdsk /r on both paritions?
Could you use the W7 Snip utility to post a png of what Disk Manager is telling you?
Does this partition show roughly a normal size or does it show zero bytes? If the latter, then there is probably some sort of security ID problem.
What options does Disk Management offer you, apart from not allowing a drive letter to be allocated.
Is there any Dell utility software running in the background?
What build of TI are you using?
Have you run chkdsk /r on both paritions?
Could you use the W7 Snip utility to post a png of what Disk Manager is telling you?
Does this partition show roughly a normal size or does it show zero bytes? If the latter, then there is probably some sort of security ID problem.
What options does Disk Management offer you, apart from not allowing a drive letter to be allocated.
There is dell utility software running in the background.
I am using the latest version and build of TI: build 7046, True Image Home 2010
The disk manager doesn't tell me anything except that the "parameter is incorrect" when I try to assign a drive letter to the recovered data partition. I have read about some things like this happening before and incompatibilities with Windows 7, I thought this should be fixed. How could backup software fail to recover, this is so stupid.
The drive has the correct 320gig size, looks perfect. The only issue is that IT WONT MOUNT and I can't access it.
I also noticed the drive letters were all messed up in the Acronis recovery boot software. But I read that this is normal. I still think it is stupid that it uses different drive letters.
I have been without a backup for 3 weeks because of this crap software. There is no phone number to call, and their support's hours sucks. I work all the time and haven't been able to contact them but once, and it took so long they just starred at my inaccessible hard drive. And you know what? How come no one can give me a simple solution? How complicated can it be to just fix my damn problem.
chkdsk you say? Hahaha, you have to be kidding me. I can't run any sort of checks because WINDOWS WONT RECOGNIZE MY DAMN DATA DRIVE
Linux does not assign drive letters the same way as Windows, which accounts for that 'problem'. It can be got around by giving all your drives meaningful labels as those don't alter in any other OS environment.
It would still be useful if you would make a snip image (this is such an easy action to perform in W7 and Vista for that matter) of Disk Management and post it here.
At this moment the two candidates to the cause of your problem are, either the partition has restored with SSID's that are not the same as Windows thinks they should be, or for some reason the OS type has been changed.
For the latter problem a disk editor is required, as the beta version of DD11 is no longer availablefor download pending it's release, one option is to download one of the free partition managers that can be found on the web. Use this just to look at the drive not to try and correct the problem.
As for your damn drive not mounting perhaps if you gave more damn information to those who can't see your system, have no way of knowing what steps you may or may not have performed other than the information that you offer, others may have brain waves to solve your problem work out whether it is an Acronis/Windows thing or inadvertant user error.
As this is a spare drive and you still have the original drive and image, it might be worth trying the whole exercise again, noting which selections you make etc. Then if the second attempt ends up with the same problem you can post exactly what actions you took and again it could be just enough for someone to have an 'Aah' moment.
#edited typing error#
Linux does not assign drive letters the same way as Windows, which accounts for that 'problem'. It can be got around by giving all your drives meaningful labels as those don't alter in any other OS environment.
It would still be usefule if you would make a snip image (this is such an easy action to perform in W7 and Vista for that matter) of Disk Management and post it here.
At this moment the two candidates to the cause of your problem are, either the partition has restored with SSID's that are not the same as Windows thinks they should be, or for some reason the OS type has been changed.
For the latter problem a disk editor is required, as the beta version of DD11 is no longer availablefor download pending it's release, one option is to download one of the free partition managers that can be found on the web. Use this just to look at the drive not to try and correct the problem.
As for your damn drive not mounting perhaps if you gave more damn information to those who can't see your system, have no way of knowing what steps you may or may not have performed other than the information that you offer, others may have brain waves to solve your problem work out whether it is an Acronis/Windows thing or inadvertant user error.
As this is a spare drive and you still have the original drive and image, it might be worth trying the whole exercise again, noting which selections you make etc. Then if the second attempt ends up with the same problem you can post exactly what actions you took and again it could be just enough for someone to have an 'Aah' moment.
I reran the backup software, created an image, and tried to restore to my drives 4 times. Every time the same exact thing happens as described in the previous e-mails.
The steps I am taking are to go into Acronis TI, create a backup. I then restart from an Acronis boot CD, and select "restore." I browse to the tib file and then choose to restore the data and system partition to my external USB drive. I don't choose any special options what so ever. I just go through the default steps and everything seems to work fine. The restore completes "successfully" and I get messages that everything went fine. I restart my computer, and the system partition is accessible, and looks great. The data partition looks great BUT IS NOT ACCESSIBLE. When I try to assign a drive letter to the data partition it tells me that "the parameter is incorrect."
Was the backup image ever validated from the bootable media (under which the recovery is made)? I see no mention of validation in anything which was said. Validation is a default step.
Since you are working with disk images, it may be better to do both the imaging and recovery by using the bootable media - you won't have to worry about any Dell utility or any other software running in the background (which you never mentioned if you deactivated or not). I'm in the same situation as Colin - I haven't the foggiest what is going on with your system - I reran the backup software tells anyone looking at this thread precisely nothing. Running from the bootable media would eliminate many possible variables which may be affecting your outcome.
I've just had a thought!
Is the recovered image on a drive that is internal or external?
If internal, is the original master drive still in place?
Was the backup image ever validated from the bootable media (under which the recovery is made)? I see no mention of validation in anything which was said. Validation is a default step.
Since you are working with disk images, it may be better to do both the imaging and recovery by using the bootable media - you won't have to worry about any Dell utility or any other software running in the background (which you never mentioned if you deactivated or not). I'm in the same situation as Colin - I haven't the foggiest what is going on with your system - I reran the backup software tells anyone looking at this thread precisely nothing. Running from the bootable media would eliminate many possible variables which may be affecting your outcome.
I specifically said in my previous post: " I then restart from an Acronis boot CD." Saying that I reran the backup software gives no information? What else do you want me to say, I double clicked on the damn program and chose to back up my drive. There IS NOTHING ELSE to say other than that I did rerun the backup software because that is EXACTLY what I did.
I never ran a validation check, I could go ahead and do that.
I've just had a thought!
Is the recovered image on a drive that is internal or external?
If internal, is the original master drive still in place?
The tib file is on an internal drive, and "TO TEST" that everything works (which obviously it isn't) I am restoring the backed up .tib file to my external drive.
I am more convinced now that this might be an SSID problem.
The only way I can think of to rule out that possibility is to physcially swap the drives inside the PC. Don't attempt to have both drives connected at the same time as this will cause a major booting problem.
If Disk Manager thinks it has two drives with the same drive letter and you try to alter the offline version it will produce the 'parameter is incorrect' message. There is a Microsoft sysinternals utility mountvol which might persuade the drive to mount, however, the problem is more likely down to the fact you are trying to mount a volume that is external when Windows thinks it is already mounted in some way.
Please for the umpteenth time, post a screen shot of the contents of Windows Disk Manager.
Running True Image from bootable media (the recovery CD) is not the same thing as running True Image from Windows. Restarting from the recovery CD is not the same thing as running True Image from the recovery CD for doing both the backup and restore. I apologize for making my misguided effort to help.