Restore Windows 7 disk using ATIH 2011 causes "Missing BootMgr" error
Hi,
I had cloned my entire disk to an external drive using ATIH 2011. The computer is a Toshiba laptop with Windows 7 Pro / Business 64-bit, which has a hidden partition (containing an old Vista recover option I think). I then got a nasty virus so decided my best bet was to restore from the cloned disk.
I selected my source and target and cloned from the external to the laptop, all good so far, until it tried to re-start, then I get the dreaded "missing bootmgr" error. I tried my Windows 7 DVD first, but could not get the repair option to display. I then tried a Vista recovery disk to get to the recovery console and run "bootrec /fixmbr" and "bootrec /fixboot". Fixmbr seems to run successfully, but fix boot cannot find the correct partition. I suspect fixmbr is running on the hidden partition, not my Windows 7 partition.
I have re-installed Windows 7 and Acronis TI Home 2011 a couple of times and tried to re-clone back, but each time I get the same issue. I am obviously not doing something correctly.
Can someone help? Or point me to a FAQ or step-by-step instructions on how to clone back a Windows 7 partition (or disk)?
Many thanks in advance, frustrated, but calm still :)
Hi Pat,
Thanks for having a look at my post. I didn't "backup" I cloned the entire disk.
What I have done so far is do a clean install of Win7-64, then install Acronis TIH 2011, then clone back from the external hard drive to the laptop. When I do the clone, I can see both the partitions, BUT Acronis assigns drive letter E to the visible (Win7 and user data) partition. I am not sure if that is of importance.
I wonder if I could FDisk the drive, then boot True Image from the CD and then clone from the external HDD whether that would make a difference? I did use a utility last night to look at the partition information on the drive, I can see it is has been restored, but it is not active.
Currently I can't go to My Computer, because I am unable to boot. I could load up the clean install of Win7 again and have alook at what is cloned onto the external HDD, is that what you are asking me to do?
OK, I tried booting from the CD and cloning from the external disk. I got a different boot error, booted up using my Win7 recovery CD, did a repair, and "bingo!" I have my PC booting again :)
I still have the original issue I was trying to repair, which is I can't log into https sites, but that is another issue entirely.
I hope others find the thread useful and they don't waste multiple days trying to clone back their PC.
Thanks for your time Pat.
Cheers, Richard
It seems I have found another wrinkle. Now that I can boot, Win 7 System Restore is not active. When I go to roll back to a previous restore point, it tells me that system restore is turned of. When I go into System Restore what I find is one C: drive, with SR turned off, and another C: drive, with SR turned on, that is marked as missing. If I turn off the missing one, and turn on the active C: SR works, but the process deletes all of my previous restore points.
Further information, when I cloned back from the external drive, using the ATIH bootable CD, I had to run the Win 7 Recovery CD and do a repair to make the system boot, so something is not quite 100%. Either something in the cloning, or in the repair, makes Win 7 think that the 2 drives (or partitions) are different, when in fact they are the same.
Is there some way to resolve the System Restore issue so that I don't lose all of my restore points?
Dick,
I suspect that some information from the original disk (maybe the disk signature) was lost in the translation after the cloning back and forth. One reason could be a boot on the computer with both disks (the original and the clone) being present at the same time.
The proper way of doing your process is to do a disk and partition backup. You can create this backup from ATI running in Windows or from the recovery CD. What is important is to include all partitions in the backup.
When you restore, use the recovery CD and restore the backup. If you use the same disk, simply restore all or selected partitions. If you restore on a new disk, you will be able to selectively resize the partitions, then restore the MBR+track0 and the disk signature.