Acronis True Image 10 Problem with Cloning

Hello Ross,

First of all, please accept our profound apologies for the difficulties you've experienced.

There are 2 possible reasons of the issue:

• NTLDR or Ntdetect.com files are not present on the active partition
• Boot.ini file is corrupt or points to incorrect partition

Please do the following to fix the issue (assuming you have Windows 200/XP installed on the old hard drive):

1. Start the machine from Windows installation CD;

   (!) You may need to change the boot order in the system BIOS to let the machine boot from CD.

2. At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to repair the Windows installation using Recovery Console;
3. Type the number that corresponds to the Windows installation that you want to repair, and then press Enter. E.g., type 1, and then press Enter;
4. Type the Administrator password, and then press Enter;
5. Type the following commands:

   cd..
   dir /p

6. Check if NTLDR and Ntdetect.com files are listed in the root of the drive. If the files are present, then please proceed toBoot.ini file is corrupt or points to incorrect partition. If these files are not present, proceed with the steps below;
7. Type map and then press Enter;
8. Note the drive letter that is assigned to the CD\DVD-ROM drive that contains the Windows CD;
9. Type the following commands:

   copy [drive]:\i386\ntldr [letter]:\
   copy [drive]:\i386\ntdetect.com [letter]:\

   where [drive] is the drive letter of your CD\DVD-ROM drive and [letter] is a letter of the drive Windows is installed on.

   Press Enter after you issue each of the two commands.

   If you are prompted to overwrite the file, type y, and then press Enter.

10. Reboot the machine.

Windows should be bootable now. If it is not, please proceed to Boot.ini file is corrupt or points to incorrect partition.

Boot.ini file is corrupt or points to incorrect partition

1. Start the machine from Windows installation CD;

   (!) You may need to change the boot order in the system BIOS to let the machine boot from CD

2. At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to repair the Windows installation using Recovery Console;
3. Type the Administrator password, and then press Enter;
4. Issue the following command:

   Bootcfg /rebuild

   This command will find the existing Windows installations and add the necessary strings to boot.ini.

5. At Enter Load identifier enter any name for the found operating system;
6. When you are prompted for OS Load options type fastdetect and press Enter;
7. Reboot the machine and choose the just added operating system from boot menu.

Windows should be bootable now.

You can also edit the boot.ini file manually from Windows as described in the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 289002.

Please reply to this thread if the issue still persists.

Thank you.

I am using Acronis True Image Workstation 10 with universal restore.

1 First I lost my operating system WinXP Pro, from a prior installation with 150GB programs installed on a 250GB Drive.

2 Tried many methods but failed to get a bootable drive working.

3 So, I took installation disk for MS Windows, and installed WinXP PRO with SP2, system boots fine.

4 Next I installed all the updated drivers for my laptop, Dell XPS GEN 2 so that the full functionality of all the devices which make up the laptop was assured.

5 Following that I installed SP 3, and downloaded every current software fix/patch offered by Microsoft (took ten hours with a 3Gbit internet connection to update so that all the bells whistles, patches, updates, KB fixes, made my system fully operational, including net framework etc.

6 I spend the next seven days re-instaling my applications software programs (more than 100GB) using web resources to enter license data (including Acronis True Image Workstation) so that my system is running non-bootleg software, and more than two dozen (bought and paid for) application software on CD with license codes, etc.

7 I recovered/re-installed all available data/user files for the next two days using a variety of methods, including outlook express files, email settings, everything I care to have functioning, leaving out about 15-20 GB of utilities, nice freeware, etc un-installed so that my 320GB hard drive is half full with about the same amount free as used drive space.

8 With a fully functioning system, I decided to use Acronis Image Workstation to do two things,
first make a complete image backup file (TIB) so that I would be able to recover everything from an external USB drive. That worked fine.
Second I made on a separate drive an exact clone of the now functioning C Drive with WinXP Pro and all described above

9 After the cloning operation was successful, (using full automatic mode on an external USB unpartitioned raw drive) the system instructed me to remove any jumpers, da da te da, and press a key to shut down the system which I did

10 Lo and behold, I removed the working drive (source of the clone), replaced it with the cloned drive, and guess what it booted fine, everything is just as I had hoped, all fine, well , and dandy, no problems.

11 I shut down the system, removed the "cloned drive', replaced it with the former (source of the clone drive) tried to boot, and when trying to boot, got message 'system' was corrupted or damaged,

12 Got out the Windows install disk, used the CD to get to the Recovery console, and every bit of the file structure is there, can navigate, and do everything the recovery console will allow.

13 So rebooted, used F8 to get into the boot from the last successful installation, no fix same corrupt 'system' msg

14 Rebooted again, tried safe mode, no fix

15 I am fed up, my working drive after making a successful clone is now useless, and I cannot keep it on the shelf to "save me from future disaster" missing only what I installed then from the future failure additional programs/data after leaving it on the shelf. The shelf drive would provide me with 100percent functionality, and external drives for data/user files (non programs) would keep me able to get back to work at a moment's notice with a 'shelved but fully functional bootabl drive' (which now is not and I cannot use!!!!!!!

16 Nothing changed, same hardware, motherboard everything, so no HAL issues.

17 I will try what you suggested to help this person restore his bootability, to see if it fixes my problems, but I doubt it.

18 Because I purchased Acronis True Image Workstation 10 with Universal Restore by download, I do not have the 'bootable recovery CD'

19 How do I obtain the ISO file (bootable) so that I can write the image to a CD made bootable, so I can proceed along other avenues with recovering the system from the TIB file made in step 8 Mentioned above

20 Please tell me where I have gone wrong.

Respectfully
xoxoxinc@msn.com

Instructions for the downloadable ISO files for True Image 10 (not sure about Workstation, though) are here:

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/9260

The bootable recovery CD is made by the use with the Bootable Media Builder which should be installed with True Image.

Sorry to not be able to offer any additional help - maybe the downloadable ISO ISOLINUX files will help.

Hi Gary,

First, I tried to recover the system disk in my laptop to a bootable state by the process mentioned in the original post above by Ross Salinger. (which I did not expect to change the results already experienced, boot failure)

6.Check if NTLDR and Ntdetect.com files are listed in the root of the drive. If the files are present, then please proceed toBoot.ini file is corrupt or points to incorrect partition. If these files are not present, proceed with the steps below;

(My NTDR and Ntdetect.com files werr in the root directory where they belonged) 

Next I followed the steps to repair bootini as described, (assuming that thr Boot.ini file is corrupt or points to incorrect partition)
Bootcfg /rebuild

Upon exiting the Windows recovery mode, after 'fixing' bootcfg, , no boot the system just hung with a black screen with no hard disk activity (several reboot attempts all failed, did not display the corrupted 'system' file message).

After running extensive 'smartdrive' tests by hard-drive manufacturers on the hard-drive which crashed (which happened in the first place after merely doing a normal windows restore to a previous known stable working date/state which I only did because of signs of instability),

And after scanning the hard-disk for media flaws, sector damage, no faults/flaws were found on the drive

Oh by the way (BTW), having lots of experience in the windows recovery console fixing all (SYSTEM, SOFTWARE, SAM, SECURITY, DEFAULT) using  a well known process by Microsoft, where you can see the post at http://support.microsoft.com.kb/307545,

And having tried this fix on several previous botched hard-drive boot failure after using Acronis True Image Workstation (backup/restore/clone, etc) which generally damages the 'System' file, (found in root-drive\windows\system32\config directory),

Every time I use Acronis True Image Workstation to do a clone of a fully functioning system bootable hard drive, I follow the instructions exactly, shut the system down, remove the boot drive, replace it with the cloned drive, and the system always boots, and functions normally

But when removing the clone drive, and trying to next replace the clone drive with the formerly working boot drive, and then subsequently attempt to re-use the same working disk used before cloning, it always fails to boot each and every time.

The master which was used to clone it is always crashed and never re-bootable, yet the entire file structure can be viewed from using linux/windows recovery tools. 

Back to the discussion in progress

Initially I was unable to use the recovery media aproach using Acronis True Image Workstation to write the ISO file because my CD writing software had not yet been re-installed after the failure, and the Acronis software failed the several attempts using their menus to do the job on its own.

I was able to get my system to finally write the ISO file to CD with the Acronis Bootable Media Builder, after re-installing Alcohol120% (a great product) which was not yet ready for prime time after the system crashed, but now is back in operation allowing me to write to CD including bootable ISO files.

The Acronis rescue/recovery file software, created with Alcohol 120%  worked, somewhat.

In other words, the newly written CD with the Acronis ISO fle was bootable, and the Acronis recovery software was available after booting from the recovery CD,

But the actual Acronis recovery process itself did not work flawlessly.

So next, moving on, I tried using the Acronis bootable recovery CD again,

I then again rebooted the computer, and validated the TIB file I created before cloning the system, in the first place, (this TIB file was available n an external hard drive attached to the computer, horray Acronis, your drivers worked for my USB drives Microsoft recovery CD for windows install does not) and the validation process produced absolutely no errors (produced a successful validation msg after nearly 8 hours of plugging/flogging away)

Next from the Acronis recovery program I did a total system restore (including the track 0 and MBR) using the vaidated TIB file just mentioned

Lo and Behold, after 6 more painstaking hours (with a miniscule 139 GB TIB fie) the recovery process was finally completed, and I exited the Acronis restore process presented with a rebooting automatically upon exit.

My system hard drive booted, but after windows launched there was a caveat message on the desktop in a window stating something like "new hardware detected, must reboot to make the changes or the system will not function properly" - (or words to that effect)

So after following the Acronis produced warning message, I rebooted again, this time

After booting into Windows XP-Pro SP-3, everything looked like it was functioning normally as it did before system failure with no new boxed window warning messages (as during the first boot after restoring the hard drive).

So I began to try to load/run/execute programs and look at data files just to see how successful the restore was.

So far so good, things seemed to be operating as expected

However with extensive approach, to discovering what worked and what did not, several dozen (about 20%) of my previously fully functioning licensed programs would not load/run, and they were accompanied with warning messages displayed (see two attached .jpg files (Xara XtremePro 5, and Xara Web Designer) as examples

Dozens of programs which worked fully, all completely, legitimately owned/ licensed by me from the program manufacturer (paid for by me) now require re-installation

What kind of CRAP is this??

ARE YOU LISTENING ACRONIS???

Thanks for your input Gary, I know you are just trying to be helpful (all this work was done before seeing your posted msg

But I do appreciate your input,

After all it is the weekend and nobody expects Acronis employes to work when we do or have to do to recover from a system failure,

Hopefully Acronis will understand the failure of their program to work as advertised (to fully restore to the exact state before failure without requiring re-install of CD/Download of licensed software, all of which seemed to be a random failure of programs to launch as they before the HD windows restore failure, and the TIB file was not ever an issue, because the TIB was created well before any system anomalies or instability).

Something is not working in dealing with the Registry Hives, or else there would be no, absolutely no issues about programs failing to work as before.

I did not have any new hardware, no new software, I merely attempted to use Acvronis to do a total system restore from a validated TIB  file and 20% of my software now is not functioning without re-dowloading or installing from CD, and re-applying license/serial numbers, re-activation/registration at vendor's website for program maintenance, etc.

So far this program is nearly useless, as described.

Iam using version 9.1, and maybe that is the problem, my Acronis sofware is buggy, and maybe the updates which they are now selling have fixed the problems which plague me.

But why should I have to pay for an upgrade just to fix buggy software.

I was intending to purchase three additional licenses of Acronis Workstation True Image Workstation, (and three Universal Restore licenses), but cannot afford the additional time loss due to the crashing and non functioning Acronis software failure to fix/address my issues

And oh yea, by the way, I did not use Universal restore, because nothing was new, same Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) etc, so driver and hardware issues are not in any way responsible either.

ARE YOU LISTENING ACRONIS?? 

Very Respectfully

Bill at

xoxoxinc@msn.com