PC fails to boot after attempt to create survival kit. C: drive locked.
Hi,
First, I've started a conversation with support, but the only thing they will tell me to is try and restore my system via Windows recovery!
I'd love some real help.
What I did and what has happened:
1. Have a Dell 8700 XPS running Windows 8.1.
2. Bought a WD My Book external 4TB drive and Acronis True Image 2019.
3. As part of backup to external drive, ATI prompted me to do a survival kit. I agreed.
4. ATI survival kit process failed at end with some message about being unable to copy a file. I tried again, it failed again. As part of the process, ATI has messages about locking disks, etc.
5. So, I decided to reboot my system to see if I could try again and succeed. Note, I still don't have a backup made yet.
6. On restart, computer goes to a recovery blue screen with only the word "Recovery" visible. Bootup is screwed. (Why in the world has ATI done anything to my boot drive? What sort of insanity is at play here? It should only be modifying the external drive. I am pretty shocked trying to make a backup could destroy your setup.)
7. I have used Dell's OS recovery for Windows 8.1, but all attempts to repair or refresh fail. The refresh attempt complains that the drive is locked.
8. Attempts to follow various guides online to unlock the drive all fail. I have done tons of attempts at BCD edits, etc, but something still isn't right and the drive is still locked and does not boot.
I'm very technically proficient (former software developer), but I'm not a PC expert. I did nothing strange or out of the ordinary with ATI and it has broken my system, and all I wanted was a simply backup. (Wanted backup before upgrading to Windows 10. Computer has only had minimal use over the years and is not main datastore, otherwise it would have been backed up years ago. I could wipe the drive clean, but I would like to not have to start from ground zero if possible.)
Any ideas? Searches of the forum come up with other people with locked drives, and even one guy also with a Dell 8700 that got locked by ATI, but no solutions seem to be found or applicable. What in the world has ATI done to my machine?
Thanks for any help.


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Thanks for the suggestions.
1. The external was still attached on reboot, but I disconnected once the restart failed. It has not be reattached since the failure.
2. I cannot get the machine to boot properly and thus cannot even get to a safe mode boot. I am using the repair/recovery for Windows and it cannot fix the problem.
Anyone know why Acronis modifies the boot drive (C:/) when you try to make a survival kit? I just don't get why they have to touch the C:\ drive other than to READ it, but instead they clearly MODIFIED it, which is foolhardy.
In the meantime, I've brought the system up on a new drive in Windows 10 so that the family can access the internet. I'll probably just copy needed files from the old drive (it looks fine in diskpart and checked out 100% okay via chkdsk) and move on but I need a spare sata cable first.
I think people need to know that Acronis is a dangerous product that can destroy your setup when you attempt a backup. Why would the developers release such a product?
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Anyone know why Acronis modifies the boot drive (C:/) when you try to make a survival kit? I just don't get why they have to touch the C:\ drive other than to READ it, but instead they clearly MODIFIED it, which is foolhardy.
As far as I understand, there should be no modification of your C:\ drive at all when creating a Survival Kit on an external drive. Acronis has to read information from your Windows Recovery Environment in order to create the Windows PE environment used by the Survival Kit, but this is all done normally within the running Windows without any need to reboot etc.
I would strongly recommend making a full disk backup of your working Windows 10 drive on your external WD drive before copying any files back from the non-booting drive, and do not attempt to copy back any Windows files other than your pure user data, i.e. documents, images, music etc.
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