How to restore Master Boot Record
My MBR has become corrupted. How do I use the Acronis Recovery disk to restore only the MBR?
Man kann auch versuchen, die erste Partition + "MBR und Track 0" anhaken und mit "Disk-Signatur wiederherstellen" wiederherzustellen.
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You can also try to tick the first partition + "MBR and Track 0" and restore it with "Restore disk signature".
EDIT: Only works with partition style "MBR" disks.
Yesterday a lightening strike in our neighborhood caused a momentary power glitch. After that, my computer will not boot. I get the message "MBR Error 1, Press any key to boot from floppy". When I press return, it goes to "MBR Error 2, press any key to boot from floppy".
I am trying to recover. I have decided to recover the entire disk. But I get the error warning "After operation completion, operating system will not boot from the destination disk in BIOS". What does this message mean? I am trying to restore the entire disk.
Jim, the error means that you are booting your PC in Legacy BIOS boot mode but the PC was previously using UEFI BIOS boot mode and will be migrated from GPT to MBR and will fail to boot if allowed.
You need top select the UEFI Boot option for the rescue media then do the recovery.
Thank you Steve but if that link explained where in the recovery media I choose between BIOS and UEFI modes it was too ponderous for me to figure it out.
I do get the windows logo on boot.
Assuming you meant I had to boot to UEFI, in a picture below you will see that the 2nd drive is Samsung ssd. That is my C drive. However, I believe it is not a UEFI drive. But it is the drive that I backed up.
So it would appear, I can not boot to the drive I must restore and have it a UEFI drive.
In the other picture, BIOS boot function is disabled.
Jim, you need to select one of the several UEFI boot entries shown in your second image, picking the one that matches you Acronis rescue media, i.e. UEFI USB Key if the media is on a USB memory stick.
An alternative would be to change the Boot mode select option to UEFI only instead of offering both Legacy+UEFI as shown in the image.
When I change boot mode to only UEFI, the destination hard drive (samsung ssd) is no longer available and the Optiarc DVD drive is no longer available. My only DVD drive is the Optiarc.
I believe the only drives on my machine are Boot Options #1, #2, #3 & #5.
I believe boot option #2 (the SSD) was previously my C drive.
I am booting from #1 the Optiarc DVD drive. The Acronis restore software is on a DVD on this drive.
I don't know what any of the other options are.
When I boot to the Optiarc cd/dvd, the Acronis restore software loads. Even though it doesn't say it is UEFI.
Jim, look inside the backup image file you are intending to recover from and check to see if you have an EFI System partition in the backup content. It can show as ESP or just System but will have an EFI folder inside the partition for a UEFI system.
Is this screen capture what you are asking about? What do I do? How do I use this?
Note: The screen capture is from 'selecting the destination'.
Jim, sorry but I do not know what your image is showing the content from but looking at the date back in 2013 suggests it isn't your Acronis backup image content.
All we are trying to establish here is that your PC is a UEFI BIOS boot system and that it should be recovered as the same, not as a Legacy boot one.
The images below are from my own UEFI backup image (opened by double-clicking on the .tibx file in Explorer on a PC with ATI 2021 installed).
Was sehen Sie unter "What to recover", wenn Sie versuchen das Backup-Archiv wiederherzustellen?
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What do you see under "What to recover" when you try to restore the backup archive?
I see my last image file.
I have now restore it and I still get the "MBR error 1" message.
Jim,
What Steve was alluding to was this...
Your Windows 10 system can be either Legacy Boot or UEFI boot. If it is UEFI boot, then you must boot the Rescue Media as UEFI to properly restore the system drive. If your system is set to Legacy boot, then you don't boot the Rescue Media as UEFI.
The last few posts have been an attempt to get you to see if the backup file you saved is from a Legacy or UEFI boot system. It is still unclear to us which it is.
I believe on your motherboard, you can hit F11 to get a boot menu instead of what you do to enter the BIOS. From the boot menu, you should see a list of what you can boot from and you may see your recovery media listed twice... once with and once without UEFI. If you have been doing a non-UEFI boot to restore a UEFI system, that may be the problem. Which way are you booting the rescue media?
Here's what I get from F11.
Here's what I get from F11.
jim,
What happens if you select Windows Boot Manager after hitting the F11 key to get the menu in your last screenshot?
The Optiarc DVD, which is where the Rescue Media is, does not show a UEFI boot option. How was this created?
BrunoC wrote:The Optiarc DVD, which is where the Rescue Media is, does not show a UEFI boot option. How was this created?
The rescue disk was made in my Windows system using acronis' create a recovery disk. However it will not boot if I specify UEFI only.
I thought booting as "Legacy+UEFI" meant it would boot as appropriate. I changed to "UEFI" only. It rebooted once. Everything looked right.
I rebooted again to be sure all was okay and now it stops at the message below.
Jim, do you have a full version of ATI or is it an OEM version supplied for free with a disk purchase? The latter are restricted to work with only systems where a disk of the OEM brand can be detected.
I would recommend creating a USB memory stick copy of the rescue media which should then show up as a UEFI: USB.... boot option in your F11 menu. The memory stick should be 2GB minimum size and no larger than 32GB size - formatted as FAT32.
There are known issues with getting DVD media to boot in UEFI mode on some PC's and is something that I stopped using many years back in favour of using USB sticks.
Steve Smith wrote:Jim, do you have a full version of ATI or is it an OEM version supplied for free with a disk purchase? The latter are restricted to work with only systems where a disk of the OEM brand can be detected.
I would recommend creating a USB memory stick copy of the rescue media which should then show up as a UEFI: USB.... boot option in your F11 menu. The memory stick should be 2GB minimum size and no larger than 32GB size - formatted as FAT32.
There are known issues with getting DVD media to boot in UEFI mode on some PC's and is something that I stopped using many years back in favour of using USB sticks.
I don't know what ATI means. My Windows came with the computer when I bought it.
Some history may be useful ...
Four years ago, I used Acronis software to copy the contents of my previous Lenovo computer to a brand new computer. The new computer came with Windows already installed. The Acronis software did not copy the OS.
I have used Acronis 3 times. 1st the initial conversion from the Lenovo computer to my new computer. 2nd to an SSD drive. 3rd to a larger SSD drive.
All operations have worked properly until now.
After the power glitch over the weekend, I got the "MBR error 1" message. I used Acronis Recovery to restore an image file. ( I had to be in Legacy+UEFI to do this. The Acronis Recovery disc will not boot in UEFI).
In Legacy+UEFI, I still get the MBR error 1.
Changing to UEFI (only), I successfully rebooted one time. My system looked great. Rebooting after that results in the "Warning. This program can only run on a Lenovo system".
Jim, ATI = Acronis True Image as per these forums, so just saving typing,.,,,
What brand is your new computer (migrated from the old Lenovo)?
Seeing the warning about the program only running on a Lenovo system suggests to me that you are attempting to boot into a Lenovo recovery environment that got transferred from the old PC, so the BIOS is not picking up the correct boot device, which on a UEFI system should be the 'Windows Boot Manager' from the correct OS boot drive.
So on your F11 panel when you see:
UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell
SATA5:Optiarc DVD RW AD-7200S (Legacy device)
Realtek PXE B02 D00 (Network boot option)
SATA1:Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB (Legacy device)
SATA4:WDC WD10EALS-00Z8A0 (Legacy device)
>>> Windows Boot Manager (P0: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB) <<<<
UEFI OS (P0: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB) (UEFI device)
UEFI: asmedia ASMT1153e 0 (UEFI device)
Enter Setup
The highlighted entry is what you need to be selecting for booting into Windows.
Note: the next line confirms that you have a UEFI OS on that SSD.
Your Optiarc DVD drive is not being offered as a UEFI boot device, so you would need to use a USB stick which should then show in the above list if connected when pressing F11.
It is recommended to disconnect any other internal disk drives not involved in any recovery operation if you have multiple installed drives, should you still need to do this if the above boot option does not work.
Steve,
Thank you so much!
Sorry we haven’t replied in a couple of days, but your message allowed us to boot into Windows. That gave us the opportunity to save data, create an Acronis Recovery thumb drive and try different things.
After F11 and selecting >>> Windows Boot Manager (P0: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB) <<<<, we successfully boot into Windows. We can do this repeatedly.
If we do not press F11, we still get the Levono Warning message.
Today we tried to boot from the Acronis Recovery USB. It appears to be trying to boot, but never completes. We have tried this twice. The first time we waited 2 hours.
Here are things we do not understand:
- Why on the setup screen is the thumb drive called key? (Attachment 582705-286327.jpg)
- Why does the setup screen say I have a floppy drive when I don’t? (Attachment 582705-286327.jpg)
Information: I only have 4 drives. The Windows (Samsung SSD), backup USB drive (asmedia ASMT1153e) (where the image file is located), an internal data drive, and a DVD drive.
I’m not sure where to go from here. Will I always have to press F11 and select Windows Boot Manager on boot?
Jim, you need to change the BIOS boot order priority so that the Windows Boot Manager is first in the list.
To do this, looking at your first image, at the top where you see the row of icons, hover over each of these icons so that it displays the descriptive text until you find the one for Windows Boot Manager, then drag that icon over to the left side so that it is the first icon.
Here are things we do not understand:
- Why on the setup screen is the thumb drive called key? (Attachment 582705-286327.jpg)
- Why does the setup screen say I have a floppy drive when I don’t? (Attachment 582705-286327.jpg)
Information: I only have 4 drives. The Windows (Samsung SSD), backup USB drive (asmedia ASMT1153e) (where the image file is located), an internal data drive, and a DVD drive.
Thumb drives have been known as 'keys' or 'sticks' for some time but they mean the same thing, it is a USB memory device that can be used as a boot device when prepared as such.
Floppy drives are left over from when older versions of the BIOS supported these devices and are rarely found in modern systems. Some BIOS update utilities used to be floppy based and would fit into such a small size.
For the Acronis rescue media, how did you create this?
See KB 63226: Acronis True Image 2020: how to create bootable media and KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media
Note: the size of USB boot media is important - it is best to use a minimum of 2GB and no larger that 32GB in size for the boot media.
See KB 58108: Acronis products: using USB sticks with more than 32GB capacity - which explains.
Steve Smith wrote:Jim, you need to change the BIOS boot order priority so that the Windows Boot Manager is first in the list.
To do this, looking at your first image, at the top where you see the row of icons, hover over each of these icons so that it displays the descriptive text until you find the one for Windows Boot Manager, then drag that icon over to the left side so that it is the first icon.
The F11 panel lists the Samsung SSD twice:
>>> Windows Boot Manager (P0: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB) <<<<
UEFI OS (P0: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB) (UEFI device)
But on the Setup screen (where it shows the row of icons), there is only one internal hard drive shown, and it is called "UEFI Hard Disk" Hovering over the icons, there is no icon that says “Windows Boot Manager” or Samsung SSD.
When I move the only internal hard drive shown on the Setup screen ("UEFI Hard Disk") to first on the row of icons and reboot, I get the Lenovo warning message which stops the boot.
For the Acronis rescue media, how did you create this?
See KB 63226: Acronis True Image 2020: how to create bootable media and KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media
I used the method shown on your link for both the DVD and the thumb drive.
Note: the size of USB boot media is important - it is best to use a minimum of 2GB and no larger that 32GB in size for the boot media.
The thumb drive I used is 32GB
Jim, I do not have any PC's using MSI BIOS so can only suggest you take a look at the following YouTube video for changing the BIOS boot priority to ensure Windows Boot Manager is being selected first.
See also MSI webpage: How to change boot order? which shows that you need to set your internal disk drive as the first option, then to set Windows Boot Manager as the boot priority from that selected disk drive.
We hunted around our area of Houston and found a 16GB thumb drive. When we plug it in Windows sees it but Acronis does not. At first I got the screen in picture 1 (582742-286445.jpg). So I formatted it and Acronis saw it once but when I tried to add the Acronis restore files it ran a short time then gave the error message in picture 2. After that it consistently shows picture 1.
I'm trying to understand your links to MSI motherboard issues. The first one seems to just make sure the first boot drive is not USB. Mine isn't so I went on to the second link. It hurts my head -- doesn't seem to make sense but I'm still re-re-rereading it..
Damn you're good! I finally deciphered that second link. The correct drive was in the correct place to begin with.
You have to go to those BBS clickables at the bottom of the screen. Click on Hard Disk Drive BBS Priorities. In there it will let you change the drive to Windows Boot Manager. Now everything works
I'm sure you don't want a kiss from an 85 year old guy but if you were close by l'd give you one.
Jim, I am just glad that you were able to get this working again as it should, well done for keeping at it and solving the settings issue!
Hi again, I had already tried a restart repair through the alt f10 menu which I think gives at least some of the options similar to a rescue disk. I had also previously tried a second image copy which gave similar results. I just tried a restore of just sector zero. It gave me the failure that I attached.
I suppose it is possible I have some weird hardware issue, but I am doubtful since until using Acronis full disk recovery everything worked great. And as I stated before the partition recovery that I first executed seem to work and Windows was still bootable.
I had a thought. . . . since Acronis just released an update to such an old product i.e ATI 2018, I wonder if a recent update to Windows broke something and the recent update was to repair it. And since my update failed to apply I was still using the older version of ATI 2018. Not too long ago I believe I upgraded to the latest release of Windows 10.
I appreciate all your feedback. I wonder if a fresh install of Windows 10 may be warranted.
Tony, one comment arising from your latest screen shot... the OS drive should normally be seen as disk 1 by Acronis rather than as disk 2 which could lead to issues where boot data is written to the wrong disk by Windows. Acronis numbers disks from 1 versus Windows numbering from 0.