2010 True Image Recovery Environment and Rescue CD's no longer boot

Have you tried flashing your BIOS? I don't know what type of system you have, but doing this on my old Dell helped with some boot problems.

Your Nokia software may have altered something.

You may also want to try creating a BartPE CD (since you can boot into XP) - the plug-in can be downloaded.

Also you may want to try creating the Acronis loader bootable media with the Startup Recovery Manager disabled. Also, try the ISOLINUX boot disk image available for download from your account. So you should have three alternatives:

-Acronis loader CD (make with Startup Recovery Manager disabled)
-ISOLINUX CD (this is directly downloaded and burned to CD)
-BartPE CD (install the plugin also with the Startup Recovery Manager disabled)

But renewing your BIOS may be the first order of business.

Hopefully you made a full system backup before activating Startup Recovery Manager so you have a copy of you original, unaltered master boot record (MBR). I don't like to mess with the MBR, personally.

Gary,

Thanks for the interest.

My BIOS is up to date, and I have been backing up and restoring regularly (until this morning) for ages, as I always make a backup before installing anything new, including usually Microsoft updates. I have always been able to re-boot though, either via f11 or cd-rom.

Nokia may have done something, for sure. I am less than impressed with their software anyway.

But I expect Acronis not to be affected by anything that third party software can do. After all, "Compute with Confidence" is surely what it is all about. In fact, in my version they actually have a "Try before you buy" option implying that Acronis can protect you from anything an errant installer can do.

I will give your suggestions in #3 a go tomorrow.

And finally, yes, I do have an original MBR copy, although I think if Nokia were doing anything to the MBR they wouldn't last long in pcworld. I don't plan to mess around restoring that until everything else is considered. After all, my pc still boots providing I don't want to try booting into Acronis!

However, I can't see how that can be part of the problem as the reboot is coming from the cd-rom when the recovery cd is installed, that is, before the hard drive MBR is accessed.

Thanks

You could try doing a cold boot to the TI CD. Linux can sometimes be a little fussy about the state of certain devices. Insert the TI CD so it's ready for booting, shutdown the computer, remove power to the computer, wait at least 30 seconds, restore power, and boot the computer.

You could also try booting to the TI CD with no unnecessary devices connected, especially any added since the last successful bootup to TI.

Thanks, I will give it a try.

Thanks MudCrab, tried that, nothing changed. It will not boot either by f11, or rescue CD

I will try Gary's suggestions tomorrow, but will also start doing some testing with Macrium Reflect as it has dealt with my wife's Netbook Acronis problem without a hitch.

I have spent enough time on this now. Despite my efforts and many attempts all day yesterday, Acronis True Image Restore will not boot the machine either from f11 or the rescue cd's. All of which were working until yesterday.

I also unistalled the Nokia softare, deleted the cable drivers etc., reinstalled and it works fine now.

I have installed and tested Macrium Reflect which backsup and restores without any problem. Their bootable environment at boot time, and the Linux CD and the Windows PE CD all work.

So I have spent the money and bought that and requested a refund from Acronis as being able to restore is a fundamental part of the product. A pity, as I have been a long time user of Acronis, but my trust in the product has gone.

Thanks for the help.