Error after restore of VHD "A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart"
I am currently evaluating TI 2011, and, I have been a great fan of TI since version 8 and would love to see these resolved to be able to continue using the product.
The issue I am having is related to restoring VHDs created by Windows 7 System Backup. The restores are done using a bootable medium that has been created by the latest version of TI.
For evaluation purposes, I attempted the restore of three different Windows 7 VHD images to an X201 Thinkpad with a 64 GB traditional hard disk. Unfortunately, only one of the images could be restored to a working condition. The other two ended up not booting at all and throwing the infamous "A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart" message.
I must admit that one of the images was actually not a proper test because the source machine of the VHD contained entirely different hardware. It was a Thinkcenter M58, which is a desktop. However, I must say that I rather expected a bluescreen than the above message which is generated very early in the boot process.
The one image which I could restore was created from an X201 with a 64 GB SSD. IIRC I did not restore the MBR in this case. I definitely did not restore the MBR during the two succeeding attempts. Yet, in each case, I checked that TI saw and restored the two relevant partitions. The first partition, where W7 puts its boot files has been set to active.
I attempted to fix the problem using the Windows 7 installation disk to run Startup
Recovery to no avail.
Thank you for taking the time! Regarding your questions ...
- I did not restore the MBR because the Manual sais that this is not necessary. I will have another go tomorrow using a cleaned disk and an MBR
- I am trying to restore machines from VHD files yes.
- There are in fact two VHD files for each backup. TI seems to recognize there relation however. When I selected one of the files it restored both partitions. Boot partition and the actual system partition. It was the small boot partition that I set to be first and active.
Thanks again!
You did the right things with the VHD files and marked the right one active.
Restoring the MBR is typically not necessary when you restore on the same disk, and you are pretty confident the MBR has been untouched. When restoring to a new/different disk, this is a different story.
Thanks very much for the kind words ... and the hints of course :-). I will check tomorrow and certainly post back. Thanks again!
Now I am getting "0xC000000e - Boot failed - Required device is inaccessible". Sigh ...
I am tempted to edit my preceding post to hide my shame.
Though, for others to learn and for the sake of honesty,
I must admit that the last mentioned issue was caused by myself.
In the course of troubleshooting the original error, I had changed the mode of the SATA controller to "Compatibility". This did not help with the original issue and it was the cause for the 0x000000e error mentioned above. When I changed that setting back to AHCI, the system came up fine.
To sum up. Restoring a system backup created by Windows 7 System Backup with the current version of an TI Rescue CD works fine.
As it seems you only need to select one of the VHDs
I, for my part, only had to select one of the two VHD files created by Windows 7. I always selected the smaller one, which holds the boot partition. You can check whether TI has recognized the two partitions. After you click Select (or was it OK?) in the source selection screen you can right click the disk icons and select Properties.
Mark the boot partition active
If I remember correctly, I had to do that manually but I might be on error here. Anyway, It does not hurt to check..
In some cases you should restore the MBR
Namely, if you restore to a different disk than the original one, you need to do that. Otherwise you end up like me, posting to this formidable forum.
Thanks Pat L for your great assistance!