No boot Cd's seem to work
Our HP laptop, win xp sp3, will not boot to windows:
I think our HP laptop picked up some Malware and is now seemingly locked from booting into windows. We have tried the following steps to date:
1. BartPE starts but will not load to function
2. Acronis bootable CD will boot but cannot recognize our external HD with back up files, the SafeMedia version that only sees the native hard drive, no peripherals.
3. The Acronis ISO bootable CD starts but cannot progress into any function, merely freezes on its load page.
4. Our HP repair/recovery OS CD will not run so cannot even reformat and start over.
5. The "special CD" with the rewrite boot record loads but goes no where.
I'm out of things to try, any suggestion will be greatly appreciated. I am wondering if the native HD is now shot? thanks in advance, RHH
Hi & thanks for responding. The HP repair/restore OS CD goes through a set up sequence by loading files, then says "Setup is starting windows" , then nothing happens. I have left it on for an hour and nothing still happens. Would you have a good location to find DD10? thanks again.
www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/diskdirector/
Do the drive details appear correctly in the BIOS?
I'm not sure how to address your question. The start up is set to read disk first. How specifically do I ck the drive details in the BIOS? Sorry for the ignorence.
Aha, there is the problem, CD/DVD needs to be set up as the first to be read.
It's a long time since I've looked at an HP machines's BIOS, but there should be a page that says something along the lines of startup or boot order. To move items in the list it is often either the page up/down buttons or the +/- buttons and I have come across one that used F keys.
What will be standard is the F10 key which will aks if you wish to commit your changes to the BIOS.
Normally the first page of any BIOS shows you the current time and date, floppy drive details (that'll be blank I would imagine) , and info about your hard drive. If that info is missing or the size reported looks incorrect then something indeed could be wrong with the drive or PC.
I double cked the start up order, it is set to read the CD ROM drive first, not the native HD. All the specs for the laptop also check out as correct. We ran the "check disk" from the set up menu and no problems were noted. I am still very suspicious that Malware may have a strangle hold on the hard drive's ability to boot windows.
A few days ago Safe Mode actually became active (a random event without any identifiable cause and has since never run again). During that random moment I tried to access System Restore, and got a reply that it was "turned off", and therefore not accessible. That Sys Restore was "turned off" was by no means something we did, it is a complete anomally, and probably attributable to malware of some kind. I was able to run our Alvira AV scan for 6 hours during which time it picked up 8 suspected detections that it could not "remove" but could "lock up" pending a restart to clean them. We restarted as "strongly recommended", but subsequently lost Safe Mode and it has never run again. I was going to attempt running the Acronis restore, but never got the chance, as yet as least.
Any further suggestions or thoughts will be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Hello all,
Thank you for using [[http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/ | Acronis Corporate Products]]
RHH,
We should check the partition structure of your hard drive.
- Download Acronis Report utility from the link I have send to you via PMs.
- Run Acronis Report utility and select the flash drive option;
- Connect your flash drive and proceed with creating the bootable media;
- Boot the computer under consideration from flash drive and wait for report creation process to complete;
- Send us the report.txt file from the flash drive. Please compress the Acronis Report output file into an archive (e.g. with WinZip) and attach to your post.
This would provide us with detailed information on the hard disk partition structure.
Thank you.
Oleg, I'm sorry but I have not received any PM with the Report utility, pls resend, thanks.
Oleg, is this the proper utility? http://download.acronis.com/support/AcronisReport.exe
It may be outdated, there are none of the items you mention above.
If so, there is no flash drive option, only options shown are for a floppy boot disk and a report.
I have the utility installed onto a flash drive and tried to boot it from the problem laptop, nothing happened. There is no option to boot from a USB device in the set up.
Hello RHH,
Thank you for your response.
The link you used is the link for creating Acronis Report from a floppy drive. To create Acronis Report using a flash drive you need another file. It is rather strange that you haven't received my Private Message. I am resending it to you.
To find the Private Message you should click on Messages at the left upper corner of the screen under My account item.
Thank you.
Hi Oleg, we found your messages and tried the flash drive boot, it only reported "Unable to load OS" and nothing else. Now what?
Oleg, we burned a Bootable CD with AcronisReport51 and it ran the program on the problem laptop. We were able to get the report burned onto the flash drive, here it is attached. Please let us know what it tells you. thanks.
Hello RHH,
Thank you for the provided information.
Unfortunately, Acronis report doesn't detect any errors, and the reason of the malfunction is still unknown.
You can try the following: Since the safe version of Acronis Bootable rescue media can boot into the system, you should copy the backup file to your internal hard drive, it looks like you have enough free space on it. You can copy the backup archive by means of a third-party utility or you can plug the HP laptop to another working computer.
After that boot the safe version of Acronis Bootable rescue media and recover the archive.
Please let us know the results.
Thank you.
PLEASE SEE OUR IMPORTANT QUESTIONS BELOW.
We will attempt to copy all OUR backup Acronis files, (which are incremental back ups over time that reside on an external HD), to a large flash drive with hopes it will be readable when booting with the Acronis SafeMedia version that only looks at the native laptop drive. We wonder how in the world is Acronis backup functional for anyone when Acronis bootable media cannot read external HD's in general?
Why cannot the Acronis Safe Media version contain USB drivers that have Microsoft "signatures" identical to those Microsoft puts into their OS that allows plug and play reading of USB HD's? How are we supposed to recover from a native HD crash unless your bootable media can read an external HD with your back ups? Something seems very wrong here. IF you can answer these questions, then there should be way to get Acronis bootable rescue media to fix a problem like ours when apparently all we need is to access our external HD with your backups to restore it. Please address these questions!!!!
Hello RHH,
Thank you for your response.
BartPE starts but will not load to function
HP repair/recovery OS CD will not run so cannot even reformat and start over.
The "special CD" with the rewrite boot record loads but goes no where.
I completely agree with you, something is wrong. The full version of Acronis Bootable Rescue Media should detect the external hard drive, but I am not sure that the current issue (when it fails to detect the external hard drive) is caused by Acronis software.
The USB drivers are not included into the safe version by default.
Thank you.
OLeg, since the Safe Version can abe read by a damaged computer like ours, why not equip it with at least Microsoft USB signatures to read standard plug and play USB devices like external HD's???? The full version of your backup is defective in that even with USB drivers it cannot run, perhaps you need a middle version with just the SafeVersion and USB drivers that have microsoft signatures that do not need any driver CD's etc. to be recognized. Surely when internal HD's are attacked by malware, we need a way to access an external HD, and presently your backups fail to do this, at least for me!!
Hello RHH,
Thank you for using [[http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/ | Acronis True Image]]
Please create another Acronis Bootable rescue media based on ISOLINUX loader.
We have implemented the possibility to download the appropriate ISO file after logging in to your account (the serial number should be registered). Please log in to your account, go to the Registered products section -> Bootable media. Download the file.
You can find more information on how to burn an ISO image to a CD here and here.
The full version of your backup is defective
Following the logic, BartPE disk, HP repair/recovery OS CD and the "special CD" with the rewrite boot record are also defective.
Thank you.
Oleg, this is the same ISO file we have run twice before, we made another one this morning and the result is the same, we get the selection screen, no selection works, dead screen.
We need additional help with your suggestion: you should copy the backup file to your internal hard drive, it looks like you have enough free space on it. You can copy the backup archive by means of a third-party utility or you can plug the HP laptop to another working computer.
We can copy the back up (43MB) onto our other computer. How would we use a 3rd party utility? How do we connect computers to transfer a file?
I still would like to get a SafeMedia verison with the USB drivers added, is this possible?
thanks, Robert.
Robert,
Just to make sure you've tried this...
The Safe Mode version of TI accesses the drives through the computer's BIOS. Most newer computers will directly support USB drives in this way, but at slow speed. Most older computers won't support this. When you tried the Safe Mode version, was the USB drive already connected to the computer and turned on before you booted the computer?
Some computers will also provide BIOS support for only some USB devices. For example, USB hard drives might be seen, but USB flashdrives might not be.
You might also check the BIOS for any Legacy USB options and try it enabled/disabled and see if it makes any difference.
If your backup file is only 43MB, it doesn't sound like an image file (drive/partition backup). Is that the correct size?
What's being suggested is to copy the backup image to another partition on the internal drive. Then you could boot to TI Safe Mode and restore the image to the main partition. You could copy the file using a Live Linux CD (Ubuntu, Knoppix, etc.) or a BartPE/WinPE CD. Other options include removing the drive and connecting it to another computer. Once the file has been copied, reinstall the drive into the laptop and perform the restore.
However, from looking at the report file, it seems that you only have one partition on the drive. This means you would need to resize (shrink) the existing partition and then create a new partition in the unallocated space. This new partition would then be used to hold the backup image file. Also, it only shows 35GB of free space. If your backup file is really 43MB, I don't see how it could contain the necessary data to restore your system. If it's 43GB, it wouldn't fit on the existing drive because there's not enough free space available.
Oleg,
Sorry, the back up files are 43GB. There are no legacy options in the BIOS. There is a boot order option for the USB device HD, but the only message is "invalid installation disk" on start up atttempt. Yes, we have tried to run TI SafeMedia with the external HD connected and turned on, but it will not recognize it. Can the USB drivers included in the full version bootable CD be also included in the Safe version?
Hello Robert,
Thank you for your response.
You have 32GB of free space on the problem computer, it is not enough to place a file 43GB of size.
It is impossible to add the USB drivers to the safe version of Acronis Bootable Rescue Media. Actually, I don't think that the recovery of the archive will help. I assume that the boot issue has another nature, probably, it is a hardware malfunction (for example, the motherboard or the hard drive controller malfunction, maybe, you need to update the BIOS. The exact reason is unknown, the native HP disk should boot anyway).
If you want to try to recover the archive, the most reliable way was proposed by Mudcrab.
Other options include removing the drive and connecting it to another computer. Once the file has been copied, reinstall the drive into the laptop and perform the restore.
This workaround will help you to free some space (you can copy some non-system files to the second computer). Also this will allow to create the second partition on this drive to place the archive file onto it.
After that plug this hard drive back, boot the system from the safe version of Acronis CD and recover the archive.
Thank you.
Not having another laptop prevents us from trying the above. We have our Acronis back up still on our external HD. I am thinking that the least cost option with the greatest potential is to find a refurbished HD and start over. If it fails to fix the laptop, it is likely not cost effective to buy another motherboard. The memory chip passes all tests just fine. Your input is appreciated, RHH.
I have ordered a HD toaster to slave the HD to my desktop to run ckdisk etc and I will try to copy the HD and restore it if possible and run SafeMedia, do you have any suggestions as to how to fix the HD while slaved to my desktop? I previously sent you the Acronis report, I will try to do the ISo report per your email, thanks.
Oleg, should I make an ISO image file of the laptop's HDD via the desktop to an external HD, and reformat the laptop HDD? Then try to restore the Acronis back up with the ISO SafeVersion? thanks
Hello RHH,
Thank you for your responses.
Since you have purchased a HD toaster you can try the following:
- Plug the laptop HD via the toaster to the desktop.
- Plug the USB HD with the archive to the desktop.
- Boot the system under the full version of Acronis Bootable Rescue Media.
- Restore the archive to the laptop hard drive.
- After the recovery is completed, take off the laptop hard drive (don't try to boot the desktop OS with the plugged laptop HD), place it into the laptop and try to boot the system.
Thank you.
Oleg, we bought a new OEM HDD for the laptop and it won't boot from anything, not the HP OSCD, not Acronis disks, and not Linux OS disks. We are planning to ship the laptop to the HP recommended business, Impact Computers, for Dx and repair/salvage/trade purposes. Thanks for all your help, it seems the problem is not the hard disk and something more serious. RHH
Oleg,
I am on the latest update, 6574, from nov 24 2010 and again it is impossible to connect an NDAS as the system freezes up upon activation of the connect button. So outside Windows I have no recovery possibilities.
However it still connects to the recovery CD from build 5519. But is the recovery from 5519 compatilble with the recovery from 6574?
Hans van der Stroom
Hans,
The 5519 CD will be able to read and restore 6574 images. The main differences between the two will be that the 6574 may contain updated Linux drivers.