TI Home 2010 'loops' at bootup from recovery disk

Hello Bob,

Please accept our apologies for the difficulties you've experienced.

Most likely, the standard bootable CD just don't have necessary drivers for the new hardware or CD detects it incorrectly.

In this case I may suggest you to use a special version of bootable CD.

There are two types of Acronis Bootable Media:

• Acronis Bootable Media that you can generate in your Acronis product. This type of media is based on Acronis Loader;
• Acronis Bootable Media that you can download from your account on the Acronis website. This type of media is based on ISOLINUX.

ISOLINUX Bootable Media is usually more up to date than the Acronis Loader one. This is due to the fact a new version of Acronis Bootable Media is uploaded to the website more frequently than regular product updates are released. ISOLINUX Bootable Media has several boot parameters that may help overcome possible issues with booting and other operations.

Please do the following to download the new bootable media:

1. Log in to your account (if you do not have one, you will need to create it);
2. Once logged in, click My Products & Downloads:

   

3. Scroll down to the registered product and click Bootable Media:

   

4. Click Download:

   

5. Acronis Bootable Media will be downloaded as an ISO file. See Burning an ISO Image.

Please let me know if the issue still persists, I'll be glad to assist you further.

Thank you.

I'm having the same problem (which I posted about previously here):

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/6900

I just got in another new Dell Latitude E6400 and the recovery disc still loops.

I *did* try the "Bootable Media" build -- which according to my download page is no more up-to-date than the release 2010 (build 6053):

Product native bootable media
Build: #6053 Size: 36.34 MB
Date: November 23, 2009

All 8 boot options just cycle through back to the startup screen (or hang).

The only method I've found to deal with this is to remove the hard disk and remove all the partitions on it.

ACRONIS SUPPORT-- you need to buy a new Dell computer to see this. I believe that 32M initial partition on the drives now is confusing Acronis.

But to indicate the Bootable Media .iso is "usually more up to date" is disingenuous.

If somebody from Support would like to contact me to see what can be done *before* I repartition the OEM drive -- please do. I can wait maybe a day before I have to get this new laptop into service.

Well, let me clarify what happens with the ISOLINUX CD boot on these laptops:

All the "quiet" options -- 1, 3, 5, and 7 -- will loop back after the app tries to load.

The "without "quiet"" option boot result differ:

6 and 8 -- ends up at a command prompt after a display about "BusyBox v1.13.4"

4 -- *looks* like it's hung after displaying information about Busybox and *then*:

# usb 1-6: configuration #1 chose from 1 choice
usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 5-1: configuration #0 chosen from 1 choice
usb 5-1: config 0 descriptor??
(flashing cursor)

but if you hit "Enter", it goes to the command prompt.

2 -- looks very similar to 4, but says (after Busybox info):

# usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 5-1: configuration #0 chosen from 1 choice
usb 5-1: config 0 descriptor??
(flashing cursor)

But if there's something specific to do at the command prompt after one of these non-looping boots -- what?

I hate to "bump" my own postings -- but I need to reload this laptop today (which will mean destroying the OEM partitions on it).

Does anybody from Acronis want me to try anything with this to see if one of the new test builds works?

- Steve

We ordered 5 Vostro 1520 laptops. The first 2 worked fine, but the 3rd one had the same issue as the first post in this thread. So did the 4th. Thankfully (or so I thought) the 5th was OK. Figuring that the issue was with the motherboard and/or the hardware on it, I swapped the hard drive with the 4th laptop. SAME problem. So it looks like it has to do with the hard drive, and not necessarily something else in the system.

Or so it seems in my case anyway. I'll try that hard drive in a completely different model (Inpsiron 6000) next and see what happens.

Does the hard drive on the Vostros have the same partition setup as the E6400?

a 39M unformatted ("OEM Partition"), a 750M NTFS "Recovery" partition, and then the remainder the OS partition?

I'm thinking that first partition is what is causing Acronis to barf.

I have an older Dell with the OEM partition, and TI 2010 does not or loop on bootable CD's with me, and I have eight different versions of boot CD's - 2 ISOLINUX (with and without Plus Pack), 2 Acronis loader (with and without Plus Pack), 2 BartPE (with and without Plus Pack), and 2 WinPE (with and without Plus Pack). I would suspect the Recovery Partition, actually.

Have you tried changing the drive controller mode in the BIOS before booting the TI CD? For example, if it's running in AHCI mode, try ATA or IDE Compatible mode.

Regarding the download ISO media, the build doesn't change and I don't think the release date changes. However, Acronis will update them with a newer kernel (which usually has new/updated drivers).

Yes -- I tried going through all options in the BIOS for the drive: Disabled, ATA, AHCI, IRRT (the default) -- well, not "disabled" -- that wouldn't help.

And I'm using the "current" ISOLINUX boot disk (the one with files dated February that I d/l'ed yesterday).

Having done this before a few months ago, I'm confident that if I pull the drive out and remove all the partitions, then the recovery disk *will* boot without looping.

if I boot from the ISOLINUX cd (the "even" number boots), are there any commands I could run from the command prompt that might give me some more useful information?

(Oh, and I've been given another afternoon to see if I can figure this out (short of pulling the disk -- which I know will fix this), so I'll take any suggestions anybody has of anything else to try. I just can't wait the "1-2 weeks" until the official update is released -- which I'm not sure will help here anyway...)

The 5 laptops we got are "identical", so the drive partitioning wouldn't be the culprit (or shouldn't, but I guess I should check to make sure - but how I'm not sure at this moment since not much seems to be working, except for Windows 7 which was pre-installed on the HD). As for if they are the same, the vostro 1520 has a 14.65GB recovery partition (NTFS), a 134.4GB OS partition (NTFS), and a 39.19MB unlabeled partition (FAT16). This is on the drives that work.

I couldn't put the drive into an Inspiron 6000 because they don't take SATA drives, so I put it into a vostro 1000, and the same thing happened. I put the drive back in the vostro 1520 and tried running an XP install off a CD, which gave me a BSOD. I'm running Dell's diagnostics on it now to see if it can find anything wrong with the hard drive. It wouldn't be the first time we got a new computer from Dell, which had a bad HD.

Reasonable suggestion to run the Diagnostic tests on this machine. Though considering the last e6400 we got 3 months ago behaved exactly the same as this one, I'd be awfully surprised it if was a bad disk -- considering the other e6400 has been running just fine.

After booting to #2 or #4 and getting the # prompt, what does fdisk -l show for the drive? That's a lower-case L. This should let you know if Linux is seeing the drive and partitions properly.

You're probably right. Luckily (not really!) I have 2 laptops that aren't working so while 1 is running diagnostics, I can do other tests with the second.

I had to boot with a Windows 98 startup disk, because it's the only other thing I have on hand. Using FDISK I first deleted the FAT partition, then tried booting into TI. No go. Then I deleted the recovery partition. Still no go. When I deleted the OS partition, it finally worked.

So did it work because there were no partitions left, or was it because of THAT specific partition?

I think I'll stop the diagnostics and try the other laptop, and delete the OS partition first.

Also you could run parted and see what it shows for the partitions:

# parted
(parted) print

To exit parted:
(parted) quit

If you delete the partitions with parted can you then restore the image?

fdisk -l shows something interesting (maybe):

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB , bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

device boot start end blocks ID system
/dev/sda1 1 5 40131 de Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 6 101 768000 7 HPFS/HTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/sda3 101 9730 77340672 7 HPFS/NTFS

So, unless the "cylinder boundary" message is the issue (9729 vs 9730), I'm not sure what else.

But that would reflect Marc's observations about deleting the OS partition, maybe?

Run parted from what? What OS is that from?

So here's the scoop: the OS partition is the culprit. On the second laptop, I deleted the OS partition first, and all went well. I'm able to boot into TI. The first laptop is just finishing having an image (of a previous vostro 1520 - which happened to have even more partitions on it) copied onto it.

An extra step I suppose but at least it's working now!

Edit: I spoke to soon >.<
The latop won't boot into Windows; it keeps restarting. I also just noticed on the other laptop that I thought I deleted the OS partition bus I deleted the recovery partition.

parted says:

(stuff about the disk)
partition table: msdos

number start end size type file system flags
1 32.3kB 41.1MB 41.1MB primary fat16
2 41.9MB 828MB 786MB primary ntfs boot
3 828MB 80.6GB 79.2GB primary ntfs

(Marc -- parted can be run from the ISOLINUX boot CD)

From the # prompt, does TI start if you try from there?

# cd /bin
# product

If I run "product", the splash screen comes up, then the screen goes black (this is without having deleted any partitions)

The "cylinder boundary" message can usually just be ignored. I get that too on my Windows 7 setup.

If removing the partitions isn't a problem, you could delete them with parted, then start TI and do the restore.

# parted
(parted) rm 1
(parted) rm 2
(parted) rm 3
(parted) quit

# cd /bin
# product

Removing partitions isn't a problem at this point (though I'll have no real way of testing this in the future until we get another Dell laptop)

So I removed partition 3 (the OS partition) and rebooted from the ISOLINUX disc and booted into the normal "1" option.

This looped (as before)

So I removed *all* partitions.

And that boots into ATI Home 2010

Again -- a quick fix, but not necessarily 'the solution".

Acronis should probably get their hands on a new Dell laptop for testing to see what the real issue is.

Yes, Acronis should fix the problem. However, it only takes a few seconds to remove the partitions. You shouldn't need to reboot. You should be able to start TI from the # prompt. Does that not work after removing the partitions?

Yes, that worked from the # prompt once all partitions were gone.

I should have tried removing them one at a time at that point. Too late now. Maybe Marc can and let us know?

Where is there more information about what Linux command line tools can be run from the Acronis bootable media? I don't really know anything about Linux, but now my curiosity has been aroused by this thread.

By the way, Sir MudCrab, all of your available material is very interesting and useful.

It must be Friday.

I really need to change the naming on my image files. I imaged the i1520 file onto the vostro 1520 (i is for Inspiron). So I put the v1520 file onto the laptop and it's ok now.

I'm going to try to image the working laptop, and copy the recovery partition from that onto the other laptop that was having a problem, and we'll see what happens.

Sorry Steve, I edited a post above. I deleted the recovery partition to get it to work. Oddly, using FDISK from my Win98 startup disk, I actually DID delete the largest partition, which should have been the OS partition. The only partitions it is showing now are 39MB (0% usage) non-dos and 6515MB (30% usage) NTFS. But that's not what TI shows. TI shows the NTFS (OS) (C:) 134.4GB partition and the FAT16 (Unlabeled) 39.19 MB partition. Guess I won't be using that FDISK anymore!

Ah well...

When they release the next version of TI 2010 (in "1-2 weeks" according to other forum postings), if you have something to try with that, if you could report here, that would be great.

Otherwise, Acronis is hopefully reading this thread...

Steve Maser,

Yes, it would be interesting to know if only one, several, or all partitions needed to be deleted.

---

Gary Darsey,

When booted to the ISOLinux media, quite a few of the common Linux commands seem to be available. It's much better than the media created directly with TI. I haven't completly browsed the ISOLinux media to see what's there and what may be missing. (K0LO is much more current on Linux than I am.) fdisk can be especially helpful because it reports a lot of drive and partition information (including the detected geometry).

You may want to try a Live Linux CD (Ubuntu, for example) and just play around with it.

I can confirm that only THAT partition needed to be deleted, but I originally thought it was the OS partition. It is not the OS partition that needs to be deleted, it is the RECOVERY partition. For some reason on those 2 machines only, the RECOVERY partition was preventing TI from loading properly.

One of the laptops that wasn't booting properly, I deleted the RECOVERY partition from. I created an image of the RECOVERY partition from the working laptop, and copied it to the same partition of the laptop that wasn't working, and it works fine now. So the laptop that wasn't working now has all the same partitions as it originally did, and it works OK now. There must have been a problem with that recovery partition. Strange that only 2 of the 5 we got had that problem though.

Marc Levesque,

Did you compare the fdisk -l output and the parted output between one that works and one that doesn't? I wonder if it's something obvious in the listings or if the problem is deeper in the partition itself.

No I didn't. I don't have an ISOLinux CD. We'll be getting more laptops in the next couple of months. If I can get something by then (and I run into this problem again), then I'll try it.

If you have the downloaded ISO file from your Acronis account and created a CD from it, you have an ISOLinux CD. That's what I was using and what Steve was using. Select option #2 or #4 to get dropped to the # prompt (press ENTER after the USB stuff -- at the blinking cursor, if necessary).

I don't have any of that. I only created an account today to post messages. We haven't registered any products.

Hello Marc,

Let me help you.

Please register your software under your account on our web site and then follow the instructions form this comment to download the ISO image.

MudCrab, thank you very much for your help.

Thank you.

I was experiencing the same issue as described in the first post. My Dell computer is an OptiPlex 380 and just arrived last week. Windows 7 was preinstalled so I booted into Windows and installed True Image Home 2010 (with Plus Pack). I then created a baseline disk image successfully onto an external USB drive. In trying to test the Recovery Boot CD, I discovered that the system would begin to boot to the CD, but as soon as the splash screen image for TI 2010 displayed, it quickly rebooted. After reading through this thread, I deleted the Dell 'Recovery' partition with the free GParted partition tool. After doing this, I was able to successfully boot to the CD. However, TI crashes and reboots when trying to step through the recovery steps:

- I first click on the 'Recover - My Disks' link to start the 'Recovery Wizard'.
- I click 'Browse', select my tib image file, and click OK
- Immediately after clicking 'Recovery method', TI crashes and reboots

I have tried both the Acronis Loader and ISOLINUX versions, plus other very recent versions provided to me by Acronis chat support; None were successful. I have also deleted all partitions thinking that might do the trick, but it had no effect. One thing that I find suspicious is the fact that it takes a relatively long time for TI to recognize my external USB drive. I do not immediately see the USB drive when booting to the CD. After about 40 seconds to one minute, a dialog pops up with the message 'Processing...' (cursor is now an hourglass). This dialog lasts for 2 minutes or so before eventually going away. I suspected that the issue I was seeing was the one described in this kb article (http://kb.acronis.com/content/9765), but the same thing happened even after formatting the USB drive to have a 2K (also 512 byte) cluster size. Also, this USB drive is immediately recognized on other PCs of mine so I don't suspect it of having issues itself.

Has anyone seen this behavior or have any thoughts on a possible workaround?

Hello Fernando,

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response and for the difficulties you've experienced.

I'll create a task for our QA Team for you, but first I need some additional information from the Dell machine.

Could you please collect the following information?

• Please gather Acronis System Report using a bootable CD;
• Please gather AcronisReport within Windows environment.

After you have the required information, please send me a Private Message and attach the gathered data.

I'm looking forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience.

Thank you.

I dont know if this is a little late for some but as I couldnt find a recent fix to my problem I thought I'd Post a potential fix.

I have a DELL E5500 and have been trying backup and test the recovery but face the same recovery loop issue I have seen in several posts.
None of the F11 options or the Linux ISO boot CD recommendations worked.

So I installed the TI 2010 application on the new machine.
I took full backup (without the Dell System Partitons) of the machine (under WIN7-PRO).
I then changed the the BIOS settings from AHCI to ATA on a second machine.
I was then Able to boot to boot the USB key recovery disk that hadn't worked all morning and restore the full backup to the second machine.

When the restore completed I change the BIOS settings back to their original state and started the second machine up.
It then ran through the Windows 7 startup repair process (which took a long time).
It then said it couldnt automatically repair the problem.

Anyway I rebooted again and went for the normal boot and the machine has booted correctly.
So this suggests the image is fine, but as suggested by most people (in various posts) the problem lies with a combination of Sata drive mode and Vendor system partitions.

It took a while to go through an nowhere near as long as some of you so hopefully this helps the Dell and HP brigade out there.

Regards