Complete breakdown when I tried to delete the secure zone
After having accomplished everything to make my new system (xp pro SP3) running and all programs worked, I wanted to create a new image of C: in the secure zone. But there was not much space left. There was nowhere a help file how I could delete the old backup files, so I wanted to delete the secure zone and create it new. I have (or had???) three partions: C: E: and M: and a small 20 MB partition D:
I wanted to give the space of the secure zone to C: but Acronis did not seem to want that. It announced the bigger place on M. Well, I did not mind so much. So I started the process. First t said: C: blocked, then it worked and worked and I was surprised that it had to something to rewrite on E: and D: as well, and all of a sudden I had this wonderful blue screen.
I restarted and tried (sorry, I don't know the english terms, but you might understand: )
1. Last working system configuration. Blue screen.
2. "abgesicherter Mode" - blue screen
3. "abgesicherter Mode mit Eingabeaufforderung": blue screen.
4. I tried to start from the xp installation disc:
a) automatic system restore is not possible, because my Computer has no floppy disk drive (who has nowadays???)
b) when I continue the setup, after having loaded all the drivers and stuff: blue screen
Nontheless, I had installed a new restore point before I took on that action.
I fear that the partitions are deleted because the Acronis process crashed when it was full busy.
5. I started my from the Acronis disc and get to the menu. But I am so scared now that I do not dare to try anything further.
As I had just been on the way to backup the new system with Acronis, I am not quite sure if and how I could possibly restore the new system. My old win2k does not serve much in this case.
Although this is not a very funny experience, I hope that somebody has already gone though all this and knows what to do.
I am really desperate and only eating heaps of chocolate prevents me from crying. :-(
Marieluise,
First, your BIOS will be OK, True Image only reads information here which is held in RAM when using the rescue CD.
The stop code you report is a plug and play driver error.
You haven't mentioned which version of True Image you are using.
Are you able to start in Windows Safe Mode?
I'm confused by what you mean by 'I checked the archives'. If you only have images in the SZ and the SZ is no longer there, then in theory your images shouldn't be there either. Do you have copies on another drive?
I think your problem started because you can't have more than 1 SZ. If it was on your system drive, and TI tried to extend it to another drive/partition things will go wrong.
What should solve your booting problem is to perform a system repair with the XP CD. However, before you do that, we really need to resolve my question about your image archives, unless you don't mind losing them and starting again.
Once that has been sorted out.
Boot into Windows Safe Mode (if you can) and check in diskmanagment to see if it reports an Acronis Secure Zone. If not, uninstall True Image.
Insert the XP CD, reboot the computer from the CD. When the CD has loaded, select INSTALL not Repair. The Windows installer should tell you that it has found an existing installation (if it doesn't - note what you see, don't go any further and post back here). You should now see a REPAIR option, choose this one, Windows will now delete all Windows system files, then re-install them, clean up registry and remake the MBR. None of your installed programs should be affected by this, they will still be there on reboot and working (hopefully).
Reboot your system. Windows should now boot, TI can be re-installed and a new SZ made.
Notes:
1. You will need your XP product number for the repair installation.
2. If you have access to an external drive or another internal drive, this is the best place to image to. The SZ is OK, but just consider what happens when your drive dies......... it will die with your precious image on it :(
Hi Colin,
thanks for answering.
1. My BIOS is okay, a friend checked it. My HD is okay, too.
2. I use Image Home 11 update, that is, on the CD I have only TI 10; but that should not make much of a change.
3. When you start from the Acronis disk, you get that Acronis screen with the choice "check the archives" (I have everything in german, so my translations may not be the exact expressions). When I click on that point, of course, I can see that there is no ARCHIVE anymore, but I can see the whole HD with the partitions and all the folders and subfolders, only the Names/Letters of the partitions have changed.
4. You misunderstood me: I did not try to extend the SZ, I tried to erase the old image in order to have enough space for the new one. As "help" did not tell how you can erase an archive, I tried to erase the whole SZ, and during this process the crash came. I had an external HD plugged in an USB but that had been there before without any plug and play problem.
5. When I start in safe mode - with our without prompting - I get the blue screen.
6. Of course, I tried to boot from my WIN XP CD, that was the first thing I did, and I described already what happened: I am asked if I want to launch automatic repair. As I have no floppy disk, it starts to load all the data necessary for the next step and when all this is done, I am not asked if I want to repair or not - the bad blue screen appears and tells me something about this plug and play error which I think is a wrong feedback. Even if in BIOS almost every hardware is disabled, it shows stubbornly the same warning. So, how could I reinstall the system???
7. I started from a KNOPPIX CD, and that makes a difference: I can read the data of C: and E: but the third partition M: where I have all my 1:1 (copied) backup (not Acronis archives), is not visible. I have already started to save all my E: and the most important C: data on another PC but that takes hours and hours and hours, because the other PC is only connected by a devolo dLAN duo, and at the moment being I cannot try anything else.
8. I wonder if I could use the Acronis screen (see 3.) for saving what I have on the 3rd partition. I even remember to have seen a possibility to create a new SZ there. Well, I am scared to do that because I am afraid I would maybe write on that disk and make it more difficult to restore the files on M: (On E: I leave only my actual files, but on M: I have all the files dating back to 2005 which I might need - you never know.
9. I have checked RAM and CPU, and that seems to work, too. It is not a Hardware problem. Knoppix also says that the MBR is okay - for its own purposes maybe, I don't know.
So, do you have another idea?
Regards
Marieluise
Marieluise,
I'm puzzled by your copy of an XP CD offering an 'automatic repair', as for home systems that option appears on HomeServer,Vista and W7.
Normally it asks if you want to log on to the repair console - is that what you are looking at - a DOS like black screen, or has the MS recovery files been installed on your PC by someone?
If the CD will let you, it should first offer a recovery console or an install, choosing install should get you the MS repair option.
Did you give your drives/partitions names or only the default drive letters? Under Linux the drive letters are likely to be mixed up, C could be D for example.
Does the Acronis CD see the 'M' drive?
The v11 CD is this a full version or from a trial copy of TI11? If a full version, my thought would be to either clone (if the other drive is the same size or larger) or image the complete disk to your external drive, before we start fiddling.
I've reread your first post, if TI 11 tried to use your partition 'm' and failed, I suspect your partition at best just has an incorrect entry in the partition table, at worst TI has started to take space, and overwritten parts of the partition.
I'm now thinking we might need to actually look at your disk structure before trying to go much further. XP itself is probably having a problem sorting out the disk references that are contained in registry.
I'll see if Mark or anyone else has any further thoughts.
Hey Colin,
it is an XP Pro OEM from DELL. But as I have changed my PC and do not use a DELL anymore, I cannot ask them for support ... :-)
Normally, when you choose repair console, it is still the normal setup background. I do not remember is the console itself appears in that sort of DOS box.
Which recovery files do you mean? I installed the system one week ago.
> If the CD will let you, it should first offer a recovery console or an install, choosing install should get you the MS repair option.
Yes, I know, but it does not let me!!!! That is just the point.
> Did you give your drives/partitions names or only the default drive letters?
No names, I never do that. They are just called C: E: and M:
> Under Linux the drive letters are likely to be mixed up, C could be D for example.
Yes, but that is the minor problem. Linux also seems to be blind on one eye.
> Does the Acronis CD see the 'M' drive?
YES, with everything that is stored on it.
> The v11 CD is this a full version or from a trial copy of TI11? If a full version, my thought would be to either clone (if the other drive is the same size or larger) or image the complete disk to your external drive, before we start fiddling.
1. My external drive is a 120 GB or so, and my internal HD is a 250 GB ATA, so imaging or cloning would be difficult. I have both versions as full versions, but the update is a download file. But I have it on the partition which I can read, no problem. Is it possible to install Acronis in Linux?
I could go and buy a 250 GB disk if that would really help. But that does still not solve my blue screen debugging problem.
> I've reread your first post, if TI 11 tried to use your partition 'm' and failed, I suspect your partition at best just has an incorrect entry in the partition table, at worst TI has started to take space, and overwritten parts of the partition.
I never said that. I can only start the computer with my TI 10 disk, because (see before). And I did not try my partition M: (could I? How?) Or do I need a TI 11 disk? Which files would I have to put on a disk I would burn for that purpose?
> I'm now thinking we might need to actually look at your disk structure before trying to go much further. XP itself is probably having a problem sorting out the disk references that are contained in registry.
That is actually what I suppose, too! I will put my question in microsoft forums as well. Maybe someone knows that problem.
Thank you
Marieluise
P.S. I just had a long telephone call with a friend who is a professional PC seller and supporter. He said that Acronis must have done something to the partition letters when it erased the SZ, and he supposes that the STOP error code is wrong, too. He thinks it is a system fault.
Marieluise,
Now that I am aware your XP CD is a Dell one, things become slightly clearer.
Has this computer ever had Vista installed on it? For example did it originally come with Vista installed and it's been deleted and XP loaded on.
It is likely that this CD has been custom built by Dell much like an HP CD I once had. If this CD auto installs Dell drivers onto a non Dell machine then I would expect it to probably hang as XP won't find some of the Dell specific hardware.
The SZ is a FAT32 partition without an assigned drive letter so that Windows won't touch it.
True Image will only image used sectors, so if you have used 180GB of your 250GB disk, it will only image the 180GB, as it will also compress the image you could expect that with normal compression the image file will be about 90 - 110GB. Cloning and imaging JPG or movie files etc will not result in any compression
It is really a good idea to give all your partitions names, as these never change within the Linux environment, but partition letters can become quite confusing with TI.
The reason I asked which type of TI rescue CD you are using is because the trial versions are restricted in some of the things they can do.
If you can image either just the 'M' partition or the C: + M: then once validated it will be safer to start fiddling with your actual PC drive.
There are two things about TI 10/11 - first TI 10 won't be able to read a TI 11 image. TI 11 will be able to restore a TI 10 image. TI 11 changed it's imaging algorithm starting with the second or third update - this caused it not to be able to restore some earlier images from TI 10 and 9.
Well, as I have not got any image any more, I would have to make one. Do you think I could make it from the "underground", i.e. from the CD menu? Without going into windows? In this case the TI 10 CD would not matter because I can read it later with my installed TI 11. Sorry, I don't find my Acronis manual, maybe I could find the answer to my question there. But I'll go and have a try just now. First I try to repair it with a "real" XP installation disk (by the way, BART did not help!)if that does not help, I'll try to save my data from the underground Acronis menu, if this does not help either, I will have to put my HD into another computer, save all my data, format it, put it back in its own PC and start the installation from scratch.
Or do you have a better idea which would save my installation as it is and my time? Because it would cost me another week to make it running smoothly again ...