A different "can not boot the restored image" problem
When the image is restored to the new disk, it will not boot. All I see is a cursor line in the upper left corner of my screen. With the bootable TI image, I can see that the files were transferred to the new disk.
I'm using True Image 10 Home. Attempting to move a 60GB system disk of XP-Pro SP2 to a never-used Western Digital 320GB Disk. System is a ThinkPad T60.
I have repeated the exercise many times with the Windows version and bootable version. I've restored to a single partition and the first of several partitions. The partition is created as primary and active. I've loaded and run the MBR Write utility. When I try a XP install disk, I get an error that no disks can be found (even though TI can see and write to the disk from bootable image).
It is a laptop, and I have no way to operate the working disk and new disk at once, so can't use the clone method. I've been storing the image on a USB drive.
I know TI 10 is no longer supported, but I hate to upgrade for what is the second use of the software, however if it is a known problem, I will upgrade.
Thanks for your help.
Thanks for that pointer bin. It described well what I tried, but my results were anything but normal. I have a disk that can't be seen by anything except Acronis - and now am looking how to reset things and start over.
Bill:
When you restored the image file was the target disk installed in the T60?
Have you tried changing the disk mode in the BIOS to "IDE Compatibility"?
Good suggestion Mark, thanks. Changing to IDE compatibility got rid of the "disk not found" and allowed me to install a new copy of windows XP on the new disk, but didn't solve the problem of restoring my image. I continue to get a upper left screen cursor when trying to boot from the restored TI 10 image. My source disk has a dual boot option - either XP or the Windows maintenance console. I'm wondering if that could be a source of the problem?
I'm thinking the disk is OK, because the restore image loads, BIOS diagnostics runs fine, I can install/boot a fresh copy of windows, but TI 10 restored image just won't boot.
Bill:
When you restored the image file was the target disk installed in the T60?
Yes, the target disk was installed in the T60. I have no other way to attach it (ie, no USB to cradle device). I'm putting the saved image on a USB disk and swapping the internal drive to restore it.
I found a similar story - with similar "cursor only" symptoms on a Lenovo user forum (link here) which has a happy ending, but he was using Ghost and the problem appears to be a partitioning one.
I'm over 10 hours of debugging into this one, so keep the ideas coming!
Bill:
One of the threads referenced in your link reminded me of something. In the T60 BIOS is there a setting for the Predesktop Area? If so, be sure it's set to "Normal" before restoring the image. If set to "Protected" the BIOS will prevent disk writes to parts of the disk.
Mark, I don't see any predesktop setting. Also, I was able to load a fresh copy of XP up to the point it wanted the license key - which means it had written the boot sector and rebooted with it at least once. If I get time again (is it the weekend yet?) I'm going to try to remove the windows repair console from my boot options - thinking that might be the problem.... but I really hate to start messing with my working system. Thanks again for your ideas. Its good to have fresh thoughts on what to try.
Bill:
The Predesktop setting is under the "Security" menu in the BIOS. Take a look at Lenovo's online BIOS Simulator to find its location.
Predesktop is in "normal" state. While I was there, checked memory protection - which was "on" but that is just to protect from stack overflow so probably not an issue.
Bill:
Since you have proven that you can install a fresh copy of XP and it works, could you next try restoring only the XP partition from your image file, leaving the generic XP MBR in place? If you restore the image as "Active" and there is only one partition on the disk then you should be able to boot it provided that the boot.ini file in the image is pointing to partition(1). You may need to first restore the partition and then use a utility to edit the contents of boot.ini to make it bootable.
Another possibility is to mount your image file as read/write and then edit boot.ini so that it points to partition(1). When you mount an image as read/write, any changes will be captured in an incremental image in a separate file. For example if your saved image file is MyImage.tib then the changes will be stored in MyImage2.tib so you won't have to worry about possibly messing up the main saved image file (the MyImage2.tib file can be deleted later). If you go this route then restore the MyImage2.tib file, which will contain the edited boot.ini file, and see if this one boots correctly.
***Edit***
I forgot that you're using TI10. TI10 may take care of making the partition table entry consistent with the value stored in boot.ini, so the machinations of editing boot.ini may not be required. Just try restoring only the XP partition and see what happens. What you're looking to have happen is either a successful boot or an error message but not a blinking cursor.
RESOLVED: Mark, thanks for your suggestion to install fresh XP. That worked. I found an old copy of XP Pro, with the key. Went through entire install and then restored just the partition - not the boot sectors. Along the way, setting the BIOS to IDE compatibility helped - and that is what I used to do the restore - but once the restore was finished, I was able to switch back and the new disk can be seen. I don't know what caused the problem - my only guess is that there was a boot-sector virus that was messing up the backup-restore sequence - although that is just a guess. I spent way too much time on the problem - and if I didn't have an XP disk, I may still be messing with it. Thanks again for the help from this forum.
Mark is a star for sure. Glad it was resolved.
Another Mark!