Error E000101F4: Acronis Disk Director Suite has not found any hard disks

Acronis Disk Director 10 (Build #2288) fails with this error: "Error E000101F4: Acronis Disk Director Suite has not found any hard disks".

The same laptop will not boot from the Bootable Media downloaded from under my account on the Acronis' web-site.

Here are the full details:-

I have a full version of DD10 on an ageing Acer 3003 Windows XP Home Edition laptop my daughter uses for her homework. It has one hard-drive, A DVD ROM, and a single OS on it running MSE anti-virus. There are no (known) hardware or software problems, no viruses and no illegal software.

DD10 did once find hard disks on this system - it was this version that got me into this flaming mess(!) - and the laptop still boots, despite a failed DD10 partition operation.

Note: I had to boot up using another company's Linux product in order to amend the Windows XP "boot.ini" file from this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXPHome" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXPSafe" /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog

to this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXPHome1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="WinXPSafe1" /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="WinXPHome2" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="WinXPSafe2" /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog

just to get rid of the dreaded - and misleading - "missing HAL" message at boot time and allow Win XP (Home) to load. Windows NTLDR was essentially looking at the 'wrong' partition as DD10 had messed up access to the drive ARC Path addresses present in the boot.ini by deleting a 'hidden' partition and formatting it without ever completing the full consolidation process as requested in DD10.

(I have left the old "partition(1)" entries in situ for the time being 'just in case' anything else goes wrong!).

What was interesting / strange in this instance is that bootcfg.exe would not work (under the Windows XP Repair console available from an official Windows XP installation disk) it merely replicated the entries already present, failing to add suitable new entries - i.e. "partition(2)" - and recognise that the default entry needed to refer to the second partition in order for the system to boot.

Fortunately I'm a long-term Acronis user and had been there previously and have several T-shirts in recognition of the fact!!!

The only material thing that changed was the installation of the latest patched version of DD10 (prior to attempting to delete the partition on the system disk and then join the free-space this operation created to the subsequent partition) in order to consolidate free-space for said system drive. NOTHING more complicated than that.

TI2012 was ALREADY present. There were no warning messages during its installation, nor during the DD10 'update', and certainly none whilst running either app before or after any update had been applied, as to any DD10 vs TI2012 incompatibility, or their interdependence on other products.

In addition to the failed free-space consolidation operation detailed above, I cannot un-install DD10 either - the process hangs when scanning the drives.

None of the latest downloaded boot ISO's (available from under my account profile) work either; despite telling the BIOS to boot from the CD/DVD drive, the system simply pauses for a minute or so, only to eventually boot from the hard-drive. Burning these ISO's on CD drive(s) on other machine(s) altogether, fails too ... even though plenty of other PC's will boot from these discs!

Re-installing the latest version of DD10 fails too, as has removing TI2012 in its entirety. So now I have a system with software installed, that doesn't work and can't be removed either.

Absolutely 8!00d7 useless ... as usual!

So, how can I get DD10 working such that I can complete the free-space consolidation and, while we're at it, what is the likely cause of this problem?

Comments, observations and advice greatly and gratefully welcomed...

Thanks for reading,

Steve.