Can't recover - no boot

tk-newbie wrote:

Why isn't the hard drive booting?

Are you sure it's trying to boot to the right drive? If so it may be because the drive isn't set as Active - check that on your next attempt.

The drive is listed in the bios as the first and only drive

So doesn't this mean that it is 'active' as well?

Certainly not. When You are choosing the destination for your image recovery you need to look for the link saying Partition Properties. Click that and it will default to Partition Type - Primary, but if you click the dropdown alongside you get the option for Primary Active. Try that.

It's another example of how poorly designed is the user interface of this otherwise excellent program.

tk-newbie:

What type of backup did you create? Was it a full disk mode backup, selecting a checkbox for the entire disk?

Did you restore using the bootable Rescue Media?

Did you restore to the same disk or to a new disk?

If restoring a full disk mode backup using the bootable Rescue Media, the recommended method, it's relatively simple. You select to restore the entire disk including MBR, and don't need to fuss with individual partition settings. If restoring to a new disk, you'd want to select the option to restore Disk Signature.

It is not necessary to select sector-by-sector, neither for backup nor restore.

If perhaps you made a backup of only the C: drive, a common mistake, then you may not have included the boot files which may be on a different partition.

Thank you.

I do not see anywhere during the recovery process where there is 'partition properties'

I saw 'options' but nothing that reflected making a partition a primary.

Please advise.

Take a look at the attached pic - bottom right.

Thank you -- I am using true image 2013 from a bootable USB stick and I don't have the option you have shown.

My interface is completely different then attached.

How are you accessing the recovery system?

OK, you didn't say whether you were recovering in Windows or from the Linux based recovery media - they do present differently. From the recovery media you need to ensure that the partition you are restoring is marked Pri,Act. This isn't necessarily your Windows partition, so if your Windows partition is simply marked Pri you need to select both partitions.

Please excuse my lack of clarity in the description.

I have not found a way in the recovery media to set the partition to Primary / Active

There is a MBR partition.

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Currently upon restart, the computer recognizes the hard drive, but it will not boot.

I have tried to wipe the drive.
I have tried to re-initialize the drive
And I have tried all variations on the recovery dialogues.

When I initialize the drive, it asks if I want to use MBR or GUID. I chose MBR.

That has been the only indicator close to primary/active.

When reviewing the disc setup -- it was set to primary.
When going further in the controls, there is an option to make it primary/active

This is under 'add new disc' -- (which makes no sense)

After doing this, I went to complete recover, sector by sector. Stay tuned.

tk-newbie wrote:

After doing this, I went to complete recover, sector by sector. .

Did you read my reply?

Actually -- I missed your reply.

I can turn off sector by sector and try the latest again.
Maybe it is a combination of setting the disk to be primary/active and then also NOT selecting sector by sector.

To address your other questions.
I believe it was a full disk backup.
I tried to make images in the past, but that didn't work. So I did a backup.

I am re-installing on the same drive as before.

If this next step doesn't work, then I will have to start from scratch, loading windows and all the updates and all the software -- and then make a backup from that... I was trying to eliminate this -- but it would've been done by now.

Thank you.

tk-newbie - by going into Tools and Utilities - Add New Disk you are going way off course here. Just boot the recovery media, go into Recovery and find your image file. You will see a list of the partitions the backup contains, plus MBR. If your list of partitions does not have one marked Pri/Act then the backup itself does not contain the boot files and is effectively useless. Otherwise I suggest you select everything shown and start the restore process again.

tk-newbie wrote:

I can turn off sector by sector and try the latest again.
Maybe it is a combination of setting the disk to be primary/active and then also NOT selecting sector by sector.

It's not a random selection of options that leads to successful restores. Restoring is quite predictable, but much depends upon what you backed up. If you indeed created a full disk mode backup, selecting entire disk, then that would include MBR and the active partition. Ignore sector-by-sector entlrely.

tk-newbie wrote:

I tried to make images in the past, but that didn't work. So I did a backup.

A backup is an image. The "Backup" function creates backup images in .tib format. As you're confused about what you did, perhaps you did not create a full disk mode backup.

I would have asked you to create a screenshot of Windows Disk Management so we could see your disk layout, but as you wiped and initialized the disk you wiped out whatever was there. We may not easily learn whether the boot partition was some hidden partition other than C:. And without a full disk mode backup, you can't restore the PC to as it was.

When you start the restore process in the Rescue Media, what is on the list of partitions shown as available for restore?
(If you have a camera, you could post a photo of the screen.)

Since the other 20 options I tried did not work, I looked for a way to set the disc to primary/active

By default - under add new disc -- it is set to primary, but not active. So I added a new disc to start from scratch with primary/active.

I have used this backup before, but for some reason it isn't working now.
I selected everything shown -- back up to all sections -- but this was unsuccessful.

I'm 90% sure that I backed up everything last time -- but I could be mistaken.

I appreciate your input. Realize that if backup and image are the same -- they are noted differently in the system. One as image - one as backup.

I created an image of the entire disk
Now, when restoring, I am using the 'restore" functionality

I hope the terms makes sense.

I agree that the selection is not a random set of options, but when provided with 20 different possible choices and the ones that you think should work, don't -- then you start mixing and matching, hoping to get some success.

But - yet none. I tried as you suggested without 'sector by sector' and that did not work either.

Again - my thought is that I am missing something. Either the entire backup wasn't done, so I just need to reload one partition (which I don't think is the case) or something else needs to be chosen or done that I am missing.

As noted before, I am not using Windows Disk Management, so there is no screenshot to be taken. I am restoring from USB Boot Disc and a networked TIB file.

Although I am not using 'rescue media" the partitions shown are
B: MBR
C: Basic (GPT) NTFS - Primary / Logical

It's a case of whether the backup itself contains a partition marked Pri/Act. If it doesn't you cant make it so during restore and you won't be able to restore a bootable system with that backup.

within true image 2013 it says the backup is a full disk backup.
So that addresses the concern raised.

When I go to recover, it shows 3 partitions

Select Items to Recover
NTFS C: Pri 29.26GB 17.98 NTFS
MBR and Track 0 MBR and Track 0
FAT32 Pri 100MB 16.85MB FAT32

tk-newbie wrote:

I am restoring from USB Boot Disc and a networked TIB file.

Although I am not using 'rescue media" the partitions shown are
B: MBR
C: Basic (GPT) NTFS - Primary / Logical

If you booted from a bootable USB flash drive into the bootable True Image tool, then that is the ATI Rescue Media.

Download the Rescue Media ISO (listed as Bootable Media) from your Acronis.com account. The web site lists it as the same build number as previously, but is actually newer build 6528. It fixes the wireless keyboard/mouse issue and the GPT disk issue. The fixes are only in the new build of the Rescue Media, as no new Windows version has been released. As you have a GPT disk, you should use this latest build.

You have just introduced an entirely new factor into this conundrum - you have a GPT formatted disk rather than NTFS. GPT disks came in along with Win 8 and I don't have enough experience of them yet to attempt to guide you further. Sorry.

I didn't set it to GPT by choice.
When you 'add a disk' you have a choice of NTFS or GPT

I choose NTFS -- but now that I look at it -- it is GPT

The operating system that the backup is from is Windows 7.

So how is it that the system can go from NTFS to GPT?

You continue to confuse me. You made two posts about disk layout, one which shows a single partition which is GPT, the other shows two partitions and MBR. I don't know where you're getting those two different lists, but I asked for what's shown in the recover screen in the ATI Rescue Media. If you have a camera, please photograph that screen and show it here.

Perhaps in your tinkering with the drive you switched it to GPT.

I would reformat the drive, then boot from the ATI Rescue Media to restore the backup selecting the entire disk. Problem is, as I said before, if you didn't backup the full disk then the backup could be missing the hidden boot partition.

I am erasing the disc using the utility in True Image 2013

When I go to recover, it states that the backup is a 'full disk' backup.

I don't have the ATI Rescue Media. I have True Image 2013 running of a USB Flash.
Note: that if both are the same and we keep mixing words, then the confusion can be noticed

The recovery mode indicates as I did above:

When I go to recover, it shows 3 partitions

Select Items to Recover
NTFS C: Pri 29.26GB 17.98 NTFS
MBR and Track 0 MBR and Track 0
FAT32 Pri 100MB 16.85MB FAT32

It appears I showed additional information before that confused the situation.

At this point, I am 'wiping' the entire disc and set to do a complete recovery. If this is not successful, I will reload windows and start from scratch which will take about a day considering all the updates.

I'm not "mixing words". The bootable recovery tool, based on Linux, is called the True Image Rescue Media or (ATI Rescue Media for short).

True Image may show that as a full disk backup, meaning a full backup rather than differential or incremental, and disk rather than files/folders. That doesn't mean you selected the entire disk as I described, and I fear that you may not have. "Full" meaning a single, stand-alone backup and not differential or incremental, as opposed to "full disk mode backup" as I described where you select entire disk checkbox is a confusing dual use of "full. That's why I explained what I meant by "full disk mode backup". At this point we can't really know what you did.

In any event, you've wiped the disk so we cannot learn how it was originally laid out. You may as well do a full disk restore/recovery and see what happens.

Thank you for your help.

I tried to wipe the complete disk and then recover it.
It rebooted back to True Image Rescue Media

It has possibly restored perfectly well and may be bootable. Check the boot priority in BIOS, or use F8 at boot to select a temporary boot device and ensure that it is trying to boot from the hard disk, not from your removable drive with ATI on it.

tk-newbie wrote:

Thank you for your help.

I tried to wipe the complete disk and then recover it.
It rebooted back to True Image Rescue Media

Remove the Rescue Media device before rebooting.

Tried that too -- didn't work.

I did a fresh install of windows 7 and will make a complete backup to use on the other systems.

Thank you for your help.