Dear all,

This is my first post to the forum.  It has been a great place for resource and information about the product.

I am evaluating the Desktop Edition v3.2 and would appreciate assistance in understanding why the backup job failed after a bare-metal restore.  The evaluation was a full evaluation with the Recovery Environment CD ISO that I downloaded from StorageCraft.

Summary of the symptom: after a bare-metal restore, the backup job failed, saying that it cannot locate the volume.

The system is brand new and the OS is Vista 64-Bit SP1 OEM.  There is no plan to dual-boot, and the HDD (Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB) will be used as the primary OS HDD with a single partition.  A separate data HDD will be installed later once everything is stable.

I installed Vista 64-bit SP1 (w/ the proper Intel chipset drivers during Vista install), ran Windows Update, and installed the SP Desktop Edition v3.2 and Image Manager.  The OS was running fine and the system hardware was stable.  A backup job was created in SP to perform a full backup with hourly incremental backup to an external USB HDD (F:\).  A full backup was executed immediately within Vista.  The full backup ran fine, and was successfully verified.  Options in the Advanced menu were left at default. No retention policy was created.  After the full backup, I shut down Vista.

To simulate a bare-metal recovery, I performed the following:

• Rebooted the PC using the Recovery Environment CD
• Chose "[1] Start Vista-based Recommended Recovery Environment"
• Click "Okay" for networking support
• Verify Backup Image (success)
• Restore Volume
• Browse to the file in the external USB HDD
• Restore Destination
• At C:\, right-click -> Delete Volume (to simulate a HDD replacement)
• Right-click -> Create exact primary partition at the beginning of free space
• Right-click -> Set Active
• Select New Volume C:\
• Specify Restore Option
• Set Active was grayed out (expected)
• Check "Restore MBR"
• Select "Restore MBR from Image File"
• Check "Restore Disk Signature" & uncheck "Restore Disk Hidden Track"
• Also tried to following combination as suggested by StorageCraft Technical Support:
• Uncheck "Restore Disk Signature" & check "Restore Disk Hidden Track"
• Check "Restore Disk Signature" & check "Restore Disk Hidden Track"
• Uncheck HIR

The restore went well.  SP found the MBR, restored it.  Then it said "BCD founded", and "BCD fixed".  Then something like no need to patch boot.ini.

I rebooted the PC.  Vista boot manager came up, saying that Vista was not properly shut down.  I checked "Start Normally" to boot Vista.  Once booted up, Vista found a generic volume, installed driver, and asked for a reboot.  After reboot, I waited for the incremental backup to start (the backup job I created immediately after I installed SP).  Unfortunately no incremental backup can be successfully executed afterwards. Here is a snapshot of the log file:

18-Sep-2008 07:00:00 service 100 service (build 42) started job by incremental trigger
18-Sep-2008 07:00:00 service 300 trial period has 29 days left
18-Sep-2008 07:00:00 service 104 3.2.0.2 7EC2-554C 0BCA-7BBF
18-Sep-2008 07:00:00 service 504 Volume {CD3D245D-852F-11DD-8D33-806E6F6E6963} was not found
18-Sep-2008 07:00:00 service 100 no need to get snapshot
18-Sep-2008 07:00:00 service 101 Cannot execute job (Catastrophic failure 0x8000FFFF(2147549183))

A search in the registry (\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDrvices) revealed that the volume ID {CD3D245D-852F-11DD-8D33-806E6F6E6963} was no longer associated with C:\.  Instead, a new volume ID {0537a775-853c-11dd-8edc-806e6f6e6963} was associated with C:\.

Still in the restored Vista, I attempted to edit the backup job in SP:

• In "Volume to Back Up", the "C:\" drive was unchecked.  I checked "C:\", and hit "Next"
• In "Backup Name and Destination", the image Filename was reverted to the default "C_VOL".  The entire "Specify image names" table was grayed out - I cannot double click and modify the image name
• Click "Next" to "Specify the backup schedule", almost all entries in the "Schedule" column was grayed out except "Weekly", which was what I chose at the beginning.  I can modify "Full Backup" and "Incremental Backup"
• Click "Next" to "Options", almost everything was grayed out except "Backup Comment".  I can click "Advanced" and nothing inside Advanced was grayed out.
  

I repeated the backup process once (reinstall Vista from the DVD, backup, and restore).  I also tried not to delete the system volume in the restore process, tried to choose a different option to create the partition, but none of these experiments changed the outcome - the backup job failed.

The restore process was not as smooth as I expected, especially in a simple system with 1 HDD, 1 partition, no dual-boot, etc.  The change in volume ID, and the backup job failing are making the restore process a very bumpy ride.  I have installed Vista close to 10 times in the past 3 days to overcome various SP restore problems (Vista boot manager failure with 0xc0000225, and another time no BCD found......).  However, after searching various forums, I have not been able to find an answer to why the backup job failed after a bare-metal restore.

Appreciate your assistance.

Artur