I just bought ShadowProtect desktop to move my main system drive (Win XP SP2 on 500GB SATA) to a new 1TB Seagate drive.  I've backed up several times (l-o-n-g process - 2 hours), and restored to the 1TB drive multiple times (1.5 hours).

 In all cases, although the new drive has all the data, it WILL NOT BOOT!  Tech support said to try fixmbr and fixboot, which I did (after booting into Recovery Mode from the SP2 CD).  No dice.  I've perused the forum and I don't have any encryption (predisk or otherwise).  I did see a post that seemed to have a similar issue to mine - http://forum.storagecraft.com/Community/forums/p/159/422.aspx#422

However, he got it fixed and none of these suggestions work for me!

 Help!

 HM

Okay, let's get some more information from you to see if we can figure this out.

First off, it sounds to me like you're restoring your backup to a different hard disk on the same computer.  Is this correct?  Or are you restoring your image to a hard disk on a different computer from which the image originated?  If the former, then you don't even need HIR.  If the later, then you DO need to use HIR.

Now, it will help a lot if you will describe *exactly* what happens when you attempt to boot your machine.  Does the machine come up to a blank black screen with nothing on it but a blinking cursor in the top left-hand corner?  If so then this is either a BIOS or an MBR issue (and if it's an MBR issue should be fixable with fixmbr).  If there are any error messages when you attempt to boot, what are they exactly?

Wow! Thanks for the quick reply Nate! 

I have a 500GB and a new 1TB drive on my PC, and am trying to restore the entire disk, including OS from the 500GB to the new 1TB. So, you state that I don't even need HIR.  That would be good.

When I change the BIOS to boot into the "restored" 1TB drive, I get the message "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in Selected Boot device and press a key"

Ideas?

So, after restoring your image to your new 1TB drive, is that 1TB drive the only hard disk in your system?  If not, is the 1TB drive configured to be disk 0 (in your BIOS)?  It looks very much like this problem is being cause by your current BIOS configuration.  I suggest that to simplify things you remove all disk other than you 1TB disk and make sure that the controller it's attached to is enabled in your BIOS.  Then boot it (it should then be treated as disk 0).  Disable any other controllers to which no disks are attached.

I had unplugged the data cable from the 500G drive in my earlier attempts, and I did it again, alas to no avail - same "Reboot from proper boot device". 

As far as disk 0 in the bios, I'm not sure how to set that, but the only other devices are a CD and DVD. I also don't know how to disable other controllers "to which no disks are attached".  Previous to this whole exercise I had 2 160GB disks configured as a RAID 0, but they've been unplugged since I started the backup/restore process.

 

Other info - the MoBo is Asus P4C800-E deluxe, which has onboard SATA support for 2 disks, and SATA support for 2 RAID disks.

I get a message every time I boot (into working 500GB or non-working 1TB): No drive attached to fasttrack controller. The BIOS is not installed.  I believe that is related to the RAID disks being unattached, since I remember that msg coming up when I removed those disks.

I've also moved a laptop next to the 1TB PC so I can use email more quickly, and not have to boot the PC every time I want to send a msg.

Howard

Even more (hopefully not useless) info:

I only had a Win XP SP1 CD, so I used the "integrate" function along with the SP2 update to create a SP2 CD.  I used that CD to boot into Recoverey Console, since I read somewhere that the FIXMBR cmd must be for the same version of Win as the restored version.

I've used the FIXMBR command several times and EVERY time it reports "this computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boor record. FIXMBR may damage your partitition tables if you proceed. Are you sure.... etc".  I let fixmbr do its thing, whereupon it presents "the new master boot record has successfully been written".  And I've performed the fixboot cmd several times as well. 

-Howarfd

Based on the error message you descibed this isn't a problem with the MBR.  It's a BIOS issue.  I'm not sure why your BIOS doesn't see it as a boot device.  Strange.

hmichels:

I've used the FIXMBR command several times and EVERY time it reports "this computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boor record. FIXMBR may damage your partitition tables if you proceed. Are you sure.... etc".  I let fixmbr do its thing, whereupon it presents "the new master boot record has successfully been written".  And I've performed the fixboot cmd several times as well. 

 

hmichels,

This is normal. It's obviously a Microsoft error and it happens with every computer when you try fixmbr. 

I did figure out some things on Sunday.  The new 1TB disk was set as dynamic. Using  ShadowProtect in boot-from-CD mode, I deleted the partition, recreated it as regular Basic, formatted it, and made it Active. 

I then restored the 500GB partition to the 1TB disk.  However, nbw when I try to boot from the 1TB disk, the boot process stops on a blue screen with the microsoft red green blue yellow "flag", the words Microsoft Windows XP, and nothing else. Usually, this screen is immediately followed by the logon screen which looks very similar, but with a place to enter the password.

I've waited for 20 minutes in hopes of seeing the logon screen (thinking there might be some background processing going on), but no dice.  Sure seems like it should work all the way now.  Stuck again.  Any suggestions would be most appreciated!

hmichels,

This certainly suggests a drive letter issue. If so you will be able to boot to WinXP after zeroing the DiskID with fdisk /mbr from a floppy or with this boot CD.

http://www.acronis.com/files/support/mbrautowrite_en.iso

 
The explanation...

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

 

 

Thanks!!!  The drive letter was exactly the problem. I read the attached description of the problem, and created a boot disk with brautowrite iso. It fixed it immediately!

However, now I come to the crux of the matter - why doesn't ShadowProtect fix this?  If I didn't know quite a bit about PC's, there is no way I could have fixed this problem, even with all the help.  I was planning on using ShadowProtect to transfer the C: partitons from several other machines as I move them up to larger hard drives.  Looks like I'm going to have to do this everytime!  I used Norton Ghost a few years ago and never had this problem. I'm just flabbergasted that StorageCraft is marketing such a poor commercial product!

 - Howard

Howard,

 Good news. I've done a lot of testing on this issue and it's not software specific. It's related to breaking one of the "rules" Dan Goodell describes. I can now produce that blue screen with the Windows logo anytime I like and with any backup software. The typical situation is imaging a partition when the destination partition is visible. The destination partition's signature is recorded in the registry of the image and when you restore the image, the OS doesn't boot. Simple solution. Don't have the destination partition visible at the time of imaging.  Have unallocated space instead or don't have the destination HD installed while the image is being created.

Does this apply to your situation?
 

Are you restoring a second OS volume from within a boot session of the first OS volume (rather than restoring it from within the recovery environment)?

I'm trying to understand what you're talking about when you say "destination partition." Are you speaking of the partition which is being backed up, or the partition which is the target of a restore operation?

Nate:

I'm trying to understand what you're talking about when you say "destination partition." Are you speaking of the partition which is being backed up, or the partition which is the target of a restore operation?

 

Nate, by "destination partition" I do mean Target partition. If the target partition is seen at the time the image is being created, you are in for trouble. And I'm referring to subsequently restoring that image from the Recovery Environment. The restored OS will not boot and will hang at around the Welcome Screen stage.

This situation doesn't apply to the typical user who is imaging his C: drive with the aim of restoring that image to the same partition. I mean a target partition that is not the original OS partition.