M
Michael Conger
Looking for some help with a Drive Image problem and saw related posts
in the past on this list...
BACKGROUND:
1 - Installed XP Pro on a single 40gig HD partition (no other
partitions on drive).
2 - Used dos-bootable Drive Image 5 to create image of the drive
(aprox 4.5gig of data) image split into 3 650mb files to burn on CDs
3 - Burned image files onto CDRs using Nero
4 - FDISKED drive, wiped partition... drive completely empty... then
created single FAT32 partition and formatted it (c
5 - Used dos-bootable Drive Image 5 to restore image from CDs over top
of existing FAT32 C: drive (DI automatically destroyed FAT partition
and restored successfully)
Note: The report that DI generated after successful install showed
restored partition at start of available space but with NO drive
letter (was C: when partition was FAT32 prior to image restore)
PROBLEM:
Everything went smooth as butter through all steps above.
BUT... after completeing all those steps with no problems, I cannot
boot to the HD at all. It does not see any partitions on the HD,
fails immediately as soon as it accesses the drive, gives the
following message...
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware
configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk.
Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk
configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional
information."
If I boot with a dos floppy, I can see the NTFS partition using the
NTFSDOS util but it shows up as the D: drive. The ONLY way I can see
anything on the HD at this point is using the NTFSDOS util, Partition
Magic, or FDISK (very limited).
I tried the whole process over several times with slight changes...
- step 4 tried using Partition Magic 7 instead of just FDISK
- step 4 (with PM7) tried creating the blank partition as NTFS instead
of FAT
- step 5 after restore, tried moving, resizing, making active/inactive
the restored NTFS partition and rebooting between each try... no
change
- on advise of microsoft KB, looked into editing the "boot.ini" file
(but was unable to find it on any partition from any install past or
present... am under the impression boot.ini is more for multi-boot
scenarios (which does not describe me... just have one partition on
one HD.)
CURRENT STATUS:
I have reinstalled XP from scratch on the HD (single NTFS partition...
c: drive) using the XP cd
GOALS:
1. figure out why I can't boot to my restored NTFS partition
2. create a new NTFS image file with Drive Image that WILL boot to XP
after restore. (basically, make it work right)
3. to accomplish goals 1 & 2 without having to re-install XP from
scratch AGAIN!
Any experience, wisdom, suggestions, wild-guesses would be welcome and
greatly appreciated. As I'm sure you've guessed, it's not much fun to
find out that the "recovery" part of your disaster-recovery solution
doesn't work!
Thanks in advance...
-Michael
in the past on this list...
BACKGROUND:
1 - Installed XP Pro on a single 40gig HD partition (no other
partitions on drive).
2 - Used dos-bootable Drive Image 5 to create image of the drive
(aprox 4.5gig of data) image split into 3 650mb files to burn on CDs
3 - Burned image files onto CDRs using Nero
4 - FDISKED drive, wiped partition... drive completely empty... then
created single FAT32 partition and formatted it (c
5 - Used dos-bootable Drive Image 5 to restore image from CDs over top
of existing FAT32 C: drive (DI automatically destroyed FAT partition
and restored successfully)
Note: The report that DI generated after successful install showed
restored partition at start of available space but with NO drive
letter (was C: when partition was FAT32 prior to image restore)
PROBLEM:
Everything went smooth as butter through all steps above.
BUT... after completeing all those steps with no problems, I cannot
boot to the HD at all. It does not see any partitions on the HD,
fails immediately as soon as it accesses the drive, gives the
following message...
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware
configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk.
Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk
configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional
information."
If I boot with a dos floppy, I can see the NTFS partition using the
NTFSDOS util but it shows up as the D: drive. The ONLY way I can see
anything on the HD at this point is using the NTFSDOS util, Partition
Magic, or FDISK (very limited).
I tried the whole process over several times with slight changes...
- step 4 tried using Partition Magic 7 instead of just FDISK
- step 4 (with PM7) tried creating the blank partition as NTFS instead
of FAT
- step 5 after restore, tried moving, resizing, making active/inactive
the restored NTFS partition and rebooting between each try... no
change
- on advise of microsoft KB, looked into editing the "boot.ini" file
(but was unable to find it on any partition from any install past or
present... am under the impression boot.ini is more for multi-boot
scenarios (which does not describe me... just have one partition on
one HD.)
CURRENT STATUS:
I have reinstalled XP from scratch on the HD (single NTFS partition...
c: drive) using the XP cd
GOALS:
1. figure out why I can't boot to my restored NTFS partition
2. create a new NTFS image file with Drive Image that WILL boot to XP
after restore. (basically, make it work right)
3. to accomplish goals 1 & 2 without having to re-install XP from
scratch AGAIN!
Any experience, wisdom, suggestions, wild-guesses would be welcome and
greatly appreciated. As I'm sure you've guessed, it's not much fun to
find out that the "recovery" part of your disaster-recovery solution
doesn't work!
Thanks in advance...
-Michael