Drive Image restore hangs at "Verifying DMI Pool Data........." HELP

[xavier]

After restoring with Drive Image 2002, an image of the active
partition (OS + DATA) in my hard drive, the computer hangs during POST
at ......"Verifying DMI Pool Data........."

Has anyone ran across this problem? any advice on how to proceed.

The Powerquest (Symantec) knowledge base talks about a possible
infection, but no viruses found in this case.
I am running W98 on a P4 2.4GHz with 512Mb RAM. The image was burnt
on a pair of CDs.

Thanks

xavier

 

[ted msn]

After restoring with Drive Image 2002, an image of the active
partition (OS + DATA) in my hard drive, the computer hangs during POST
at ......"Verifying DMI Pool Data........."

Has anyone ran across this problem? any advice on how to proceed.

The Powerquest (Symantec) knowledge base talks about a possible
infection, but no viruses found in this case.
I am running W98 on a P4 2.4GHz with 512Mb RAM. The image was burnt
on a pair of CDs.

Thanks

xavier

You could try deleting the partition and then restore. I have all sorts of
problems with DI not "likeing" the partion it was going back to.
As the saying goes YMMV
ted

 

[Joep]

Hope you made some simple checks like is an active partition set, MBR
bootcode is present (if not fdisk/mbr) etc ...

 

[Eric Gisin]

Something wrong with boot code. Try fdisk /mbr from a boot floppy.

 

[Rod Speed]

After restoring with Drive Image 2002, an image of the active
partition (OS + DATA) in my hard drive, the computer hangs
during POST at ......"Verifying DMI Pool Data........."

The only real sigificance of that particular message is that its the last
thing the bios puts on the screen before handing over to the boot process.
So if it hangs with that on the screen, the problem is with the boot process,
and before the boot process puts anything on the screen.

The problem may well be with the physical drive MBR.
Thats separate to the partition you restored. You may
have changed the MBR from what it was when the image
was created so its contents are no longer appropriate.

Has anyone ran across this problem? any advice on how to proceed.

Try fdisk /mbr from a bootable floppy or Win98 startup floppy.

 

[xavier]

You could try deleting the partition and then restore. I have all sorts of

problems with DI not "likeing" the partion it was going back to.
As the saying goes YMMV

ted

Thanks for the quick comeback Ted, I did try deleting the partition,
but the same hang-up occurs. The Drive Image (2002) restore attempt
came about as the result of having tried, and failed, to boot an
OS/DATA split modification to the active partition using Partition
Magic 8.0 . The procedure called for generating an image back-up in
case of failure, which I did using CD-Ws, but despite all the care and
attention to instruction details.......I guess these types of
procedures are fraught with too many technical pitfalls to be
reliable. I was hoping to eventually be able to boot from XP as well.

I wonder if Partition Magic messes up with the BIOS parameters when
you do a format and repartitioning, and that maybe a fail-safe default
restore is what is needed. Not being familiar with that area, I hate
to compound the problem.

xavier

 

[xavier]

You could try deleting the partition and then restore. I have all sorts of

problems with DI not "likeing" the partion it was going back to.
As the saying goes YMMV

ted

Thanks for the quick comeback Ted, I did try deleting the partition,
but the same hang-up occurs. The Drive Image (2002) restore attempt
came about as the result of having tried, and failed, to boot an
OS/DATA split modification to the active partition using Partition
Magic 8.0 . The procedure called for generating an image back-up in
case of failure, which I did using CD-Ws, but despite all the care and
attention to instruction details.......I guess these types of
procedures are fraught with too many technical pitfalls to be
reliable. I was hoping to eventually be able to boot from XP as well.

I wonder if Partition Magic messes up with the BIOS parameters when
you do a format and repartitioning, and that maybe a fail-safe default
restore is what is needed. Not being familiar with that area, I am
afraid to compound the problem.

xavier

 

[John S.]

After restoring with Drive Image 2002, an image of the active
partition (OS + DATA) in my hard drive, the computer hangs during POST
at ......"Verifying DMI Pool Data........."

Has anyone ran across this problem? any advice on how to proceed.

Apart from the other good suggestions people have made, something
even more fundamental:-

Try booting to DOS from a floppy bootdisk and do a DIR command on
the new partition to verify that the directories and files are
actually shown there.

I'm grappling with a problem myself using Drive Image (older
version) and if I attempt to restore to a partition which isn't
the exact size of the original partition the image was made from,
the directories and files just "disappear" and are not shown from
the DOS Dir command. I guess the data is all there of course,
but somehow changing the partition size is causing some kind of
malfunction which renders the retored image unuseable.

In my case the symptoms of the problem are those you are seeing -
ie hangs after the "verifying DMI pool data" message.

However, if you are simply restoring an image of a partition back
to the same partition with no size change, I guess the problem
I've described won't apply. I found I could restore successfully
so long as I didn't try to increase the partition size (to take
in some available free space on the drive), or decrease the
partition size.

Thought it might be worth mentioning though - easy to take a look
with a boot floppy.

Cheers, John S.

 

[xavier]

Something wrong with boot code. Try fdisk /mbr from a boot floppy.

I have tried it, but still no cigar.

 

[xavier]

The only real sigificance of that particular message is that its the last
thing the bios puts on the screen before handing over to the boot process.
So if it hangs with that on the screen, the problem is with the boot process,
and before the boot process puts anything on the screen.

The problem may well be with the physical drive MBR.
Thats separate to the partition you restored. You may
have changed the MBR from what it was when the image
was created so its contents are no longer appropriate.

That may very well be, since I did Format the partition with Drive
Image 6.0 in DOS, after I couldn't boot, so that MBR is gone.

Try fdisk /mbr from a bootable floppy or Win98 startup floppy.

I did have a boot disk but not one that reflects the addition of a
telephone modem, a printer and a webcam. I did do the fdisk /mbr
thing, but still no dice.

 

[xavier]

Try booting to DOS from a floppy bootdisk and do a DIR command on

the new partition to verify that the directories and files are
actually shown there.

With the boot floppy I was able get to the Crompt, but the DIR
command returned "Invalid media type reading C".

I'm grappling with a problem myself using Drive Image (older
version) and if I attempt to restore to a partition which isn't
the exact size of the original partition the image was made from,
the directories and files just "disappear" and are not shown from
the DOS Dir command. I guess the data is all there of course,
but somehow changing the partition size is causing some kind of
malfunction which renders the retored image unuseable.

When I re-formated I know I didn't quite used the same size partition,
close, but not the same, so perhaps I am confronted with the same
problem as you are.

In my case the symptoms of the problem are those you are seeing -
ie hangs after the "verifying DMI pool data" message.

However, if you are simply restoring an image of a partition back
to the same partition with no size change, I guess the problem
I've described won't apply. I found I could restore successfully
so long as I didn't try to increase the partition size (to take
in some available free space on the drive), or decrease the
partition size.

So if I do a (OS & DATA) or a multi-OS split using Partition Magic
(which changes the size of the partitions) I wouldn't be able to set
things the way they were, despite having the image of the original
partition?

Thought it might be worth mentioning though - easy to take a look
with a boot floppy.

Cheers, John S.

Thanks for all the comments and tips, kinda nostalgic to revisit DOS
stuff of the eighties.

xavier

 

[Rod Speed]

With the boot floppy I was able get to the Crompt, but
the DIR command returned "Invalid media type reading C".

That basically means that it doesnt like the partition
table entry etc, particularly the media type value.

When I re-formated I know I didn't quite used the same
size partition, close, but not the same, so perhaps I am
confronted with the same problem as you are.

Thats unlikely, his problem isnt that commonly seen.

All that really means is that the boot cant proceed.

So if I do a (OS & DATA) or a multi-OS split using
Partition Magic (which changes the size of the partitions)
I wouldn't be able to set things the way they were,
despite having the image of the original partition?

It should be doable.

To get the system booting again, I'd boot the XP CD
and delete all the partitions on the drive and tell it to
do a clean install onto the entire drive. Let the install
get started and then abort out of that. That should
get the physical drive MBR and partitioin table entrys
back the way they used to be.

Then boot the DI restore CD and restore the image
onto the drive again. That should boot again and
you should then be able to try again on the split.

Thanks for all the comments and tips, kinda
nostalgic to revisit DOS stuff of the eighties.

You should be holding your nose |-)

 

[John S.]

So if I do a (OS & DATA) or a multi-OS split using Partition Magic
(which changes the size of the partitions) I wouldn't be able to set
things the way they were, despite having the image of the original
partition?

I don't quite understand why there is a problem in trying this,
or maybe I'm missing something.

If you have Partition Magic you can set up a target partition on
the new drive slightly larger that the size of the source
partition which you have an image of??

Then, using Drive Image you can restore the image to this
partition and adjust the partition size to exactly fit the
original when you do the restore?

With my old version of Drive Image (2.1 I think) you get three
options when you come to restore an image into a partition
(assuming the target partition is an existing partition and
bigger than the source partition):-

1. Leave the remaining space as free space.

2. Adjust the partitions proportionally to suit.

3. Adjust the partition size manually.

Choosing option 1 tailors the target partition to fit the source
partition which was used to make the image. With the problem I
was having this was the only option which worked.

In the past I have had no trouble using option 3 and making my
own decision on partition size.

Your problem is possibly different to mine, so these suggestions
may be irrelevant, but I thought they may be worth a try if you
don't find the answer elsewhere.

For what it's worth, in my case I found a way of cloning the
problem partition by a different method - using a free utility
called clonexx, which employs the utility XXcopy. With this I
can do a clone by copying files which doesn't seem to be fussy at
all about the size of the target partition (so long as it's big
enough to hold all the files of course).

I can then make a drive image of this newly cloned partition and
happily restore this to a resized partition, so whatever has been
causing my problem is something hidden on the original partition
which wasn't moved over by the file copy method. (ie the problem
doesn't seem to be with drive image or partition magic etc, it is
something weird on my source partition).

Cheers, John S

 

[xavier]

I was able to finally restore the image and boot the OS, but only
after I removed all the partitions, and let Drive Image auto select
whatever space it needed. "Leave the remaining space as free space" I
believe was the option I selected. For some reason it did not like it
when I selected the partitions sizes.

My friend needed his computer back so I didn't get the chance for
another shot at Partition Magic to split OS and DATA. I'll be getting
another HD this week so that I can experiment on my machine. I'd like
to eventually install 3 or 4 OSs and use BootMagic.
I appreciated all the comments and tips you fellows provided.

xavier

 

[John S.]

I was able to finally restore the image and boot the OS, but only
after I removed all the partitions, and let Drive Image auto select
whatever space it needed. "Leave the remaining space as free space" I
believe was the option I selected. For some reason it did not like it
when I selected the partitions sizes.

My friend needed his computer back so I didn't get the chance for
another shot at Partition Magic to split OS and DATA. I'll be getting
another HD this week so that I can experiment on my machine. I'd like
to eventually install 3 or 4 OSs and use BootMagic.
I appreciated all the comments and tips you fellows provided.

xavier

Looks like your problem was similar to mine.

Now you've found a working solution you may wish to try making a
file-by-file clone using clonexx.exe You can download from:
http://home.epix.net/~artnpeg/

If you decide to use this utility, note that:-

1. You can use it twice (or several times if all the files don't
successfully copy over the first time). Fortunately subsequent
runs after the first don't take very long as the already copied
files aren't done again.

2. Failure to copy all the files usually results from having
forgotten to close all running programmes before using clonexx.

3. Once you have made a file-by-file clone the resulting
partition is likely to respond to further manipulation by Drive
Image without problems, as whatever is causing the partition
limitations gets left behind when using clonexx.

Can't guarantee your experience will be the same, but these
comments are what I found after quite a bit of experimenting with
my system.

I still don't know what it was on the original partition which
caused the trouble though.

Cheers, John S

 

[xavier]

Thanks for the link and tips about Clonexx. I have download it, and
will give it a try soon and will comment on it.

tnx agn, xavier