Logical Drive problem after restoring older OS drive image

[Jim Rainfordson]

For a while now I have occasionally been making back up images of my
primary partition with True Image 10. Recently, I deleted then
recreated a logical drive (and partition) then reformatted using M$
Disk Management utility. Not long after doing this, I restored an
older image of my primary partition (containing the OS on a PC with
only one OS). Since doing this, I cannot back up my OS using True
Image 10. The True Image software just hangs. Also, I'm having
trouble deleting one of the logical drives I previously deleted. Disk
Management hangs. In fact, it even hangs when I try to reformatted
one of the above mentioned drives.

Perhaps this is a True Image topic left to www.wilderssecurity.com,
but my theory is that the OS image of the primary partition must have
kept some kind of older record of the Hard Drive's partition
information. Therefore, by restoring an older version of the OS, I
had created conflicting hard drive/logicial drive/partition data. Is
this theory correct? If so, is there something I can alter in XP in
order to get it to recognize the newer correct partition information?

Also, when restoring the primary drive/partition to an older version,
I did this using a True Image bootdisk (CD) that actually had it's own
mini XP OS. I mention this because the CD may have had a different
opinion of the partitions while it was restoring the older image of
the drive.

Win XP SP2
WD Cavier SE16 SATA
True Image v.10

At this point I'm not sure where to start looking for the problem so
even advice pointing me in the right direction would be very much
appreciated.

Thank you,
Jim

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

For a while now I have occasionally been making back up images of my
primary partition with True Image 10. Recently, I deleted then
recreated a logical drive (and partition) then reformatted using M$
Disk Management utility. Not long after doing this, I restored an
older image of my primary partition (containing the OS on a PC with
only one OS). Since doing this, I cannot back up my OS using True
Image 10. The True Image software just hangs. Also, I'm having
trouble deleting one of the logical drives I previously deleted. Disk
Management hangs. In fact, it even hangs when I try to reformatted
one of the above mentioned drives.

Perhaps this is a True Image topic left to www.wilderssecurity.com,
but my theory is that the OS image of the primary partition must have
kept some kind of older record of the Hard Drive's partition
information. Therefore, by restoring an older version of the OS, I
had created conflicting hard drive/logicial drive/partition data. Is
this theory correct? If so, is there something I can alter in XP in
order to get it to recognize the newer correct partition information?

Also, when restoring the primary drive/partition to an older version,
I did this using a True Image bootdisk (CD) that actually had it's own
mini XP OS. I mention this because the CD may have had a different
opinion of the partitions while it was restoring the older image of
the drive.

Win XP SP2
WD Cavier SE16 SATA
True Image v.10

At this point I'm not sure where to start looking for the problem so
even advice pointing me in the right direction would be very much
appreciated.

Thank you,
Jim

Since TrueImage hangs, this is obviously a TrueImage problem.
It should be able to cope with whatever it finds on the hard disk
(but, as we all know, it does not always succeed). Try the
TrueImage Safe Mode, check the TrueImage FAQs, repost in
a TrueImage newsgroup or ask Acronis for support. They
usually reply.

 

[Jim Rainfordson]

Since TrueImage hangs, this is obviously a TrueImage problem.
It should be able to cope with whatever it finds on the hard disk
(but, as we all know, it does not always succeed). Try the
TrueImage Safe Mode, check the TrueImage FAQs, repost in
a TrueImage newsgroup or ask Acronis for support. They
usually reply.

I appreciate your response, but I'm not sure it's that obvious because
Disk Management, an XP utility (Control Panel/Admin Tools/Computer
Management), also hangs whenever I try to do anything with the logical
drive such as attempt to delete or reformat it. Right-click to
reformat the drive (via my computer) is same result. Everything else
seems to function normally, although possibly a bit slow at times, but
this could be my imagination.

I think this might be an MBR (Master Boot Record) and I am currently
exploring this as a possible solution.

Thanks for the post.

 

[Andy]

For a while now I have occasionally been making back up images of my
primary partition with True Image 10. Recently, I deleted then
recreated a logical drive (and partition) then reformatted using M$
Disk Management utility. Not long after doing this, I restored an
older image of my primary partition (containing the OS on a PC with
only one OS). Since doing this, I cannot back up my OS using True
Image 10. The True Image software just hangs. Also, I'm having
trouble deleting one of the logical drives I previously deleted. Disk
Management hangs. In fact, it even hangs when I try to reformatted
one of the above mentioned drives.

Perhaps this is a True Image topic left to www.wilderssecurity.com,
but my theory is that the OS image of the primary partition must have
kept some kind of older record of the Hard Drive's partition
information. Therefore, by restoring an older version of the OS, I
had created conflicting hard drive/logicial drive/partition data. Is
this theory correct? If so, is there something I can alter in XP in
order to get it to recognize the newer correct partition information?

Drive letters to partition correspondence is kept in the registry at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices. If you changed the partition
sizes, then the partition byte offsets would no longer be accurate. If
the drive letters are in the same sequence as the partitions, you can
delete the \Dos\Devices\C: lines. When you reboot, new entries will be
created.

 

[Jim Rainfordson]

Hi Andy, thanks for the repsonse. I've spent several hours on this
problem since my last post but still no solution.

I've searched wildersecurities (for True Image) and found no solution
but I'll soon post there as well. I've got more to say on this issue
but would like to try your idea first.

I'd like to try your suggestion, but I'd like a clarification first.

I have located the registry entries as you describe. I have several
(logical) partitions which are listed along with the primary (c). And
yes, the drive letters are in the same order as the partitions
themselves. Are you suggestioning I delete only the entry for the
\DosDevices\c: or should I delete them only for the partitions or
both?

Thank you.

 

[Jim Rainfordson]

UPDATE:

I deleted all the entries in the registry as you suggested for the
primary and all the logical partitions. No change.

When I use Disk Manager to delete a logical partition, it hangs up for
a while then tells me there is information on the partition that is
being used or is critical or something like that. Even though the
partition in question is totally empty except for "system volume
information" and "Recycler" and even though I have never used it for
anything except spare storage, I get this message. Another window
popped up and offered to force delete the logical drive. I accepted
then proceeded to delete every logical drive and even the extended
partition itself. I then used windows startup disk to delete the
primary partition then used a separate True Image disk to restore an
older image of the primary drive.

I've also used to the windows disk to run "fixmbr" from recovery
console. However, the problem still exists.