True Image Nightmare (XP not booting)

[DJ]

Last week I was asked to delete the 98 boot partition on a dual-boot
system, and allocate the freed-up space to the remaining XP boot
partition. I used Acronis True Image to image the XP partition, then
deleted both boot partition's and restored the XP partition from the
image. Whilst it should have been straight forward, it turned out to
be a f**cking nightmare, 'cos XP froze before reaching the logon
screen afterwards.

I've come across the problem where XP won't boot before, usually down
to the fact that the GUID that it's allocated to the C: partition is
different to the new C: partition's GUID, so it allocates the next
available letter to the 'new' partition, and therefore XP can't find
the files it needs because it expects them to be on the C: partition.

I would have thought that True Image should copy and restore this GUID
when imaging a partition, but it didn't seem to.

Running FIXBOOT and FIXMBR from the XP recovery console didn't fix the
problem, and after hours of panic, I found a webpage that advised me
to boot from a 98 Boot floppy and run fdisk /mbr to fix the mbr on the
C: partition. This wasn't made any easier by the fact that the floppy
drive in the PC in question didn't work, so I had to remove one from
another PC and connect it up temporarily, but much to my relief, it
worked. I don't know how common this scenario is, but I've come across
it enough times to wish that the recovery console provided a way to
sort this out. Perhaps a command that clears the GUID's in the
registry that are already assigned to partitions would allow XP to
designate the first partition as C: on the next boot.

Just posting this in case it helps anyone in the future, 'cos I'd hate
anyone else to go through the stress I did.

DJ

 

[Richard Urban]

You imaged the XP partition but, unfortunately, there are a few critical
files that are ALWAYS installed to drive C, no matter where Windows XP is
installed. In this case I'd bet it was installed to drive D - E - or some
other designation.

Now you will have to boot from the XP CD and perform a repair install to
rectify the problem. You will still have problems with programs running
correctly because many pieces will be missing and the registry will contain
many errors.

Best to just start fresh!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

OUCH!

You imaged the XP partition but, unfortunately, there are a few critical
files that are ALWAYS installed to drive C, no matter where Windows XP is
installed. In this case I'd bet it was installed to drive D - E - or some
other designation.

Now you will have to boot from the XP CD and perform a repair install to
rectify the problem. You will still have problems with programs running
correctly because many pieces will be missing and the registry will contain
many errors.

Best to just start fresh!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[DJ]

You imaged the XP partition but, unfortunately, there are a few critical
files that are ALWAYS installed to drive C, no matter where Windows XP is
installed. In this case I'd bet it was installed to drive D - E - or some
other designation.

Well you'd lose your money, XP was installed on C

Now you will have to boot from the XP CD and perform a repair install to
rectify the problem. You will still have problems with programs running
correctly because many pieces will be missing and the registry will contain
many errors.

I did try a repair install which still didn't enable XP to boot. As
it didn't work, of course I restored from the image again, in case it
had screwed things up even more.

Best to just start fresh!

Or maybe best to run fdisk /mbr from a 98 boot floppy which fixed the
problem.

 

[Richard Urban]

Was it a primary partition or a logical partition?


--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[DJ]

Was it a primary partition or a logical partition?

Primary.

 

[Richard Urban]

If Windows XP was installed on a second primary partition, while the first
primary partition was hidden in the boot manager, then the second partition
would be seen as drive C and ALL necessary files would be copied there. Then
if you clone the partition you would have everything you need to boot.

Now, if Windows XP was installed on this drive while the Win98 drive was
visible, the Win98 drive is seen as drive C and the Windows XP partition
would, in fact, be seen as drive D. Some of the files necessary for booting
WOULD be installed on drive C (the Win98 drive). If the Win98 drive is
formatted or removed the Windows XP partition WILL NOT BOOT - PERIOD!

Also, many registry entries would be incorrect as the operating system would
have been installed on drive D and now you are trying to turn it into drive
C. It's not going to happen. All the programs you installed on the Windows
XP partition also think they are on drive D. Many are also not so smart and
may, in fact, actually install some of their critical files in C:\Programs
Files\Common as opposed to where they should be in D:\Programs Files\Common.

So you see the extent of the problem. A repair install will usually fix the
operating system, after you move the drive to its final location. But that
WILL NOT correct all the programs that are now incorrectly installed.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[DJ]

If Windows XP was installed on a second primary partition, while the first
primary partition was hidden in the boot manager, then the second partition
would be seen as drive C and ALL necessary files would be copied there. Then
if you clone the partition you would have everything you need to boot.

Now, if Windows XP was installed on this drive while the Win98 drive was
visible, the Win98 drive is seen as drive C and the Windows XP partition
would, in fact, be seen as drive D. Some of the files necessary for booting
WOULD be installed on drive C (the Win98 drive). If the Win98 drive is
formatted or removed the Windows XP partition WILL NOT BOOT - PERIOD!

You keep referring back to this scenario, where XP is installed on D:
due to the 98 partition being visible and occuping C: , but I've
already stated that XP was on C: and the 98 partition was hidden. The
boot.ini also referred to the first partition, which it wouldn't have
done had XP been installed on the second partition and no changes were
required to the boot.ini after combining the 98 and XP partitions and
restoring the image to this new larger partition.

As far as I can tell, True Image didn't copy the original XP
partition's GUID when imaging, and therefore couldn't restore this
GUID when restoring from the image. Therefore the new, larger primary
partition to which I restored the image had a different GUID and as
this didn't match the GUID that XP had assigned to C:, XP assigned the
first unused partition number (probably I: in this case) to the new
primary partition, and of course XP was looking for files on the C:
partition (which no longer existed) and therefore couldn't boot.

For whatever reason, running fdisk /mbr from a 98 boot floppy fixed
this problem. The only explanation I've seen for why this works is
that it resets more than the Recovery Console commands FIXBOOT and
FIXMBR do, and this is why I suggested that this should be fixed by an
update to the Recovery Console which would eliminate the need to use a
98 boot floppy to deal with this problem, which quite frankly is
pathetic.

 

[» mrtee «]

The MBR can contain up to 4 records. Imaging XP, which was on partition 2,
does not copy the MBR. The MBR remains, therefore when you restored the
image of XP to partition 1 the MBR was looking for a different system (98).
If you had returned the HDD to RAW by using a HDD wiping program then
restored the image and did a repair install.........

You also failed to mention the maker of the boot loader and where it was
installed. The first thing you should have done is made XP the active
primary then uninstall the boot loader. There are a few more steps, but
since you have it working...........

 

[DJ]

The MBR can contain up to 4 records. Imaging XP, which was on partition 2,
does not copy the MBR. The MBR remains, therefore when you restored the
image of XP to partition 1 the MBR was looking for a different system (98).
If you had returned the HDD to RAW by using a HDD wiping program then
restored the image and did a repair install.........

You also failed to mention the maker of the boot loader and where it was
installed. The first thing you should have done is made XP the active
primary then uninstall the boot loader. There are a few more steps, but
since you have it working...........

I don't think it was actually the MBR that was the problem, because XP
was booting, but it got stuck just before the logon screen, and I
don't think it would have got that far if the MBR was looking for a
different system. Also the Recovery Console's FIXMBR would probably
have fixed it if there was a problem with the MBR. As I said, I don't
really know what running fdisk /mbr from a 98 boot floppy actually
fixed. All I remember it saying on the website that suggested doing
this is that it resets more than FIXMBR does.

FYI the boot loader being used was Bootmanager BootStar and it was
installed wherever it defaults to (as far as I know there's no user
setting for this, other than installing it to additional drives as
well, but the system in question only had the one drive). The 98
partition hadn't been used for some time, and the XP partition must
have been active when imaging because I was running True Image under
XP.

 

[» mrtee «]

This is from the BootStar site:

The uninstallation of the bootmanager BootStar is as easy as the
installation: Just start the program BSDOS.EXE or BSWin.exe and choose the
menu item "Bootmanager / Uninstallation".

A "default" bootstrap is written into the master boot record during the
uninstall process.

Note for the profi mode:

Of course, the uninstallation is only possible if not more than 4 primary
partitions have been set up. The reason is that all partitions have to be
entered into the partition table of the master boot record.



If you DIDN'T uninstall BootStar before creating the XP image, the files
needed to boot XP were in BootStar, not in XP. That is is why it (XP)
wouldn't boot.

That is how XP behaves when the files are missing, if you want to see what
is going on behind the splash screen boot into safe mode. All of those code
lines (and more) are running while the splash screen is showing. If you
want to see everything that is running while booting normally type
"msconfig" in the run box » select the "boot.ini" tab and tick /noguiboot to
see the program calls or tick /bootlog to create a record.

 

[DJ]

A "default" bootstrap is written into the master boot record during the
uninstall process.

If you DIDN'T uninstall BootStar before creating the XP image, the files
needed to boot XP were in BootStar, not in XP. That is is why it (XP)
wouldn't boot.

Thanks for your input, but I have to say I don't agree with your
interpretation.

I don't believe that installing BootStar moves any files out of the XP
partition to 'in Bootstar' wherever that's supposed to be.

As for the "default" bootstrap that BootStar writes to the MBR when
it's uninstalled, I don't think this would be any different to the
bootstrap that Partition Magic (v8) would have written when deleting
the two Primary partitions and creating and formatting one new one
from the combined space. Or the one that Recovery Console's FIXMBR
writes. I believe that XP wouldn't have booted at all had there not
be a suitable bootstrap in the MBR.

The profi mode is irrelevant in my case, because I was using an older
version of BootStar which doesn't have this mode, and I only had two
primary partitions anyway.

I'm pretty sure it all comes down to the incorrect GUID I referred to
in my earlier posts. The fact that, when trying to boot after
restoring the image, XP insisted on doing a Scandisk every time, and
this was referring to partition H rather than C seems to back up this
idea, in that the GUID assigned to C was different to the GUID of the
new primary partition, which forced XP to assign the next available
drive letter to the new partition.

If uninstalling BootStar would have changed the GUID of the drive,
then XP wouldn't have been able to boot either, for the same reason.