Getting past a dead disk?

Hi all,

I thought I had it covered!
Here is the problem.

I always back up my hard disk "“ I use True Image 8 to image the whole disk.
So I have a backup and then the hard disk fails,

Aha! Says I! No problem! I got a new disk and restored the image to it, still no problem, copied perfectly and verified.
But… XP Pro will not load. It starts to load, I see the splash screen then the computer just resets and starts again. Over and over. I’ve tried normal start, safe start in all flavours No use! I’m not sure I want to re-install XP when I have a good image if I can possibly avoid it.

Is this something to do with it’s a different disk? Or is the anti copy stuff on XP coming into play?

Does anybody have any idea how I get around this and get it running again?

 

If you have SP2 installed, when you tap F8 to go into safe mode options, there should be an option for "disable automatic restart" click this. Reboot you should then be able to see the error message that is causing the problem.
New HDD same size or bigger than old?
New HDD an IDE?

 

Thanks very much for the reply.

As soon as I can, I'll check out the F8 option,

I'm a little hamstrung as I am away from home (different country) and getting by with another computer, same reason is reason why New HDD is smaller.

Original was 80Gb all I can get my hands on just now is a 30Gb. There is about 7Gb of VERY important stuff in the image, can view it I know, but I need to keep going with this data.

Oh Yes, and It is an IDE set as CS.

I'll get back ASAP.

 

Gizmo,

Check at the Acronis forum, describe the problem including the disk sizes and
see what acronis has to say about that.....

A good probability that some one else has had the same problem or close to it
and may offer a solution.

Since it was a new HD, i assume you were using the acronis cd to restore. I
dont know what would happen when going to a smaller HD but there must be
something in the image to set partition sizes and there is no way it will match
on a smaller HD.

savagcl

 

check out this link.

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=92918&highlight=smaller

A simular problem that basically states the "MBR" will be messed up.

savagcl

 

Hi Guys,

Many thanks for the links, it looks like I have a corrupt MBR due to the smaller disk size. Disabling auto re-boot shpws XP Startup message blaming corrupt drive or virus.

I'll try to get hold of a bigger disk and start again.

I'll let you know what happens...

Gizmo

 

Hi Again.

I did it! But I have no idea how!

I managed to secure another 80Gb disk and wrote the image and tried to boot.
Nothing! started to boot then collapsed like before. Blue screen suggested virus or corrupt disk.

Odd thing was, it would start loading and abort in circles but whenever I applied any diagnostics to it they all said there is NO disk present! Even XP recovery told me that.

Then I loaded it as a slave in another computer and happened to notice that control panel logged it as an SCSI drive?

I put it back in the original computer but under the secondary IDE controller and it sprang into life with no problems.

Finally I restored it to the primary IDE channel and it continued working. I am confused!

Thanks to all for putting me onto the track.

 

As noted, it has to do with how XP and NTFS handle the master file table and master boot record. If you have it on as primary and create an image and then put the drive in as secondary and restore it, and let windows even try to boot, it thinks everything is corrupt.

Glad it worked. The other option would have been to use the recovery console and / or a repair install as needed once you had the drive in the correct location.