Help needed to recover initial boot partition after XP re-install
aschw...@gmail.com
I'm trying to help out a friend whose computer "crashed" at a power
shut down. As a result the PC would no more boot normally (hanging
with a blue screen for corrupt registry and some DLL required at very
early boot phase).
The PC is equipped with
1) a small partition (3GB I believe) which contains installation CD
images and a software called Acronis True Image (if I remember right)
2) the big partition (150GB or so) with Windows XP+SP2 in French (this
detail matters)
When trying to recover the PC, Acronis would only seem to offer to
reinstall a NEW BLANK WinXP FR installation -- which would mean
loosing all personal data.
So I decided I would use the available WinXP BOOT CD (available only
in UK version) and boot from it and try a REPAIR installation, that
would supposedly not destroy any personal data, then copy all the
personal data to CDs then do the full reinstall again (from the
Acronis partition if I may name it so) and re-load the saved data. I
thought it was the clever way to approach it.
I booted from the CD andinstructed WinXP to only "recover" the
existing installation, which apparently worked fine: I could access
the large physical drive and back-up all personal data to CDs. So far
so good.
I then needed to reinstall WinXP from the Acronis partition for two
reasons:
1) the now installed XP was in english (my friend is french speaking
only)
2) and the installed environmental software were no more working
(sound sw, video sw, printers, etc etc)
However each time I trie to reboot there seemed to be NO WAY anymore
to provoke the boot via the Acronis partition/boot selector menu. It
would appear (but my understanding might be wrong) that the WinXP
reinstall "decided" to redirect the boot process straight to the big
WinXP disk, no more allowing me access to the other partition.
I *guess* that I would need some trick or utility to "reset/restore"
the boot process to go to the Acronis parition first (I hope it wasn't
corrupted by the WinXP UK reinstall !!) and *hopefully* use it to
reinstall a full clean Xp FR installation + all environmental
software ? Is that presumably going to work as I hope ?
Does such a utility exist ?
Do I need to do further data gathering/analysis before proceeding ?
How can I check the Acronis partition is still valid ?
Would a dump of the boot.ini file or any other file be useful ?
Thanks for your expert advice and guidance !
I sincerely hope this issue isn't a duplicate of a yet reported
problem...
Regards,
Arnie
Rock
I suggest you post to the Acronis forum. Frankly I'm surprised you were
able to succeed has you have using an English version to repair a French
install. If you had used a French version things might be different.
--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
Brian A.
<aschw...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1174522575.8...@d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
As long as you didn't format the disk/volume/partition that teh Acronis archive is
located on, that should still be ok. Since you used a disk other than the OEM disk
that came with the machine, you most likely lost the pointers to the archive or
they're still there only in a different language.
How were you getting to the archive before, by pressing one of the F# keys during
boot? Acronis Recovery Startup Manager uses F11 to run it.
Did you check the manufacturers site for a possible solution on getting at the
archive when a system is unbootable?
--
Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/
Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
aschw...@gmail.com
> <aschwar...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
> How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
Hi Rock, Hi Brian,
I've been looking it at Acronis website indeed and it is of no use :
the knowledge base just carries 5 articles (actually commercial
features lists of other products to buy) and requesting support
requires to mention an e-mail address under which the product was
online-registered, which I think never happended. The computer was
delivered with a "auto-install" process: I only had to select the
language (French or Dutch) and it would format the other partition,
install XP from the right language and install a large bundle of
various software, configure it, reboot the computer and woof, the
magic is done : a fully configures platform is operational. I **DID**
use the OEM disk that came with the computer --otheriwse I would be
completely locked--, but unfortunately that isn't/wasn't the same as
the one on the Acronis CD images partition :'(
Yes I think that Acronis partition was reachable via F11 at boot time
and it still was the case until I reinstalled XP (UK). Now none of
the function keys would work anymore, with the exception of the DEL
key (if I'm not mistaken) which opens a screen to the BIOS settings.
No I haven't been on a manufacturer site as it is low cost assembly
product, not a reknown brand with professional support. I'll check if
they have some hotline.
Is there any means to "restore" that pointer ? Conceptually speaking,
isn't it just the matter to say that the OTHER partition has to be
booted ? Thanks again for your expert advice and guidance ?
Arnie.
Rock
news:1174527883.0...@p15g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
There is an Acronis user forum.
--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
Brian A.
<aschw...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1174527883.0...@p15g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
If you used the OEM supplied disk to reinstall XP, have a good look around for an
app/utility that is used to create/activate the Acronis Startup Manager. The Secure
Zone is the hidden partition that contains the archives which is accessible via the
ASM.
Also depending on the version of AcrTI that was used to create the secure zone and
image(s), you may get a resolution from one of the User Docs here:
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/download/docs/
> Yes I think that Acronis partition was reachable via F11 at boot time
> and it still was the case until I reinstalled XP (UK). Now none of
> the function keys would work anymore, with the exception of the DEL
> key (if I'm not mistaken) which opens a screen to the BIOS settings.
>
> No I haven't been on a manufacturer site as it is low cost assembly
> product, not a reknown brand with professional support. I'll check if
> they have some hotline.
Who's the manufacturer?
>
> Is there any means to "restore" that pointer ? Conceptually speaking,
> isn't it just the matter to say that the OTHER partition has to be
> booted ? Thanks again for your expert advice and guidance ?
No, not necessarily depending on how it was setup. If you have a Acronis Bootable
Rescue disk that was provided or created you can boot with that disk, even when a
system is unbootable. Information on that will be in the user docs.
You might want to boot to the Recovery Console and run the DIR command on the
partition, at the very least to make sure the archive files are still present on the
partition if at all possible. If you can view them then you may also be able to copy
them off to other media.
One more option is to boot with a Bart's boot disk and try to get at the archive,
when installing an Acronis app that is included as an option to install which is also
used to access unbootable disks/volumes/partitions.