Acronis 'true' Image won't restore correctly?

Hi, this is my first time posting here so please be gentle with me

A while ago I made a full backup (.tib) of a partition using a trial version of Acronis True Image 11.

When I wanted to restore the image, the OS wouldn't boot again ("NTLDR is missing, press Alt+Ctrl+Del to restart"), and since I'm new to this problem my only solution is to re-install XP.
Now I'm pretty sure this has something to do with my MBR, but my gut is telling me that Acronis is not recovering properly.

Also it's pretty important to back up the partition with the letter D:\

So here are the main questions:
1. What am I doing wrong?
2. Is it possible to restore the backup so that it's the only working partition?
3. What must be done to achieve the answer to #2?


Your help will be greatly appreciated
Thanks in advance,
Apus



I'm using these following settings in Acronis when recovering (be it on the boot USB stick or in the OS):
Partition Type: NTFS
Primary = yes
 > mark part as active = no
 > Logical Partition = no

Restoration method: Restore whole discs + partition = yes
 > sector by sector = yes
Add HDD time signature = yes
I am also restoring the MBR track 0.


======================================
[ SPECS from msinfo32 ]

winXP Pro SP3
Total Physical Memory   2,048.00 MB
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512mb non-shared

= HDD =
Description   Disk drive
Manufacturer   (Standard disk drives)
Model   Hitachi HTS722012K9SA00
Bytes/Sector   512
Media Loaded   Yes
Media Type   Fixed	hard disk media
Partitions   2
SCSI Bus   0
SCSI Logical Unit   0
SCSI Port   0
SCSI Target ID   0
Sectors/Track   63
Size   111.79 GB (120,031,511,040 bytes)
Total Cylinders   14,593
Total Sectors   234,436,545
Total Tracks   3,721,215
Tracks/Cylinder   255
Partition   Disk #0, Partition #0
Partition Size   29.29 GB (31,453,438,464 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset   32,256 bytes
Partition   Disk #0, Partition #1
Partition Size   82.49 GB (88,569,815,040 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset   31,453,470,720 bytes
   
Description   Disk drive
Manufacturer   (Standard disk drives)
Model   Imation Nano USB Device
Bytes/Sector   512
Media Loaded   Yes
Media Type   Removable media other than	floppy
Partitions   1
SCSI Bus   Not Available
SCSI Logical Unit   Not Available
SCSI Port   Not Available
SCSI Target ID   Not Available
Sectors/Track   63
Size   3.73 GB (4,005,711,360 bytes)
Total Cylinders   487
Total Sectors   7,823,655
Total Tracks   124,185
Tracks/Cylinder   255
Partition   Disk #1, Partition #0
Partition Size   3.73 GB (4,007,625,216 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset   32,256 bytes

> mark part as active = no

you want that on.

[Moderator]

How old is the trial and how many times have you used it ? ?
There's a limit you know...

And BC is correct.

...trial version of Acronis True Image 11.

There are others besides Acronis True Imag.
He is one that is free.
http://www.partition-tool.com/
Works good, but looks a lot like Gnome Partition Editor.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Image tool != partition tool.

[Moderator]

There are others besides Acronis True Imag.
He is one that is free.
http://www.partition-tool.com/
Works good, but looks a lot like Gnome Partition Editor.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

The others will be useless with his .tib file....

Thanks all, what if I already tried the active partition and it didn't work? (I kinda recall doing that one time)

How old is the trial and how many times have you used it ? ?
There's a limit you know...

And BC is correct.

freshly installed and made a boot USB stick

Also, I would love to try a free / open-source image back-up & restore program which is more reliable than the Acronis one.
Is it also possible to load the .tib file into a virtual machine (VMplayer) which exactly emulates my hardware?

I'll try to restore it tomorrow and post the results and hope for progress.
thanks again!

[Moderator]

Macrium Reflect has a FREE version...works rather well ...

Here's a Review i wrote on it not long ago...

[Moderator]

Is it also possible to load the .tib file into a virtual machine (VMplayer) which exactly emulates my hardware?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This caught my eye...is this an image from another machine ? ?
If so this would explain why it's not working.

The .tib can be copied to a partition and opened and used just like Windows Explorer to extract data you may need...Acronis has to be installed to do this.

I don't believe it will run under a VM....as i've never tried it.

Good evening, all.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This caught my eye...is this an image from another machine ? ?
If so this would explain why it's not working.

The .tib can be copied to a partition and opened and used just like Windows Explorer to extract data you may need...Acronis has to be installed to do this.

I don't believe it will run under a VM....as i've never tried it.

Same trusty machine, configured just how I wanted, that also being the reason why I was making this image ^_^

Macrium Reflect has a FREE version...works rather well ...

Here's a Review i wrote on it not long ago...

Thanks I'll look into that one

And this one as well (once I get some CD-R's).
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/index.php

GParted is an industrial-strength package for creating, destroying, resizing, moving, checking and copying partitions, and the file systems on them. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, copying data residing on hard disks and mirroring one partition with another (disk imaging).

Images are from computer being booted up from my nano device with Acronis USB on it.

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http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm

/\ It's probably the
*Computer hard disk drive is not properly setup in BIOS. (<-- The only thing I've changed was the boot priority to USB. But that doesn't have effect if I put a fresh copy of XP on it?)
*Corrupt boot sector / master boot record. (<-- just copied from external USB HDD partition where Acronis stored it to in the first place (+ successfully checking it's validity)
*Seriously corrupted version of Windows 2000 or Windows XP. (<-- in this case, thank you very much, Acronis True Image, you will be remembered



thx4re!

[Moderator]

If the image was created with D: being the partition that Windows was installed to and you then tried to restore it to a C: partition this will not work....
In fact i know of no image tool that will do this successfully.
The parameters have changed...
Don't be so quick to blame Acronis...

If the image was created with D: being the partition that Windows was installed to and you then tried to restore it to a C: partition this will not work....
In fact i know of no image tool that will do this successfully.
The parameters have changed...
Don't be so quick to blame Acronis...

I guess my following question would be 'How do I make sure it restores in D:?'.

But I'm afraid that I won't be posting this question too soon as my dearest laptop got jacked last Thursday.
I was fortunate enough to make backups, but knowing myself, I wouldn't sit still in the meantime of figuring out how to restore my last working configuration. So I got busy with writing songs, which were quite to my surprise the better works I've ever written.
Ironically, Thursday was the day I was determined to back all the new data up and have another shot at restoring lol 


All in all, thanks for all the help. I'm sure this problem would be fixed if everything would go as usual.
I think I'll stick around, it's a cool place and a hefty knowledge-concentration

Lesson learned:
Make sure your laptop has a GPS module built in

[Moderator]

The reason it will not restore properly to D: is because of a little known quirk of the Windows OS...
Even if i install a fresh copy of Windows to D: let's say... it will still write a certain amount of files to the root directory of C:....this is no matter what flavor of Windows we are discussing.
So without C: being completely intact and unchanged it won't boot no matter how many times you hit it with a hammer....
Hope this helps.

The reason it will not restore properly to D: is because of a little known quirk of the Windows OS...
Even if i install a fresh copy of Windows to D: let's say... it will still write a certain amount of files to the root directory of C:....this is no matter what flavor of Windows we are discussing.
So without C: being completely intact and unchanged it won't boot no matter how many times you hit it with a hammer....
Hope this helps.

heh, seems my backup wasn't worth much anyhow...
anyway, I'm thinking of buying a new laptop, but I'll make a new thread for that 

[Moderator]

As long as that made sense to you it was worth typing out...
Stop by if you have any other issues...