(UPDATE 2) Windows Vista Complete PC Restore Question

[PianoMan]

Okay, OS gurus. Computer crashed - corrupt boot sector. Wife visited a crafts site that open 30+ windows, she panicked, and pulled the plug. When she booted it up again, it booted fine, then started looping thru boot cycles, then finally gave "corrupt boot sector" error. It could have been a virus/trojan, hard drive crash from power interruption, or my mobo/hard drive was going anyways.

Trying the PC Restore - luckily, I imaged our boot drive before I got underway on cruise for a month. However, the final prompt identified my backup correctly, but says it's on drive "C:". I had imaged to drive "D:". It also says it'll restore "C:". I'm reasonably sure it isn't going to restore on itself, but when I had her go thru with the restore, it gave an error, saying there wasn't enough space. I went from a 1TB boot drive backed up on another 1TB drive. What gives?

I did have a third hard drive active when I backed up, but removed it (HDD tray) before the Restore - I didn't want that data erased. I've read you should have the same # of HDD's before and after restore - is that the problem?

Any help appreciated. Thanks!

 

[blackangst1]

Im assuming youre using Vista backup? I had the same issue (exactly)...but never solved it. Would be interested to know if there's a fix. (Ive since gone to Acronis, however).

 

[PianoMan]

Okay, after some troubleshooting and research, seems that Vista DOES expect the same number of HDD's when the backup was performed & the space should be the same, if not larger.

Had my wife purchase another 1TB HDD to replace the 500GB we pulled out. Lo and behold, Vista recognized the backup, and prompted for a D: to C: backup.

It's restoring right now, so I'll let everyone know how it goes.

And yes, blackangst1, I have an old version of Acronis which I'll have to resurrect, upgrade, and install. I do like that product.

 

[blackangst1]

Thanks for the update. I think thats a flaw in Vista's backup having to have identical size drives.

 

[PianoMan]

Okay, installed the third (new) hard drive in place of the 500GB HD I took out so Restore wouldn't accidentally write the data out of it. So now I have three hard drives before the crash, and three while trying to restore. Also, I have larger disk space (3TB, up from 2.5TB prior to restore).

Restore worked - got a successful message after going thru the prompts. THIS time, it asked to restore from "D:", which is correct, so I think having a different number of drives screws it up. I also selected "Format and Partition" drives when asked, since the new drive is presumably raw.

However, I barely get the Windows boot screen and it restarts ("Windows" shows up, but not the progress bar, and then restart).

I'm seeming to think the orig boot drive is bad, or damaged when my wife panicked and cut the power. I'm going to walk her thru swapping the new drive with the boot drive - hopefully Vista will take it and restore to the new drive this time.

More to follow...

 

[Bozo Galora]

http://www.lancelhoff.com/how-...r-repair-broken-vista/