Lirria Posted May 8, 2006 Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 Since I've just gone through the whole process, there was something that came up during the restore that I would like to ask all of you out there. When I did my restore - the only problem I had was that the partition went from being two on the backup to being one on the new drive. Once I figured that out, I changed the boot.ini before rebooting so that the system would boot and then finish the restore (if you don't change it - you can't, I tried to recreate the boot.ini in the recovery console and it was "not available") So here's the question - do you know that when you do a restore it's going to the same partition number or is it just dumb luck when it works? Just looking for opinions here - there are no right or wrong answers. Lirria Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jelenko Posted May 10, 2006 Report Share Posted May 10, 2006 You mean the system drive [that was used in the backup] was on the second partition and that you're trying to restore the backup to the 1st partion on a new drive? Key is the drive letters. They must be the same in the backup set and the partion you are restoring to. If they are different, won't work. There are references in the registry to the drive letter of the system drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lirria Posted May 10, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2006 No actually in the boot.ini - any time you create a partition it has it's own unique number based on when it was created. For instance the computer I'm currentlyl working on has this in it's boot.ini: default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS meaning the boot drive is the second partition. If I wanted to restore this system to a new drive, I install the new HD, install windows etc and then do the restore - if the boot.ini on the new drive is: default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS (because it was the first partition created on the drive) then after the reboot, the system won't boot and you can't fix it in the recovery console (files are "unavailable"). It just caught me by surprise and I was wondering if anybody else out there had similar experiences or if they always are the same partition number. (I think that makes sense...) Lirria Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waltr Posted May 10, 2006 Report Share Posted May 10, 2006 hi lirria, do you mean that you can't use 'bootcfg' to fix the problem? http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314477 EMC Insignia does have a KB on this: http://kb.dantz.com/display/2/kb/article.asp?aid=5445&n=2&s= i'm curious if the above apply or if i'm misunderstanding the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lirria Posted May 11, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2006 Waltr - Correct - bootcfg did not work - it kept saying file unavailable - I could not copy the file to a floppy, bootcfg got the same errors (drive is ntfs formated so more difficult to access data via other methods) I had to restore the entire drive again and then change the boot.ini before rebooting. The only thing is that if you don't know that the partition numbers have changed, you are S.O.L. you have to start over again. I'm guessing that most people haven't seen this problem (or maybe it's that thankfully they haven't had to do entire system restores). The KB article assumes you know you have a different partition number then the orginal drive. It really doesn't help if you don't realize that fact until you reboot and then there is apparently nothing you can do (believe me - I tried all kinds of crazy things) Lirria Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waltr Posted May 11, 2006 Report Share Posted May 11, 2006 hi lirria, wow. i have *not* (knocks_wood/) had that kind of problem. i've done these kinds of restores, but have never had a problem that bootcfg could not fix. good to know that it's a potential, and i'm sorry you had to learn about it first hand. i'll find this thread and post if i ever see it firsthand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jelenko Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Lirria, waltr - I'm confused. Are you thinking there's a way to do a full system restore to a drive/partition that has a different drive letter than what was backed up? There is no way to do that - right? Editing boot.ini will make no difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waltr Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 hi jelen, from what i understand, lirria is just talking about swapping out a HD and doing a full restore. she's also adding the caveat that the drive is partitioned slightly differently, but she has not said the partitions are 'letter drives'. the best example of something like this that _i've_ run across is some manufacturers that have 'invisible' partitions (notably Dell). i've never had a restore like this that has not been fixable by bootcfg though. lirria notes that replacing the boot.ini worked for her, which makes it even more puzzling to me that bootcfg would not do the trick. i will take her at her word, however, and watch for this in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jelenko Posted May 12, 2006 Report Share Posted May 12, 2006 Got it. thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.