Restoring XP from Recovery Partition

[Tony D]

I have an HP machine in here with a bad hard drive. Before the drive totally died, I was able to make an Acronis True Image of the Recovery partition.

 

I haven't tried this before and was wondering if anyone else has. I plan to install a new hard drive and partition into 2 logical drives: Recovery and C. The Recovery partition will be 5 GB and the C partition will use the remaining space on the drive.

 

Next step would be to restore the Recovery partition using the Acronis True Image file.

 

Then I hope to put the drive back in the customer's unit and hope to see the press F10 to boot from the Recovery partition and restore the C: partition.

 

When I partition the new drive I assume that both partitions have to be Active.

 

Does this seem reasonable?

[Dalo Harkin]

Hi Kelly,

 

Glad you used Acronis (better than the others) yes its as simple as you describe - for the less advanced user it would be better to use partition magic or something in the winodws environment and then installing the drive and loading onto the partition.

From what I remember they do both have to be ACTIVE

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Here's an extract from my Acronis Tony.

 

In order to use the space in a hard disk, it must be partitioned. Partitioning is the process of dividing the hard disk's space into logical divisions. Each logical division may function as a separate disk with an assigned drive letter, its own file system, etc. Even if you do not intend to divide your hard disk into logical divisions it must be partitioned so that the operating system knows that it is intended to be left in one piece.Choose the type of partition being created. You can define the new partition as primary or logical.

 

• Primary - choose this parameter if you are planning to boot from this partition. Otherwise, it is better to create a new partition as logical drive. You can have only four primary partitions per drive, or three primary partitions and one extended partition.Note: If you have several primary partitions, only one will be active at one time, the other primary partitions will be hidden and won’t be seen by the OS.

 

• Logical - choose this parameter if you don’t intend to install and start an operating system from the partition. Logical drive is a part of a physical disk drive that has been partitioned and allocated as an independent unit, but functions as a separate drive.Note: if you create one or more logical drives, the system will reserve some unallocated space for system needs in front of created partition(s). If you create a primary partition or a primary partition together with a logical one than no unallocated space will be reserved for system needs. Later on, you may convert this unallocated area into a primary disk if there is any need in it.

 

I strongly suggest that you read the Help file in Acronis Tony.

[Tony D]

Oh well, it didn't work. That's been my luck these past few weeks. First the health and now this. I partitioned a new drive using Acronis Disk Director. I set up the partitions just like they are on my own HP machine which also has a Recovery partition. The big partition is Pri, Act, NTFS; the small recovery partition is Pri.

 

Using Acronis True Image, I restored the Recovery partition to the new hard drive, but I get NTLDR is missing when booting in the machine, even after pressing F10 to use the System Recovery.

 

This machine came to me without CD's, customer never made them. I have CD's for Dell but not for HP. I'll try a Dell XP-Home and use the HP Product Key. Maybe it'll work.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Yes because you have to have windows installed Tony, you also have to have Acronis installed too.

[Tony D]

Wolfey - I don't understand your post. Maybe I didn't make myself clear on what I did, so I'll try again.

 

Customer's machine came in. I made an Acronis image of the Recovery partition. I couldn't make an image of the main partition because of disk corruption. chkdsk couldn't even fix it. However as I mentioned the Recovery partition was intact because True Image didn't complain when it made the backup.

 

So now i have a new hard drive and I've restored the original Recovery image to a small partition on the drive. I also created a large partition for the Windows installation.

 

I assume that the Recovery partition can install Windows on the blank partition. Maybe I'm wrong in that assumption.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

I couldn't make an image of the main partition because of disk corruption. chkdsk couldn't even fix it.

The main partition should contain Windows, the recovery partition would only rewrite files to that surely?

 

Where did you store the .tib file Tony?

[Tony D]

I made it using my HP Vista machine. I had the drive connected to my HP Vista machine using an IDE/USB adapter when I made the image. My HP machine has True Image and Disk Director. Those are the apps that I used to format/partition and restore the tib to the new drive.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

You need Windows on that drive tony, how can you restore a recovery partition to something that isn't there?

[Tony D]

How can I use a Window install CD to install Windows onto a blank disk? I thought the Recovery partition was like an install disk.

 

Right now I'm loading Windows onto customer's HP machine using a Dell CD. Hope it will accept the HP product key. If not, I'll install Windows on that blank partion and use the Recovery partition to restore it properly with all the correct HP drivers.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Ok I look at it this way Tony

 

You will need Windows installed to C:

Install the recovery option to whatever partition you make.

Install the software that will allow the user to access that partition to recover which will be peculiar to that pc.

 

In fact I'll tell you what I'll do ok

 

I have two drives physically and I'll make a complete back up of my entire system, dump windows, format the drive as the primary boot partition and try to install the .tib file back to the active hard drive and let you know how I go Tony ok.

[Tony D]

Ok I look at it this way Tony

 

Install the software that will allow the user to access that partition to recover which will be peculiar to that pc.

 

 

The software isn't what allows the user to recover, it's in the BIOS. When the machine starts up, you can press F2 for Setup or F10 to boot to the Recovery partition.

 

I'd like to see how you make out in your experiment. I was able to load Windows on this HP machine using a Dell OEM disk and the code on the HP machine. If your method works, I can use that and not have to go looking for the machine specific drives that this machine needs.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

The software isn't what allows the user to recover, it's in the BIOS. When the machine starts up, you can press F2 for Setup or F10 to boot to the Recovery partition.

 

Very well then, how do you propose to set or configure this situation Tony?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Did you manage to install the recovery partition Tony?

[Tony D]

I could go back to my original scenario, but instead of having a large blank partition, I would load Windows onto it. Then I would see if I could boot to the recovery partition.

 

... or just simply let it go and find the machine specific drivers and load them.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Pm'd you mate

[petef]

I was researching this issue (recovery partiton is not working) and

found a forum that specializes in BOOT operations. I came across

an interesting post that seems to deal with this issue but I can

see it would take considerable time to investigate further.

 

See post#3 in the thread at link below:

Recovery partition headache! - Boot Land

 

I see some very intersting and new tools in that post.

(beeblebrox and TESTDISK)

 

Definately worth looking into.

 

---pete---

[Guest Wolfeymole]

This is the most pertinent point I reckon Pete.

 

It is also possible that the partition entry is still there but the HP program needs to "recognize" it's own "F11 enhanced" MBR sector.

[Dalo Harkin]

Right, I have an HP laptop and when it boots I get 2 options recovery console and windows XP MCE - so I get the choice when it boots if something goes wrong to use the recovery partition - I take it this is what you are trying to do Kelly.

You would need to do this in a windows environment NO DOUBT as you need windows installed and then use something like partition magic to split say 5% off the main HDD and then install the recovery partition and then install the software that gives you the multiple boot options that people used when testing Vista they had Vista on 1 part of the HDD and XP on the other and you get the choice as above on statup.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Tony is using Acronis Disk Director Dave which is an excellent tool.

[Dalo Harkin]

Yes I know that, what I was trying to get at is what is the end result that he wants, is it:-

 

A recovery partition that basically has windows on as if it's a new install.

 

or is he trying to have a seperate partition that he can store a ghost on.

Edited June 6, 2008 by Dalo Harkin

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Can you rephrase that Dave please I can't understand it.

[Dalo Harkin]

Is the end result wanted a dual boot system - one with Windows on and the other a recovery partition, like on my HP

or is he after a space to store a ghost of the system?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

It seems that Tony has created two partitions and installed the Recovery files but windows is not present on the main C: partition and it is my contention that without windows being there this cannot be done.

[Dalo Harkin]

That completely confused me - how did he get the recovery files off an HDD that has no windows installed?

might just be me, but you would need windows installed to get them - did he then delete windows and install the recovery?