I recently tried doing some partition work with a "freebie" program and now Ghost does not detect my hard drive when trying to do a back-up job. I also have Symantec Recovery and same results.
If someone could please review my partition info and let me know what my options are, it would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you know of a program (paid or free - the easier the better) that would make this an easy fix, it would be appreciated also.
Thanks,
Rick
Glad to see you Brian.
I been trying to figure out how to get bootitNG to resize the front of a partition or if you do a slide what that setting about data only is about.
Curiously the partinfo says the detected alignment is 1MB but also shows the starting sector as 0
Dave
Dave,
1,953,519,616/ 2048 = 953,867 so that's OK
Using BIBM is what I'm planning. Resizing Win7 3 MB smaller, sliding Win7 (data only) and then writing a Win7 MBR. I assume Rick has an old Ghost backup just in case. The starting sector offset of 0 is a "mistake" as you can't have the MBR and partition boot sector occupying the same sector.
Hi Brian, thanks for your interest and attempt to help.
First some background. I have a friend who lives about 3 hours away and last spring I gave her an external hard drive to assist her with some space issues on her laptop (it only had a 250 Gig hard drive and it is her primary computer). A few months later, I had some extra cash and bought her a new hard drive (1 Tb) for her laptop along with Symantec System Recovery (I already owned Ghost) and decided to pay her a visit and swap out the hard drives and add some RAM as well. I have access to her computer through TeamViewer if needed. This Sunday, I am going to be at her house and was hoping to get the issue below straightened out so I thought to ask for help now.
Disk Management does show the hard drive.
When installing the new hard drive, I performed a complete computer Ghost back-up and swapped the hard drives. I then restored the Ghost image to the new hard drive.
Once every thing was back up and running, I went into "My Computer" and noticed that the new 1 TB hard drive was only showing 225 Gig (the same as her old one).
I tried working with disk management for a solution but disk management only showed a 225 Gig hard drive. I went to the internet and found a program called "Minitool Partition Wizard" and it showed space both before and after the "C" drive. I monkied around with it quite a bit and finally got the hard drive to show more space. Exactly what I did, I can not recall (it has been a while).
I thought that I had it fixed but now my Ghost nor her Symantec System Recovery will recognize the hard drive.
I have downloaded the trial (nonfunctional) version of Acronis Disk Director just to see if it looked like it would be of any help. It basically shows the same thing as Disk Management and the Minitool Partition Wizard do. The exception would be that when using the Acronis program and 'C' Drive or Disk 1 is selected, I have none of the "Operations" such as "Resize" and "Move" to choose from (see attached image). All of these operations are available when the external hard drive is selected.
I hope that I did not give you information overload.
Rick,
Great information.
Download BootIt BM. There is a 30 day trial usage. Unzip the file and make a boot CD.
double click makedisk.exe, next
dot in BootIt Bare Metal, next
dot in I accept the agreement, next
don't select Image for DOS (GUI), next
dot in Mouse Support Enabled, next
dot in VESA Video, next
dot in Video Mode 1024*768 - 64K Colors, next
dot in Partition Work (Don't put a dot in Normal), next
don't choose any Device Options, next
tick in Enable USB 1.1 (UHCI), next
tick in Align partitions on 2048 Sectors, next
ignore Additional bootitbm.ini Options, next
select your CD burner drive letter (you can use a CD-RW or a CD-R disc)
Finish
Resize the Win7 partition 3 MB smaller
The BIBM CD boots to the Work with Partitions window
In the Partitions list, select the partition, and then click Resize (in the Actions column)
Click OK to error check the file system.
The error-checking process can take a few minutes. If the hard disk indicator light continues flickering, the error check is progressing.
When the error check is complete, in the Resize dialog box you may review the Partition Information (such as Name, Type, and Size).
Review the Min Size and Max Size, and then decrease the New Size by 3.
Click OK, and then click Continue.
The Resize status bar indicates progress.
BIBM checks for errors once again, after which the Resize dialog box displays a message that the resize has completed.
Click Close
You are back at the "Work with Partitions" window
Slide the Win7 partition to the end of the drive.
In the Partitions list, select the partition, and then click Slide under Actions. In the Slide dialog box you should see 3 (maybe 2 to 4) MiB in the Free Space After field. Change this to 0 (zero). You will now see a few MiB in the Free Space Before field. We want a few MiB in this field.
The Data Only check box should have a tick by default
Click OK, and then click Continue.
The Sliding status bar indicates progress. This process can take a long time (possibly a few hours), after which the Sliding dialog box displays a message that the Slide has completed
Click Close
You are back at the "Work with Partitions" window
Write a new MBR
In the Partitions list, select the partition, and then click View MBR
Click Win7 MBR
OK, Apply
Click Close on Work with Partitions
Remove the CD and click Reboot
Can Ghost now see the Win7 partition?
Questions?
I recently tried doing some partition work with a "freebie" program and now Ghost does not detect my hard drive when trying to do a back-up job. I also have Symantec Recovery and same results.
If someone could please review my partition info and let me know what my options are, it would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you know of a program (paid or free - the easier the better) that would make this an easy fix, it would be appreciated also.
Thanks,
Rick
Brian, all I can say is Wow! You put a lot of effort into helping me and I am so grateful for it. I wish that there was some way that I could show my appreciation.
I will print and follow your instructions this Sunday and let you know the results. Once again, thank you.
Dave, I appreciate you looking at this too. You all are awesome for helping us out.
Sorry that it has taken so long to get back to you. We are on vacation.
Sadly, the Bootit BM did not work. When I got to the "Slide" step both the before and after values were 0 and the program would not allow me to change them. Also, the "View MBR" button was grayed out.
We decided to just allow me to manually back-up her important documents and pictures on a regular basis through TeamViewer. It was either that or use her computer restore disk and she really did not want to do that.
I do appreciate your efforts though! It was a lot more than I was expecting.
Rick,
Acronis Disk Director describes that drive as a Super Floppy, not as a MBR partition. I guess BIBM is saying much the same in that you can't do partition operations.
One thing you could try in BIBM is to select the partition and press Properties. Are Errors reported with the End LBA? If there are that could lead us somewhere.
Out of interest, when you select the partition in BIBM, is the Delete button greyed out? If not we could consider deleting the partition and then using Undelete to find the partition boot sector and recreate the partition. You would have to be prepared to restore a Ghost image if this failed. Don't do this yet.
Also, you know a Ghost restore works. You could wipe the drive to get rid of the Super Floppy and then restore the most recent Ghost image.
Enjoy your vacation. Let us know when you have some free time.
God I hate Acronis disk director.
Look how the "Master Boot Record (Sector 0)" is the same as the Volume Boot Record Hex Dump also listed as Sector 0
What is showing at sector 0 is wrong and should be in the boot sector, it's not a valid MBR.
Dave
Thanks so much for the information and help.
It will probably be at least a few months before I get to visit her again. We stopped in on our way to our vacation spot.
I will keep this thread in mind when I prepare to visit her again.
Unfortunately, I had given up on successfully installing Ghost and deleted the Ghost back-up that I had.
