Drive Imageing Software

Question

I have upgraded to a Dell Dimension 9100 Pentium D 820/830 dual core desktop. It has sata hard drives.

I used Drive Image 7 successfully on my old computer but with the new one find I cannot boot into the PowerQuest Recovery Environment from the Drive Image CD and so would not be able to restore from a hard drive image.

The bootup proceeds until I need to make a choice, when I find the keyboard (and mouse) produce no response so I can't get further.

The PQRE bootup menu tells me there are mass storage devices it cannot recognise.

Thinking this may be the hard drives I looked for a relevant readme and found, amongst other information too technical for me, the following;

"2. The system must be running on one of the following
    operating systems:
    - Microsoft* Windows* XP Home Edition
    - Microsoft* Windows* XP Professional
    - Microsoft* Windows* XP 64-bit Edition for 64-bit Extended System (NOTE 1)
    - Microsoft* Windows* 2000 Professional
    - Microsoft* Windows* 2000 Advanced Server
    - Microsoft* Windows* Server 2003
    - Microsoft* Windows* Media Center Edition

NOTE 1: If the system is running Windows* 64-bit version,
the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver supporting
64-bit should be used.

3. The following operating systems are not supported:

    Any version of the following Microsoft operating systems:
    - MS-DOS
    - Windows 3.1
    - Windows NT 3.51
    - Windows 95
    - Windows 98
    - Windows Millennium Edition (Me)
    - Windows NT 4.0
    - Windows 2000 Server
    - Windows 2000 Datacenter Server

    Any version of the following operating systems:
    - Linux
    - UNIX
    - BeOS
    - MacOS
    - OS/2"

I'm not sure where the PowerQuest Recovery Environment OS might be in this list, or even if my suspicions that the OS the PQRE uses might not be supported are correct. Actually I'm not really expert enough to know if my suspicions make sense!

Can someone with more knowledge in this help. If Drive Image Recovery Environment uses DOS or some other unsupported system, is there other Drive Image creating software which does use an OS which would support my new system in the recovery process.

Thanks in advance.

Furps

oldtraveler · Answer

I haven't used Drive Image in a couple of years, nor do I know the specific answer to your problem. However, I have been using both BootIt NG and Acronis True Image successfully on both of my pcs. With BootIt I still need to use my floppy disk - having made a boot floppy from the BootIt program - and with Acronis I use the bootable CD created with that program although some have run it from within Windows. I believe both programs have free trial periods. Message Edited by oldtraveler on 09-08-2005 05:12 PM

Dan Manley · Answer

Since the machine I am typing this on is an 8400, the comparable model preceding your 9100, I have no idea if this is relevant information however, since the problem sounds familiar...

I updated every BIOS flash from the time I received the machine from version A00 through A05 with no issue whatsoever. Upon flashing A06 I experienced the same behavior you described with my imaging software, Acronis TrueImage 8.0. I found I could neither boot from the recovery CD nor, the Acronis Disaster Recovery (protected) Partition on the HDD. I also could not boot if any USB drive (that was connected and in the "On" state) and which appeared in Device Manager as a "drive" such as, a photo printer. Bottom line was, reverting to BIOS version A05 rectified both problems.

I have seen numerous similar experiences in the BIOS conference which mirrored the same thing with the A06 and to a lesser extent, the A07 version now available. I mention this only because I suppose it's possible the 9100 may share this quirk. Since Symantec acquired Drive Image and has rolled it's features into the current version of Ghost, I have no idea if you'll be able to get any support for the version you have. If you find Dell Support as your only venue just be aware that while it may not be likely, it is entirely possible that yours' is a BIOS issue.

As a side note. When the problem on this 8400 occurred, I actually tried another disaster recovery application I also have installed with the same result. Strangely enough, while neither recovery disk would boot the machine, the Windows XP CD would boot it normally....? Once the BIOS was reverted to the A05 version, both disaster recovery CD booted normally as well.

Furps · Answer

Thanks Dan and Phil. I plan to do some more research and build up my confidence in this. I have been happy with Drive Image which saved me much greif on two occasions over recent years, but since reading a little, my confidence is reduced since hearing about disasters many have had in trying to create or restore from disc images. Will probably try downloading one or both of theose programs - providing the files are not too big - I am in the country where we still have only dial-up.

Thanks again, Furps

muffinman · Answer

When I recently restored a backup image made by Drive Image 7 to a new HD in my I8200 I got a 'could not read from the selected boot disk' message when I tried to boot the system. Ever seen that one?

Windows General

Drive Imageing Software

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