drive image 2002 cannot find NTLDR on reboot

[notbilly 0]

First post here, and I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this same problem (and hopefully know of a solution!) I did a search, but didn't see anything quite like what I'm facing now.

 

I've been using Drive Image 2002 in WinXP in for a while now with no problems. I have 2 bootable 4GB FAT32 partitions at the start of my drive, and then various others. I keep one of the partitions hidden to boot from the other. Drive Image uses a 'virtual floppy' to boot itself into dos when doing operations on the current boot partition, and then reboots into windows after it's done. This all works very nicely.

 

However, I've recently converted my first boot partition into NTFS (using Partition Magic 8). Now when I try to use Drive Image to image that partition, it starts rebooting using the virtual floppy (as usual), but during the process it gives me this error message from the dos screen: "BOOT: Couldn't find NTLDR"

 

If I restart at this point, windows starts up just fine (but Drive Image hasn't done anything). Seems like there is a problem with the virtual floppy being able to deal with the NTFS partition.

 

Anyone else ever see anything like this? Couldn't find anything on the Drive Image support site (now Symantec). I'm anxious to get this working (running XP without up-to-date backup images gives me the willies). Thanks for any help!

[kasandoro 0]

I get the same error on a freshly-formatted NTFS hard drive...before I install an OS.

 

Maybe that's your problem. Maybe DriveImage 2002 requires a FAT32 file system to function.

[Sampson 0]

If you are trying to Ghost a Fat32 drive to a NTFS drive, it isn't going to work. As the system is telling you, you need the specific files for using NTFS that are not in the Fat32 installation. Boot from your CD the get into the console and type:

copy e:\i386\ntldr c:

copy e:ntdetect.com c:

where e: stands for CD

Then, reboot and see if you can get it to come up.

[notbilly 0]

Hey guys -- thanks for the responses

 

Sampson: What you described isn't really the situation I'm encountering. I'm not trying to restore an image from a FAT32 partition to a NTFS partion (if that's what you mean by 'ghost'). I'm just trying to create an image of my NTFS boot partion (and store it elsewhere). Drive Image 2002 normally reboots itself into Caldera DOS to perform operations on the boot partition, but it seems like the rebooot isn't succeeding. Odd thing is, it only started happening once I converted the boot partition to NTFS.

 

kasandoro: I agree with you -- it looks like Drive Image 2002 can't run the way I'm used to with a NTFS boot partition. But I'd be kinda surprised if that is the case. I've heard other people say they've used it in pure NTFS enviroments. I don't know tho' if they were getting into DOS by using actual floppies (that still works for me) or using the 'virtual floppy'. It's the virtual floppy that is failing for me -- either Drive Image isn't building it correctly, or it isn't building it at all. I get the message that the virtual floppy is mounting, but then I immediately get the NTLDR error.

 

If there is anyone out there that has used Drive Image 2002 to image a NTFS boot partition and been able to launch the process from within windows, I'd be very interested in talking with you. But I appreciate all comments from all sources as well!

[geekster 0]

I have used Drive Image 2002 successfully many times on a NTFS system. I just installed the program and it worked perfectly, rebooting and taking an image of my C drive.

 

However, this morning I decided to reload my system from scratch, download all the current updates and take a fresh image. I deleted the C partition and recreated it, reinstalling XP(I have done this many times in the past with no problems). Installed Drive Image 2002 as I have always done in the past but now suddenly it will not reboot and take the image. It hangs on the "loading please wait screen". Am stumped by this as I am not doing anything different now from what I used to do.

[geekster 0]

Can this be an issue with the way the NTFS drives are set up? I have 2 partitions on one drive and the other drive set to 1 partition. C/D are on drive 0 and E is on the drive 1. Using disk management, C status is Healthy (system), D Healthy, E Healthy (Active). I am wondering if when I deleted the C partition and recreated it when loading Windows XP it set E to active and thats what is causing Drive Image 2002 not to work. I cant even get the Emergency Boot disk to work. How would I delete the active setting on E without erasing the partition itself. Using the command line diskpart you can set a drive active but I cant see any way of making it unactive.

 

I do have Drive Image 7.0 but am loathe to install it as I am not a big fan of >net services which this pice of bloatware insists on installing. Have any others had issues with Drive Image 7 at all?

[notbilly 0]

hey geekster -- i'm right with you on not liking DI 7.0. It takes me forever to boot into its recovery environment from the cd. So i'm gonna try to stick with DI2002.

 

As for the problem you're having, if you can manage to set your C drive as active, that will automatically remove the active status from your E drive. Only one partition can be set as active at a time. So if you can do that with the "command line diskpart" that you referred to, maybe that will help your situation.

 

As for the problem i was having, i found a solution and it was pretty simple. i just unistalled DI2002, and then manually removed any remaining folders or registry entries that the uninstaller left behind. Then I reinstalled, and now everything is working great. Somehow it seemed like DI2002 had forgotten how to create the virtual floppy image, so nothing was there when it tried to boot from it. But a fresh install seemed to clear that right up.