Toshiba Laptop will not boot into Win 7

[gregrocker]

This is actually the first time I can remember that a user reported a known-good partition was shown Unallocated by PW CD. I also have not seen the issues which have been reported as of late.

PW CD has been used in hundreds of successful, often complicated partitioning and rescue operations here without fail. The only time I have seen PW fail is when OP used the home edition when we advise using the Boot Disk.

When Disk Mgmt gives a questionable output, we confirm the real one with PW CD. It has never been wrong that I have seen reported until this thread.

I cannot think of a more vital and important tool for Win7 installers than PW CD. You can shuffle partitions like a deck of cards and it comes out flawless and disk checked.

 

[SIW2]

I think you have forgotten the same thing happened on my system.

Fortunately - with some difficulty , I have now managed to find information from that time which may be relevant.

Have contacted MT with the details already

@partition wizard
Let me know if you received the email

 

[gregrocker]

Si I never heard what exactly this prob was. Can you fill us in?

 

[SIW2]

Partition Wizard Anomaly

Short memory? - LOL I thought I was bad.

 

[gregrocker]

Thanks, Si, I do remember now that it concerns the installed Home Edition rather than CD.

I do not ever recommend using the Home Edition since the Boot CD won't fail, but the Home Edition can since when it goes into boot mode to Resize it is dependent upon memory. It also has interference from System Files which are running in Home Edition.

We do some of the most complicated partitioning operations done anywhere here.

 

[SIW2]

I don't imagine that will make any difference. The program will behave in a similar fashion - I ran it from pe if you recall - still the same odd result.

It doesn't have anything to do with the resize function - it was just reading the extended partition info incorrrectly.

Same as in this case.

Must be hard to track down - the developer seems to really care - which is a good sign.

He is watching this thread now , apparently.

 

[gregrocker]

I would immediately suspect the PE disk, but I'm not the expert on those that you are. Is it conceivable it could skew PW readout?

 

[SIW2]

That is odd - he is not watching now.

No - I ran it in windows first - saw the strange result.

Then I ran it in pe to see if there was any difference - same issue.

Laforgeotte used the Linux boot disc - same issue again.

There is definitely a bug there.

 

[lafargeotte]

Hope you guys find a resolution.

 

[dsperber]

Hope you guys find a resolution.

Can you please tell us what backup software you use, and what type of backup job produced the "regular backup" from which you restored to the new drive?

Can you be precise about the actual "restore" job you ran? Details on the "backup" job that produced the "regular backup" dataset from which you restored would also be helpful.

The new drive definitely came out from that restore incorrectly... (a) no "system reserved" primary partition marked "active", and (b) Win7 C-partition created as "logical" instead of "primary" as it was on the original drive. This is not how your original drive looked (presumably, since we don't have a screenshot of DISKMGMT for the old drive), so you didn't use Win7's "system image" for your restore tool.


Also, it would be helpful if you tell us exactly what series of steps you did with Paragon to resolve the issue completely.

Since there's no "system reserved" partition on this new drive, presumably you are simply booting directly to the now-primary C-partition and Win7 in there, where some particular Paragon repair operation has rebuilt the MBR on the drive to point to... instead of the "system reserved" partition where the boot manager files are normally located.


Fortunately, you were able to change the new "logical" C partition to primary using Paragon (though theoretically, the same operation should have been possible with Partition Wizard, and we've now got the PW author watching this thread and trying to participate so as to fix the bug that caused it to see the new drive as "unallocated").

And then you probably double-checked that this now primary partition was still marked as "active" (if not, you changed it to "active").

And you probably had to "rebuild MBR", or something.

It would be very helpful to others if you could recount the steps you took with Paragon that accomplished your repair.


Again, theoretically this same repair should have been possible with Partition Wizard standalone CD (which I assume was free Home Edition v5.2, unless you paid $29 for the new v6.0 Professional version).

There appears to be a bug in PW, which caused your new drive to appear "unallocated"... but the drive as shown in the screenshot is actually unbootable to begin with, because of what got done by your restore program/procedure.

So all details you can provide here will (a) help others to avoid the problems you ran into, and (b) help the Partition Wizard author better understand the situation and perhaps be able to recreate what your drive looked like so that he can chase down the bug in his product.


Many thanks for additional info.

And of course, you did get your problem solved... which is the good news.

 

[lafargeotte]

OK, here goes, so hope it helps.

I regularly backup both my desktop PC and my (wife's) laptop, using Paragon Partition Manager Pro 10.
The laptop is backed up via USB to an external laptop drive 160gb.

When the laptop's HDD failed I had to use the external 160gb as the replacement drive until a new one arrives. I therefore copied the backup files from the USB drive to my main desktop PC. I formatted the 160gb drive and partitioned it (as seen in the pic), and restored the backups to it by USB from my desktop PC. I then removed the the failed drive from the laptop. Inserted the 160gb HDD and hoped it would boot from there. So the problem started. Hence the request here, and of course the help received.

When the replacement drive arrives, I will 'copy' the 160gb drive using the Paragon programme.

The strange thing is that on my desktop pc I do not have the reserved partition!!!!!

 

[gregrocker]

In the future you would want to install the replacement HD (whatever it's source), then boot the Paragon CD to reimage from stored image.

Since you were using your external to replace laptop HD, I would have left the image on the HD then reimaged to a new partition you create at the front of the HD using a Partition Manager like free Partition Wizard bootable CD.

Make sure Paragon boot disk specifies the target partition be Primary, Active and the HD host the MBR - these options are all given during reimaging.

I'm still not certain how it allowed you to reimage System files to a Logical Partition, since Logical cannot be marked Active hence cannot host System files. You must have changed the default choices without Paragon objecting.

 

[lafargeotte]

OK thanks.

 

[dsperber]

I regularly backup both my desktop PC and my (wife's) laptop, using Paragon Partition Manager Pro 10.
The laptop is backed up via USB to an external laptop drive 160gb.

Ok, I admit I know nothing about Paragon Partition Manager. But it sounds like it's a "partition manager" program (like Parititon Wizard), not a backup program.

While it may be able to "copy partitions" (as can Partition wizard) to unallocated space on the target drive (creating a new partition on the target drive as a result?), or maybe it can even copy a source partition's contents into a target partition, it is definitely not really a true "backup/restore disaster recovery program". And it's not creating a "system image", in the technical Win7 sense of what a "system image" is.

So my guess is that your "regular backups" of the laptop were actually just partition copies, from the laptop's C-partition contents (where Win7 lives) to the external 160GB drive. File copies.

When the laptop's HDD failed I had to use the external 160gb as the replacement drive until a new one arrives. I therefore copied the backup files from the USB drive to my main desktop PC. I formatted the 160gb drive and partitioned it (as seen in the pic),

AHA!

After copying the backup files from the external USB drive to your main desktop PC so that you could re-purpose the USB drive to be the real laptop drive, you partitioned that drive yourself, and didn't notice that the drive you'd intended to be for Win7 was actually formatted as "logical", instead of the "primary" as it should have been.

Interestingly, the second partition on the drive was created as "primary", but that's not the one you targeted for your Win7 partition.

Anyway, the process that's unfolding from your story is not an actual "backup" and "restore" or "re-image using a system image of some sort". It's simply copying partitions and/or the folder/file contents of the partitions, and your own manual creating of the new target partition... which you apparently did as "logical", and didn't notice.

and restored the backups to it by USB from my desktop PC.

You did not "restore the backup".

You really simply COPY'd the files, from the version (of your original Win7 partition) that you'd transferred temporarily to the desktop PC to facilitate the drive swap, to the 58GB "logical" partition you'd created yourself on that 160GB drive. Maybe you meant to copy it to the other 91GB "primary" partition you'd created, who knows. But you actually copied it to the 58GB "logical" partition.

You did not technically "restore the backup" (since there was no real "backup" or "system image"), except in really generic terms you might use to describe what you believed you were doing. You simply copied files.

I then removed the the failed drive from the laptop. Inserted the 160gb HDD and hoped it would boot from there. So the problem started. Hence the request here, and of course the help received.

Correct. That's where the REAL story begins.

When the replacement drive arrives, I will 'copy' the 160gb drive using the Paragon programme.

The strange thing is that on my desktop pc I do not have the reserved partition!!!!!

Ok...

The "system reserved" partition is not absolutely critical to normal booting and operation. It does happen to be created by the Win7 installer if you install to a brand new hard drive, along with the second true C-partition in which the real Win7 OS is placed (both of these being created as "primary" partitions by the Win7 installer). But technically, it's not required... if some other basic requirements are met in another way.

What's required is that (a) the boot drive is marked as "hard disk #1" in the BIOS, and obviously with a laptop you only have one drive, and (b) the boot partition is a "primary" (not "logical") partition that is marked as "active".

In the case of the two "primary" partitions normally built by the Win7 installer (small 100MB "system reserved" and large C-partition for Win7), the boot manager files are placed in the "system reserved" partition. This supports direct transfer from the boot manager program (launched by the BIOS, since it's in the "active" partition on "hard disk #1") to the second C-partition where the Win7 boot process really begins... for a 1-OS setup.

If you had multiple bootable OS's on multiple partitions (potentially on multiple hard drives), then the boot manager files in that "system reserved" partition would present to you a Boot Menu and wait for your response, choosing the desired OS you really want to boot to (say Win7 or WinXP, etc., on different secondary partitions both of which contain a bootable OS).

Now, it's not critical that the boot manager programs and files actually be in a separate "system reserved" partition. All that is necessary is that they be located in (a) the active partition on (b) hard disk #1 per the BIOS. It appears that your original laptop hard drive was structured exactly that way (with Win7 installed and built by the manufacturer that way), with only the Win7 partition itself (and no small "system reserved" partition). Both the boot manager files as well as Win7 itself were all in the same single C-partition, which was (a) the active partition, on (b) hard disk #1, and that's all that's really crucial.

That's why you observed no "system reserved" partition on the original (and failed) hard drive.


What the suggested corrective steps you've taken have thus accomplished, was I believe to first convert the mistakenly created "logical" partition into which you'd copied your Win7 files to "primary", which solves one of your problems. Obviously the newly installed drive itself was still the one-and-only "hard disk #1" to the BIOS.

Then, I believe you marked that now "primary" C-partition as "active", solving your second problem (since a "logical" partition can't be "active" even though somehow Diskmgmt claimed it was, per that screenshot!).

Then I believe you rebuilt the MBR (master boot record) on the drive, which is independent of the partitions but facilitates booting on that drive. This was a third problem.

And now you're finally back in business.


We still are perplexed as to why Diskmgmt showed that logical partition as "active" in your screenshot, but maybe it was confused because it saw a Win7 on the drive and since the other "primary" partition on the drive was not marked "active" just decided to present what we see. It's certainly not correct or realistic, and yet that's the screenshot.

We also don't know why Partition Magic standalone CD thought this drive was all "unallocated".

I think I've reconstructed what really went on in this story, and how you actually ended up the way you did. Hopefully it makes sense, and is accurate.

 

[gregrocker]

Did you use Paragon Backup and Restore or Paragon Partition Manager?

Were you making Image Backups or copying partitions?

 

[lafargeotte]

Hi,

Gregrocker I was using Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2010, and to back up I use 'Create an image of the entire disk' option. So why it did not restore it properly I do not know!

When I get the replacement HDD, which option do I use to 'copy/image' the old C Drive, please?

 

[gregrocker]

You would need to use the image you already have to reimage to the new HD since your old HD died. Make sure you choose to reimage to a Primary Partition and to copy the MBR and track one to the new HD.

 

[SIW2]

You also might want to check your Paragon account - there are newer versions available for download.

It restored just fine - except it should be to a primary, not logical drive - no biggie.

As Greg says , you can use the image you already have, or if you have made changes, and got updates since restoring the other day - then make a new image if you like.

 

[lafargeotte]

Thanks guys, replacement drive on the way.

Will let you know how it goes.

 

[lafargeotte]

OK, replacement drive arrived.

Used Paragon to do a straight disk copy. Removed old drive, inserted new drive and voila it works straight away!

Wife is a happy bunny now.