Unable to successfully restore dv6-7000 disk-image!

I have had my new dv6t-7000 (ivy-bridge) with the 32GB mSSD for a few months and make weekly image backups as a matter of good practice.

My notebook recently locked-up on me (totally unresponsive), so I couldn't do a ctrl-alt-del or a shutdown and was forced to power it off. Afterwards the notebook would not bootup and so I attempted to restore my last backup image. The image had verified when created and the restore pronounced 'success', but when attempting to start Windows it said "BootMgr missing"! I then attempted to restore two other backup images with the very same result. I had to finally resort to the recovery disks which brought me back to the delivered configuration, having to reinstall all of my apps and then recover my data!

I don't want to ever go through this again, so would anyone (with the know-how) please advise me of the proper method for creating a reliable backup image of this hardware configuration?

 

Edit: The backup program used was Acronis True Image Home 2012 (which works perfectly on my Windows 7 Desktop PC).

 

take your hdd out, put it in an external enclosure or use an adapter and put it in another machine and then test it. I am willing to say that the drive has failed.

 

That's not the case. You didn't read me post very carefully, which stated:

It seems as if my attempts to restore an image backup (of the HDD) may have corrupted the HDD-mSSD RAID configuration?

I'd really like to hear from anyone with this notebook who has successfully restored an image backup!

 

^lol okay whatever I tried to help you.... boot manager missing typically indicates that something is corrupted when it was written to the hdd so that is why I advised you to test it. appearantly you don't want advice so good luck.

BTW, when you do an image restore, ALL drivers and system settings are exactly as you left them, ie the machine is just like it was when you made the image.

It proabably won't be too long before the machine hard locks again and you will be right back where you started... so before you tell someone that they didn't read your dribble, you might want to look past your nose.....

 

I sure don't see the need to be so abrasive! I just meant to relate that my hard drive has been working perfectly ever since I recovered my system using the HP disk-set. Therefore, it didn't seem likely to me that the problem was a bad HDD. I'm sorry that you construed my reply in such a negative manner.

 

I think some of the questioning (a standard IT person) would ask when someone says "My notebook recently locked-up on me (totally unresponsive), so I couldn't do a ctrl-alt-del or a shutdown and was forced to power it off. Afterwards the notebook would not bootup" would be what exactly do u mean by "would not boot up"... like BSOD with error code??? That can be a sign of potential hard drive issues even though u were able to use the recovery discs... I think yeuemmaimai was just trying to make sure your hdd isn't going to fail on u...

As to your issue with the Acronis True Image Home 2012 not restoring the backup correctly.... I WOULD GUESS u are correct that it has to do with the Msata being used in a Raid cache mode. I would suggest contacting Acronis or if they have a support forum to post the question about backing up msata raid cache systems. They would be the experts on their software. They might have a guide or patch or some command u need to run when u go to restore. As far as a possible (but somewhat of a hassle) way to backup would be to turn off cache mode and then backup and then turn the cache mode back on once the backup is complete. Another thing u can try is if u have a Win7 DVD (there is a thread somewhere here that tells u how to download one) is once u have restored the backup is to boot from the dvd and tell it tocheck/ fix startup errors (or something like that...) and see if it writes a new MBR / boot cfg to the drive... I have no clue if that would fix it or not but it is worth a try.

 

It is dissapointing you've had trouble recovering from an Acronis image, because I use Acronis True Image for creating periodic system backups myself. I'm curious if the Windows 7 imaging utility can be succesfully restored with an mSSD cache. Something you may want to try before you get too far into rebuilding your system. The suggestion to check the Acronis support forums regarding this issue is an excellent idea as well.

This won't help you recover your application installations or configuration, but you can re-install Acronis and mount your last image within windows and recover files, documents, pictures, music, or whatever you may need that existed on your system at the point that image was made.

 

Well neither Acronis support or the user-forum were of any help, but after some experimenting I'm now more convinced that my backup issue had to do with the Intel SRT mode being "Maximized" which caches disk-writes as well as disk-reads. By using the included Intel RST utility I changed the Acceleration mode from "Maximized" to "Enhanced" (which just caches disk-reads) and again backed up my system (using Acronis True Image) and this time restoring the image was successful. Another backup restoration was also successful. Perhaps this is just a coincidence, only time will tell.

I stil don't know what caused Windows to lock-up in the first place (that too might be attributed to the Intel SRT "Maximized" mode), but it's not as if lock-ups are an unheard of situation with Windows (the real surprise was when Ctrl-Alt-Del wasn't responsive)!

 

Going through your posts, I would blame application used to backup. After you make a successful backup, there is an option to verify the backup created in Acronis.

This has saved me numerous times and nowadays I prefer the inbuilt windows 7 imaging feature which allows to make backup. It's reliable and quick as well.

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