Don't You Just Hate it When...

[Jason Dunn]

I’ve been in semi-stealth mode the past few days, but not by choice: my main workstation is massively screwed up. In a nutshell here’s how it went down:

1. I purchased and installed Acronis TrueImage 11, as I always do with every new version of their software. I’ve used it for years and really like it.

2. I installed it, rebooted, everything seemed fine.

3. The next morning I rebooted and was informed that there was no operating system on my hard drive. It seems TrueImage had mucked up the master boot record.

4. I used Vista’s repair tool to fix the master boot record, which worked, but then Vista would complain about a missing/corrupt DLL after login - I’d only see a black screen. I could boot into safe mode, but after two days of research trying to fix this problem, I gave up.

5. I tried to restore back to the TrueImage backup from the night before this problem, but guess what? Same corrupt MBR and Vista problems. Did I mention that I overwrote the TrueImage 10 daily backup with the TrueImage 11 daily backup?

6. I fought with it all day, then gave up and installed a “clean” image of Vista for this machine. Unfortunately I had an ATI video card in this machine originally, and now have a NVIDIA card…and Vista really didn’t like that. Even after uninstalling the ATI drivers, when applying the 34 patches since I made this build, Vista would bluescreen over and over. Crash crash.

7. So I gave up on EVERYTHING and did a clean install of Vista from scratch and have been re-building everything.

The ultimate irony here? I couldn’t get the client software for Windows Home Server to work, which is why I was still using Acronis TrueImage. If the Windows Home Server software had worked, I wouldn’t have bought TrueImage 11 and been put in this situation. :-(

[Filip Norrgard]

Is this a bad Vista week or not? :)

You see, in my feed reader today was this similar post from PocketNow: "My Computer Crashed Today... (http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=4499)"

Furthermore, my Vista computer had problems booting and blue screened on crcdisk.sys on Monday. (I solved that by choosing the "Last Known Good Configuration" option in the boot menu, since Vista repair wouldn't/couldn't fix that problem either. )

Nah, me thinks this is just coincidence... ;)

[bmhome1]

True Image gets superior support from Acronis and their user forums have world-class expertise, there's surely help avoiding repeats.

[Jeremy Charette]

Yup, bad Vista week. Woke up to my Vista machine not displaying anything onscreen. Hit the power button, shut down, reboot. BIOS splash comes up. Then nothing. I can see the hard drive booting.

Hard reset (pulled the power cord), boot into safe mode. System restore to before the update this morning. Still black screen.

Finally said "screw it", left the machine off and came to the office.

[brianchris]

The ultimate irony here? I couldn’t get the client software for Windows Home Server to work, which is why I was still using Acronis TrueImage. If the Windows Home Server software had worked, I wouldn’t have bought TrueImage 11 and been put in this situation. :-(

Persoanlly, I think the bigger irony was TrueImage 11 is designed to protect your system, instead brought your system to its knees.

By the way, I'm assuming the Home Server is still in beta, right? I'm waiting for any info on an official release (although, after reading this, maybe I shouldn't be ;)

[Jason Dunn]

Is this a bad Vista week or not? :) You see, in my feed reader today was this similar post from PocketNow: "My Computer Crashed Today... (http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=4499)"

Ouch! RAID 0 is really asking for trouble, so you're vulnerable to data loss. Western Digital Raptor drives are great though, I've been using them for years and never had one fail on me, so I'm surprised Brandon lost one.

I solved that by choosing the "Last Known Good Configuration" option in the boot menu, since Vista repair wouldn't/couldn't fix that problem either.

Yeah, I tried that but, sadly, because the system would go to the login screen and actually let me log in, Vista considered this a "good" configuration...and for whatever reason, there were ZERO system restore points. I know I had it turned on, but somehow it wasn't available. It really sucked - Vista definitely let me down. :?

[Jason Dunn]

True Image gets superior support from Acronis and their user forums have world-class expertise, there's surely help avoiding repeats.

I'm not so sure about that...I'd agree that the peer to peer support is great in the forums, but from Acronis itself? I'd have to disagree with that - it took them over 24 hours to get back to me, which I don't think is acceptable. And paying $29 for the ability to get someone on the phone to support a $39 product is idiotic.

It's been discussed in the forums many times, but it seems like whenever a new version of TrueImage comes out, it's very buggy and breaks a lot of things - it's almost like they do public beta testing with shipping products. :roll:

[Jason Dunn]

Persoanlly, I think the bigger irony was TrueImage 11 is designed to protect your system, instead brought your system to its knees.

Yes, irony was plentiful in this situation - as was my cursing. :lol:

By the way, I'm assuming the Home Server is still in beta, right? I'm waiting for any info on an official release (although, after reading this, maybe I shouldn't be ;)

You should see Windows Home Server available from places like NewEgg.com pretty soon...I'd guess by the end of October. And it really is a good product, the beta had no trouble connecting to the server, but I switched routers and somehow this new one isn't as WHS friendly.

[Jason Dunn]

Hard reset (pulled the power cord), boot into safe mode. System restore to before the update this morning. Still black screen.

Wow. Sounds very bizarre...no error message, just a black screen? Power surge? Damaged motherboard? Brutal trying to trouble-shoot those problems. :-(

[Jeremy Charette]

Yeah, dunno what happened, but I removed the ATI x300 card that was in this machine and switched to the on-board Intel integrated graphics, and the problem seems to have resolved itself. Strange. Not running any graphics intensive apps, so no big loss.