Make USB HD bootable using R&R?

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RBob · #1 Post by **RBob** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 9:57 am

Running XP Pro SP2 on an R51.

I've started doing R&R backups to a USB-connected external HD. R&R always chides me that the disk isn't bootable and asks me if I'd like to make it so. If I let it try, or if I run the "Create rescue media" utility, I get a couple of directories created on the disk with a bunch of files in them, but the activity doesn't result in a bootable drive. Attempts to boot from the drive simply say "NTLDR not found" (more or less), which is correct; it's really not there. Examining the drive, it's certainly not set up to be bootable.

So, is there something else that should be going on here that's not working, or is the entire process simply flawed?

What I find from searching USENET and Web sources suggest that making a USB HD bootable is really quite tricky.

ashleys · #2 Post by **ashleys** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 3:30 am

I've created a bootable external USB device without any problem on various versions of Rescue and Recovery, including the latest (V3.1).

I've got an external USB drive with two partitions on it. The first contains my bootable RnR version and my RnR backups. The second partition contains my normal xcopy incrementals.
Whenever I upgrade RnR I always recreate my bootable version on the first partition. To do this, I run the create rescue media task and when prompted, make the target volume the first partition on the USB device.

If you're not on the latest version of RnR I'd recommend installing it. It can be downloaded from the following link,

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... Q2QAK.html

RBob · #3 Post by **RBob** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:29 pm

ashleys wrote:Whenever I upgrade RnR I always recreate my bootable version on the first partition. To do this, I run the create rescue media task and when prompted, make the target volume the first partition on the USB device.

If you're not on the latest version of RnR I'd recommend installing it. It can be downloaded from the following link,

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... Q2QAK.html

So, you're saying that it ought to work, and the drive should be made bootable.

I believe I am using the latest R&R version; it says it's 3.10.0022.00. The "Create Rescue & Recovery Media" utility doesn't seem to have its own version number.

Grumble...

ashleys · #4 Post by **ashleys** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 2:40 pm

Rbob,
Just to make sure, I thought I'd test this again.

I got an old 20Gb hard drive that I had lying around and popped in an enclosure.
I formatted it quickly and then attached it to my Tpad (T30 running W2K SP4 plus reach ahead service).

Ran the Create Rescue media. Selected the USB device as the target device and unchecked the "Do not destroy data" box.

The drive was formatted and then all the files and folders were copied. The task ends with a dialog box saying "Process completed successfully"

Viewed the drive manually (which was now mounted as my Z: drive with a volume id of TNT_RNR) and it had the following,

MiniNT folder
Preboot folder
Autoexec.bat
Boot.ini
Bootsect.dos
Fcopy.ini
Formatted.tag
Ntdetect.com
Ntldr
Peldr
Win51
Win51IP
Win51IP.SP2

Rebooted the machine (ensuring I'd selected the USB device as the first hard drive to boot from) and Rescue and Recovery started.

So it all works from what I can see.

Ashley.

RBob · #5 Post by **RBob** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 9:48 am

ashleys wrote:
Viewed the drive manually (which was now mounted as my Z: drive with a volume id of TNT_RNR) and it had the following,

MiniNT folder
Preboot folder
Autoexec.bat
Boot.ini
Bootsect.dos
Fcopy.ini
Formatted.tag
Ntdetect.com
Ntldr
Peldr
Win51
Win51IP
Win51IP.SP2

Well, when I do it, all I have is MiniNT, Preboot, Fcopy.ini and Formatted.tag. That certainly explains why it won't boot.

I uninstalled R&R, re-installed it, ran it again with the same results.

Oh well ...

RBob · #6 Post by **RBob** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 3:04 pm

RBob wrote: Well, when I do it, all I have is MiniNT, Preboot, Fcopy.ini and Formatted.tag. That certainly explains why it won't boot.

I uninstalled R&R, re-installed it, ran it again with the same results.

Oh well ...

Watching it run, I saw that it seemed to stop well before it should have; the sliding completeness scale was nowhere near the end.

Looking at the service partition with partition magic, it reports many cross-linked files and lost clusters.

So, even though the service partition boots up and loads, there's something nasty in there.

Is there any way to re-build the service partition? I still have the first set of recovery media I made when I got the machine a long time ago.

christopher_wolf · #7 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 5:48 pm

If you have the RnR disks you burned awhile ago, you can rebuild the entire service partition.

Have you run a check on the HDD it is writing to to see if there are any errors on it?

RBob · #8 Post by **RBob** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 6:21 pm

christopher_wolf wrote:If you have the RnR disks you burned awhile ago, you can rebuild the entire service partition.

Have you run a check on the HDD it is writing to to see if there are any errors on it?

Can I re-build just the service partition without affecting anything else? Are all the functions documented in detail somewhere? I'd like to know what to expect before diving in.

I'll see if I can find a non-destructive surface test around somewhere and see what's going on in there.

ashleys · #9 Post by **ashleys** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 3:29 am

Can't say about rebuilding the service partition as I removed mine immediately I got my Tpad and have no reason to re-instate it.

I'd look in the Event Log for any errors related to disk errors.

Make USB HD bootable using R&R?

Make USB HD bootable using R&R?

My service partition is trashed

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