Boot Problems

[X1R1]

Hi all!! I expect someone can help me with this issue

ok here is my question

Recently I installed on my computer a program called "Acronis True Image home" said to be the best program around to make full PC backups.

This software has an option called "Acronis Safe Zone" in which I can specify a partition and the run the software from there (not from windows, standalone
version to backup in case of disaster).

So after I made this...now my computer only can see the XP partition and not the Linux one, no idea why. Maybe it got messed up with grub configuration or
something. So to try and recover my boot backto normal. I saw an option of this software called "Acronis OS selector" so I tought that if I was able to
manually select my linux partition it will be all back to normal. So I decide to rey it out. when the program opens up before any OS it lets you select
the OS that you want to boot. AND THERE was my UBUNTU partition! GREAT!!! everything is solved....WRONG!!! I select it and the screen goes black and start
printing out nines...yes..."9" lots of times...till it crashes.

I know my linux partition its still there untouched cause I can see it from this Acronis OS selector and I can see all the files in the partition. But no
boot.

I think the solution here is to insert the ubuntu cd, ADD this "acronis safe zone" (the one I explained at the beginning of this post) to GRUB and apply
changes, correct me if im wrong. The thing is I have no idea of how to do this. I think i need to edit grub.conf file but I dont know how.

I am willing to give any info you guys need in order to solve this! I want my linux back!!!

PS: After I saw that my linux partition was still there. I deactivated the acronis OS selector. So now the PC boots XP directly like if it was a standalone
OS on my system.


Thank you all for the help and sorry for the long post lol!!

[Happy_Man]

This is rather easy to solve. Download and burn the Super Grub Disk (google for it) and use that to restore GRUB. It should pick up the Acronis system and create a new GRUB menu for you.

[X1R1]

Thank you very much!!! I will download it right now...try it at night and then report back with results!

thanks for the tips!

[X1R1]

Here I am again. One thing I forgot to let you know is that I have both my linux and windows installation on one hard disk. and my acronis acronis one on another hard disk. When I insert the Super grub cd It does recognize the windows and linux partitions but does not recognize the acronis one. Any idea how to solve this?

regards

[KhurramM]

I think u are making a big mistake.

Just recover grub first to boot linux.

SGD may not show it. But u have to load it into the grub menu just like windows is loaded.

This u will have to experiment.

[VMC]

X,
I noticed your avatar states your using Jaunty. Do you know which file system you used to install it? In either case, it will have 256-byte inodes, and True Image doesn't understand that. Someone reported that version 9 or 10 of TI will work. If it's Ext4, for sure TI won't recognize it. And your right in the assessment that True Image is the best. Problem is after they moved away from 128-byte inodes TI was left behind. It will backup but only using byte by byte. Very time consuming.

I stayed away from the "Acronis Safe Zone" method and just used either the CD or USB flash as boot up using TI.

There's two other methods to backup your system. Part Magic's partimage (only if your not using Ext4), or Clonezilla, which I use now. The newest version will backup Ext4. It uses Partclone, which backs up using only used sectors. Very fast. Especially on restore. Not as fast as TI but not bad. And WAY faster than tar or dd backups.

[X1R1]

X,
I noticed your avatar states your using Jaunty. Do you know which file system you used to install it? In either case, it will have 256-byte inodes, and True Image doesn't understand that. Someone reported that version 9 or 10 of TI will work. If it's Ext4, for sure TI won't recognize it. And your right in the assessment that True Image is the best. Problem is after they moved away from 128-byte inodes TI was left behind. It will backup but only using byte by byte. Very time consuming.

I stayed away from the "Acronis Safe Zone" method and just used either the CD or USB flash as boot up using TI.

There's two other methods to backup your system. Part Magic's partimage (only if your not using Ext4), or Clonezilla, which I use now. The newest version will backup Ext4. It uses Partclone, which backs up using only used sectors. Very fast. Especially on restore. Not as fast as TI but not bad. And WAY faster than tar or dd backups.

Im using Ext3 filesystem. And what you just said makes a lot of sense. Cause If I use Super Grub disk It recovers the boot menu BUT deactivates the safe zone, and If I activate the safe zone I lose my GRUB boot. I have True Image home 2009, I think its the lastest version so It should handle everything as you just stated. what I want its to have the safe zone in a new 500Gb hard disk im going to buy, and choose at startup to either boot ubuntu, windows or the true image recovery manager.

sorry for the delayed response but I didnt have internet at home, but now im backk 100%

[X1R1]

Just found this on the SGD wiki

menu.lst

Just edit your favourite /boot/grub/menu.lst file and write something like:

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

title Fedora 11
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
boot

title Debian 5
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1
boot

and so on.

Now that /boot/grub/menu.lst you will be able to boot your distributions.

So...if my Acronis safe Zone is one hd1 (second hard disk) I think I could do:

title Acronis Recovery
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
boot

And so I will have this entry added to my menu.lst. right????

correct me if im wrong...

regards

[X1R1]

Please...can anyone confirm the entry? I dont want to do this without asking first.

regards

[VMC]

Please...can anyone confirm the entry? I dont want to do this without asking first.

regards

It looks right. Not sure if the Acronis partition is bootable, or rather how it gets booted. Just add that "title" entry. All it will do is error out if it doesn't work. Nothing lost. Come back with results. And exact error message if it does occur.