Image C:

[OldGuy]

OldGuy wrote on 6/10/2013 :

Not fooling about any of this. It is the most frustration I have had in
years.

1) Remember the Linux Mint and the Macrium rescue disks allowed looking at
the C: drive and I saw all the files. Strange.
2) The MS original, and it is as marked by me the original, install disk
reports the C: Disk 0 as funny.
3) all BIOS voltages are stable. watched for a while and they jiggled only a
little bit.
4) I do have 4 Internal SATA HHDs. All show in BIOS
5) the DVD BluRay drives are on the secondary SATA ports. Both now show in
BIOS.
6) no IDE in there.
7) boot drive0 stayed stable at "good" DVD drive but all other boot drives
came alive (not disabled) but in wrong order.
I wonder if the BIOS detects that the "C:" drive is bad and turns on all boot
drives to allow a possible good boot from some other drive. Hmmm.
8) the MB is 1.5 years old as is the C: 500G drive. Battery bad?
9) the BIOS changes between boots. I do not cycle power between boots.
I have only cycled power twice through multiple boots. Back has always been
powered, never unplugged.
10) MB is a MSI 890FXA-GD65 military class. AMD quad CPU. 8GRam
11) I looked at every setting in BIOS all but one looked correct.
This MB has something called 2.2G Infinity. It was enabled so I disabled it.
Not sure what that is but I think it was enabled since day one. MSI website
only talks about 3G+Infinity and does not explain well what that means. On
US website. My interpretation is that my MB is not the latest revision and
the 2.2TB Infinity means that it can boot from up to a 2.2TB drive to
Windows. I do not use this so I disabled it now.
12) NO overclocking profiles. I do not need overclocking so I never do that.
13) I use either F10 to save (Yes) and exit or the BIOS selection of Save and
Exit so I do always save.
14) I do not loose other BIOS setting when I turned off the power switch but
I did not unplug.
15) There is one large 1.5G USB drive connected.

15) 1.5TB USB drive.

Desperate times.
I used the Win 7 install CD to delete all partitions on Disk 0.
Then it allowed me to install. would not let me format but it did not
keep me from a fresh install.
Installing right now. We'll see.

I wonder if there is a change that the Macrium recovery will work or am
I at square one?

I will see what the install does.
I need to do something to see if it will get me some place where I can
figure out what to do next. New MB, new C: HDD, what?

 

[OldGuy]

Oh brother!

Win 7 finished install with no errors .... but ...

I tried to connect to the internet and it says i have no network
adapter (that is part of the MB). or needs drivers. This did not
happen on the original install 1.5 years ago. So maybe the MB is bad.
It is 1.5 yrs into a 3yr warrantee.

I think i may just give up and go buy a new computer. wadayathink?
Throw in the towel?

All the internal HDDs and the 1.5TB USB drive seem perfectly OK as I
did explore all of them.

The second SATA Blu Ray drive is again missing.

 

[OldGuy]

Your MB didn't come with a CD containing drivers?

I did look in the MB box and found extra cables, manual etc but no CD.
I do need to look elsewhere. I have another PC on line so i could
download from MSI but it is getting too frustrating and spending money
can make it all better and remove all worries. Thinking.....

 

[OldGuy]

Hi, OldGuy.

Back up! You must have skipped HDD 101! ;>{

As Stan Brown says down-thread, there can be ONLY ONE C: Partition. At
least, only one each time we boot; if we boot into a different OS or a
different installation of the same OS, that OS might refer to a different
partition as "Drive C:".

The confusion comes largely from the ambiguous use of the term "drive". When
we say "Drive C:", we are actually referring to Partition C:, NOT to the
entire HDD of which that partition is only a part. (This is not really our
fault; everybody misuses "drive" in this way, even Microsoft. We just have
to recognize the fact and deal with it every day.)

I think you mean the 3 partitions on Disk 0, which you call HD 1. You have
only a single Drive C: on that disk. Your Disk 0 has 3 partitions: Drive
W:, Drive C: and a partition that will probably be assigned a "drive" letter
when you format it. But Windows does not actually require "drive" letters;
it functions just fine without them because it really thinks of that as "Disk
0, Partition 2.)

I've never used Macrium (although I've often seen it recommended). Since
about Windows 2000, I've rarely needed a disk management program other than
Windows Disk Management. If you run that (diskmgmt.msc) and study carefully
what it tries to show, the relationship between "disks" and "drives" (which
usually should be called "partitions") should become clear.

(By the way, do I qualify as an OldGuy? I'll be 78 next month.)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2012 (Build 16.4.3508.0205) in Win8 Pro

Hi OlderGuy. I am 70.

Well it is confusiong to me too.
One app calls the 500G disk 1 and another disk 0.
But they both show as 500G, the only 500G in the box..
And yes Win 7 install disk show those three partitions.

So I deleted the partitions and got a 500G partition and installed to
that but now Win 7 pro says i have no net adapter (that is built into
the MB). Yikes!

And both Macrium and the Linux Mint CD boot and show the C: drive as
there and complete but Win 7 Pro install CD says no go, not a
compatible drive. I used the Macrium to do an immediate image. That
is there.
Maybe I'll try to restore from that. What have i got to loose except
more hair and time.

 

[Dave]

Hi, OldGuy.

To answer the original question, namely should the old guy backup
everything macrium has decided should be backed up for a complete system
restore.
What needs to be imaged and restored will vary depending on vendor.
The main windows partition will normally be drive C. If, as is common
these days, you have a recovery partition that will not normally be
assigned a drive letter, which is of absolutely no consequence when you
are imaging, drive letters are assigned by the OS. This usually runs
around 20GB and would be NTFS but wouldn't have to be.
Dell, at least also have a very small partition called Utility or
something like that, again no drive letter assignmentand is fat16.

You need to backup everything at least the first time, after that the
recovery and utility partitions won't normally change. I always backup all
three since I'm not going to go looking thru' more than one backup file
looking for what might be missing from the latest backup.

The primary boot partition is the recovery partition. Using Dell as an
example, this permits Dell to take control prior to windows loading if you
so indicate by some fast finger fatting between the time you get the Dell
logo and the time you hit the f12 key. Assuming it's your lucky day, you
can now pick the boot device, a very nice Dell special, or you can bring
up a menu that will let you do some system checking and repair or even
restore the complete system from a saved image (hence the size of the
partition). In the case of Dell, you can also rum some hardware checks the
software for which is stored in that little utility partition.

I've restored everything from macrium a few times to cleanse the system of
some previous installs, but mainly to make sure I can.
Even if I have the paid version I would still do full backups for the
system partitions. You can also restore the MBR.

One of the very nice features of macrium is you can access and restore any
file or structure from the backup via a virtual drive.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

After serious thinking Gene E. Bloch wrote :

Macrium allows checking or unchecking each of the partitions on Disk 1
so I could do any combination of images.
I am now imaging all of Disk 1.
I'll later see if I can do a restore for one or many that went into the
image.

Meantime, reading this thread, I have to agree with Paul (and anyone I
haven't read yet) that your MB seems sick

1. You describe symptoms of a bad CMOS battery, but they happen even
when you don't power down. Most strange.

2. You've had three HDs fail in a row. That is a very unlikely scenario,
and makes me wonder:

a. Is your MB killing drives?

- or -

b. Is your MB just losing its ability to recognize drives?

You mentioned being frustrated. No kidding!

One thing to try is plugging the dead drives into another computer (via
a USB adapter - or even USB on the flaky computer) to see if they are
really dead, rather than just not recognized by the bad MB.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Hi OlderGuy. I am 70.

Well it is confusiong to me too.
One app calls the 500G disk 1 and another disk 0.

That's normal. Also stupid, IMO.

It's common in programming languages to count or index from 0, and
different applications either follow that idea or try to be more human
by indexing from 1 in their info displays.

I think there is an official numbering scheme (and I think it does start
from 0), so programmers ought to show their results accordingly, hence
consistently.

But they both show as 500G, the only 500G in the box..
And yes Win 7 install disk show those three partitions.

So I deleted the partitions and got a 500G partition and installed to
that but now Win 7 pro says i have no net adapter (that is built into
the MB). Yikes!

I think the unlettered system reserved partition is supposed to be there
for booting to work properly.

And both Macrium and the Linux Mint CD boot and show the C: drive as
there and complete but Win 7 Pro install CD says no go, not a
compatible drive. I used the Macrium to do an immediate image. That
is there.
Maybe I'll try to restore from that. What have i got to loose except
more hair and time.

Restore the reserved partition too. Maybe that will help with the hair.

This thread has made me start thinking that in your situation, I'd
probably get a new system - or at least a new MB, including a new CPU.
Remember, though, that this is 100% subjective advice.

 

[Krypto]

That's normal. Also stupid, IMO.

It's common in programming languages to count or index from 0, and
different applications either follow that idea or try to be more human
by indexing from 1 in their info displays.

I think there is an official numbering scheme (and I think it does start
from 0), so programmers ought to show their results accordingly, hence
consistently.


I think the unlettered system reserved partition is supposed to be there
for booting to work properly.


Restore the reserved partition too. Maybe that will help with the hair.

This thread has made me start thinking that in your situation, I'd
probably get a new system - or at least a new MB, including a new CPU.
Remember, though, that this is 100% subjective advice.

I kinda lost track of this discussion so I am tacking this on.

Old Guy, my advice is to take it to a shop for diagnosis. I wouldn't
replace anything until a pro takes a look at your computer. The repair
can often be something simple. I have a fairly good idea what is wrong
but without your computer on my bench I can't say for sure.

Krypto

 

[Wolf K]

On 6/10/2013 2:54 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
OldGuy wrote:
[...]

That's normal. Also stupid, IMO.

It's common in programming languages to count or index from 0, and
different applications either follow that idea or try to be more human
by indexing from 1 in their info displays.

I think there is an official numbering scheme (and I think it does start
from 0), so programmers ought to show their results accordingly, hence
consistently.

The BIOS starts with HD0, which is the drive attached to the lowest
numbered connection (IDE or SATA plug). AFAIK, all OSs start with HD0,
(or in *nix speak "sdev0").

In Windows go to Administrative Tools --> Computer Management -->
Storage/Disk Management, and you'll find the HDDs listed from 0 to
whatever, then the CD-ROMs, then the attached drives. Any partitions
will be shown for each physical disk, lettered in the order in which
they were created, with CDROMs and USB flash drives interpolated in the
order in which they were attached. If you can't see this disk/partition
layout, something is seriously wrong, and I'd add my vote to the guess
that the motherboard is failing.

HTH

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I kinda lost track of this discussion

You're probably not unique

 

[Wolf K]

On 6/10/2013 3:57 PM, Wolf K wrote:
[snip explanation of numbering/lettering]

In Windows go to Administrative Tools --> Computer Management -->
Storage/Disk Management, and you'll find the HDDs listed from 0 to
whatever, then the CD-ROMs, then the attached drives. Any partitions
will be shown for each physical disk, lettered in the order in which
they were created, with CDROMs and USB flash drives interpolated in the
order in which they were attached. If you can't see this disk/partition
layout, something is seriously wrong, and I'd add my vote to the guess
that the motherboard is failing.

HTH

On this box I have:

Disk 0: [250GB] D: (XP-Pro leftovers) & I: (Media files)
Disk 1: [250 GB] J: (working data backup)
Disk 2: [1,000 GB] C: (Win 8 Pro) & F: (pictures) & G: (Scans) & H:
(working data)
Disk 3: [500GB] R: (external drive, backup for F: and G
CD-ROM 0 [internal CD drive]

Not shown is the 2nd CD drive (external), and another external HD, which
are turned off at present.

HTH

 

[Paul]

Not fooling about any of this. It is the most frustration I have had in
years.

1) Remember the Linux Mint and the Macrium rescue disks allowed looking
at the C: drive and I saw all the files. Strange.
2) The MS original, and it is as marked by me the original, install disk
reports the C: Disk 0 as funny.
3) all BIOS voltages are stable. watched for a while and they jiggled
only a little bit.
4) I do have 4 Internal SATA HHDs. All show in BIOS
5) the DVD BluRay drives are on the secondary SATA ports. Both now show
in BIOS.
6) no IDE in there.
7) boot drive0 stayed stable at "good" DVD drive but all other boot
drives came alive (not disabled) but in wrong order.
I wonder if the BIOS detects that the "C:" drive is bad and turns on all
boot drives to allow a possible good boot from some other drive. Hmmm.
8) the MB is 1.5 years old as is the C: 500G drive. Battery bad?
9) the BIOS changes between boots. I do not cycle power between boots.
I have only cycled power twice through multiple boots. Back has always
been powered, never unplugged.
10) MB is a MSI 890FXA-GD65 military class. AMD quad CPU. 8GRam
11) I looked at every setting in BIOS all but one looked correct.
This MB has something called 2.2G Infinity. It was enabled so I
disabled it. Not sure what that is but I think it was enabled since day
one. MSI website only talks about 3G+Infinity and does not explain well
what that means. On US website. My interpretation is that my MB is not
the latest revision and the 2.2TB Infinity means that it can boot from
up to a 2.2TB drive to Windows. I do not use this so I disabled it now.
12) NO overclocking profiles. I do not need overclocking so I never do
that.
13) I use either F10 to save (Yes) and exit or the BIOS selection of
Save and Exit so I do always save.
14) I do not loose other BIOS setting when I turned off the power switch
but I did not unplug.
15) There is one large 1.5TB USB drive connected.

890FXA-GD65 manual

http://download2.msi.com/files/downloads/mnu_exe/E7640v3.1.zip

Board comes in several revisions. I selected revision 3.1

Drivers are available here, for downloading with another computer.

http://us.msi.com/product/mb/890FXA-GD65.html#/?div=Driver&os=Win7 64

*******

The manual says you have an "Overclocking Profile" storage feature.
The manual does not explain what settings are saved.

Such a feature, if triggered, could override the current CMOS RAM
contained settings. The interface for the Overclocking Profile feature,
does not show how it is triggered, and how the computer knows what
profile is currently being used. It should be passive, and only
come into play while you interact with it in the BIOS screen
(... load or save a profile).

That's the only thing that stands out right now in the manual,
to explain the weird symptoms. Your board is not as ordinary
as mine is (mine has no profile feature).

*******

We still don't have any evidence that the motherboard is bad.
If the CMOS battery is flat, as long as the power is switched on
at the back of the computer (and the PC is plugged in), any
BIOS settings should survive from one reboot to the next. The
+5VSB provides power in place of the CMOS battery - diode
ORing ensures one of the two power sources is used. If both
the PC power is completely switched off, and the CMOS battery is
below 2.4V, then you lose all the CMOS RAM settings. Since you
have an "Overclocking Profile" feature, with room to store
six profiles, that tells me the motherboard BIOS flash chip
is storing that info. And restoring a profile, can bring back
the settings (flash contents transferred to CMOS RAM). Of course,
you have to store things in the profiles, to be able to restore
them later. And if you flash upgrade the BIOS, that invalidates
all the profile storage (the settings are no longer aligned with
the data definitions of the new BIOS).

When you flash upgrade a BIOS, it's a good idea to do something
like "Load Defaults" or even use the Clear CMOS jumper, after
the flash. That can clean out the old CMOS contents, but you
then have to re-enter your boot order and other custom settings.
But I really don't think that would account for the settings
changing on their own. All I can see that would be responsible
at the moment, is the "Overclocking Profile" feature, or
maybe an actual overclocking failure detection that resets
the BIOS CMOS settings.

If it was my motherboard, I would be Googling "890FXA-GD65"
and looking for forums where they discuss bad BIOS versions,
and what version is a good one to load into the motherboard.
The MSI site, I think they have a forum. You can use an
external search engine, and try

site:forum-en.msi.com 890FXA-GD65

and see what pops up. This is an example of the discussions there.

http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=158332.0

What you're looking for, is evidence that your current
BIOS version has a bug in it.

*******

To override the boot order, you can press the "popup boot"
function key at startup. The MSI manual does not document
it. The <Del> key allows you to enter the BIOS. That
fact should be displayed on the first (startup) BIOS
screen. You can press the Pause/Break key, to make
the text stand still so you can read it. Normally,
a BIOS screen will mention the usage of two keys,
and we know one of the keys is <Del> to enter BIOS.
But we don't know what the other, popup boot key is.

To see the text underneath, you have to set

Full Screen Logo Display [Disabled]

I have computers here, where the key to press for popup boot
is F8 or F12. I don't know what MSI uses. If you figure out
what key to use for popup boot, you can then use the
cursor keys to select something to boot from.

Your manual also mentions an "Infinity" feature, for
supporting disk drives over 2.2TB. Since you don't
have any drives bigger than 2.2TB, you might check
and see if that can be disabled. With the PDF manual
open in Acrobat Reader, search for "2.2" as a string,
to find the BIOS setting. The word Infinity has a space
character embedded in it, which prevents search from
finding the word Infinity. Since I can't find any
other documentation in the manual, I can't tell you
what such a feature would be doing.

Paul

 

[Paul]

There can't be three C: partitions. Windows insists that partition
letters be unique.

This is from his original post. I think these are what
he sees in the Macrium menu. And it would be OK to back
them all up, as two of the partitions are tiny ones.

Quoting from first post:

"The three partitions look like this:
HD: 1 Drive Letter W, FAT32(LBA) 96MB, Free 63MB
HD: 1 Drive Letter N/A. Unformatted 128MB free
HD: 1 Drive Letter C. NTFS 465GB Free 176GB
"

Paul

 

[Jim]

On 6/10/2013 2:54 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
OldGuy wrote:
[...]

That's normal. Also stupid, IMO.

It's common in programming languages to count or index from 0, and
different applications either follow that idea or try to be more human
by indexing from 1 in their info displays.

I think there is an official numbering scheme (and I think it does start
from 0), so programmers ought to show their results accordingly, hence
consistently.

The BIOS starts with HD0, which is the drive attached to the lowest
numbered connection (IDE or SATA plug). AFAIK, all OSs start with HD0,
(or in *nix speak "sdev0").

In Windows go to Administrative Tools --> Computer Management -->
Storage/Disk Management, and you'll find the HDDs listed from 0 to
whatever, then the CD-ROMs, then the attached drives. Any partitions
will be shown for each physical disk, lettered in the order in which
they were created, with CDROMs and USB flash drives interpolated in the
order in which they were attached. If you can't see this disk/partition
layout, something is seriously wrong, and I'd add my vote to the guess
that the motherboard is failing.

HTH

It's very rare for a motherboard to fail especially if it's a good
motherboard, so he should try every troubleshooting procedure
available.

In Old Guy's first posts his problem was not being able to boot.
He got the flashing cursor and blank screen.

He also went on to say that he was 'unable' to get to the command
prompt from Windows 7 DVD. He said he could get not get repair, only
upgrade or install. He should burn a Windows 7 System Repair disk on
another Win 7 computer and try booting with that, it should give him
the command prompt needed to run Bootrec.exe. and fix the boot.
Old Guy should try all of the Bootrec commands. Bootrec /rebuildbcd
usually works for me. Bootrec /fixmbr or Bootrec /fixboot may also
work.

I disregarded all the info he gave about seeing 3 partitions in C.
with Linux Mint etc. Too much info. Keep it simple and try the easy
fixes first.

So far, Old Guy has not been able to fix the boot using Bootrec.exe
commands, therefore the bootfile is still corrupt. It would be best to
fix the boot via the command prompt and the System Repair disk should
get him there.

If all else fails Old Guy can:

(Have only one hard drive in the machine until boot is fixed).

- Boot from Windows 7 DVD
- Choose a new installation (ignore the warning about the "window.old"
folder)
- ATTENTION! Cancel the installation progress after the first
installation-point is finished (copying the system-files).
- Restart and Boot a Windows 7 Recovery DVD
- Do a system restore
-Done

Still not booting?

Boot into gparted and make sure partition with windows is flagged as
boot.

If you still have the problem I would take it to a pro for diagnosis
then go have a beer.

Jim

 

[Char Jackson]

So I deleted the partitions and got a 500G partition and installed to
that but now Win 7 pro says i have no net adapter (that is built into
the MB). Yikes!

It's true, and normal, that you wouldn't have a usable network adapter until
you install a driver for it.

And both Macrium and the Linux Mint CD boot and show the C: drive as
there and complete but Win 7 Pro install CD says no go, not a
compatible drive. I used the Macrium to do an immediate image. That
is there.
Maybe I'll try to restore from that. What have i got to loose except
more hair and time.

Now that you have a shiny new system, I hope you won't send your old system
to the landfill. There's very likely nothing physically wrong with it, so
maybe someone else could use it.