Restore Anywhere failure for VISTA | BESR 8.0 Desktop Edition

[PeterJT]

Hi Everyone, 

Has anyone successfully restored Windows Vista Business to a dissimilar hardware using Restore Anywhere of BESR 8.0 [ version 8.0.2 ] Desktop Edition? 

The same .V2i image works fine if I do a restore to the same hardware from which the image was taken. When I try the Restore Anywhere option on a different box, restore phase goes through completely but after the  first reboot and another 10 to 15 min of "..please wait……" from Vista, I get a Windows Installation error. This error asks me to restart the computer but then this becomes just a repeat process.

I will try a few other things, meanwhile if any of you out there who has done a Vista Restore Anywhere successfully, could you please drop a line that will immensely boost my interest / confidence J ??

Cheers, 

Peter

[PeterJT]

The actual error message is “Windows could not parse the unattended answer file for pass [specialize]. The settings specified in the answer file cannot be applied. The error was detected while processing settings for component [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup.”

Any thoughts, anyone?

Peter

[AJT]

After restore with Restore Anyware, open a command prompt from within the SRD. Run the chkdsk utility, reboot. Does this help?

[David_F]

I have been able to successfully restore a Windows Vista Business system to dissimilar hardware with BESR 8.03. This operating system is a part of the SCL list: http://support.veritas.com/docs/297170 and support for it has been available since version 7.

Not able to parse the Sysprep.ini file that BESR places in the sysprep folder on the root of the restored system drive, might be caused either by file system corruption on the source disk that was then brought to this one, or corruption on the source system's registry preventing the retargeting engine to correctly parse the information needed into the sysprep.ini file. See if that file is present on the restored system by booting back into the recovery environment. Open it up in notepad and see if (1) it can be opened and (2) If the contents syntax is in proper order.

BESR 8.5 can restore an image without invoking the mini-setup wizard that parses this sysprep.ini file and may get you past this issue.

[ioniancat21]

I also suffered with a similar issue restoring a Vista machine to different hardware and received the same error message. I didn't find a way to resolve it and instead fixed the damaged hardware. I did read in another part of the forum about holding the SHIFT key down while checking the "Restore Anywhere" reveals more options. It was then said to choose "dump existing drivers" and try again. Another user said to look for a file named "diagerr.xml" located in the %systemdrive%\Windows\Panther folder, although I didn't get to try it and this referred to v7.0 so I'm unsure as to whether these file paths still exist. Anyway, the "diagerr.xml" file contains logs on where your restore failed. Maybe this can help you address your issues.

I personally have restored almost 40 different machines to different hardware and Vista provides BESR a greater challenge in this task. I will be testing this feature using Windows Server 2008, which is similar to Vista. I'll post my findings here when I get a chance to use the Lab at work.

LINK TO REFERENCED FORUM POST
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/besr-restore-anywhere-moving-vista-between-computers

[AJT]

When troubleshooting Windows Vista above Restore Anyware problems take a look at the setup log files in the %systemroot%\Panther and %systemroot%\Panther\UnattendGC folders.