[SOLVED] Unbootable system after restore?

[ANE]

After restoring from Symantec Backup Exec Recovery Partition to new hardware, I get this error:

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware
configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path
and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk
configuration and your hardware reference manuals for
additional information.

This KB article says to check the boot.ini, but bootcfg /rebuild couldn't find a windows partition to rebuild the boot.ini to:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH87320&key=53847&actp=LIST

The original system is a Windows 2003 Server, as follows:

* D:\boot.ini, ntldr, etc. on first partition of the first physical drive

* C:\WINDOWS on the second partition of the first physical drive

Trying to restore D:\ to a new 850G drive on new server hardware, and C:\ to a new 300G SAS drive.  The restore goes through fine but it just doesn't boot.  I get the error above.

 Any suggestions?

Edit: solved by using another product - VMWare Converter to do the resize

[Markus_Koestler]

Have you enabled restore anywhere and activated the boot drive when restoring ?

[ANE]

Yes, and yes.

[Markus_Koestler]

According to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291980/en-us the bootcfg is not supported on W2K3. Anyway: have you tried to manually correct the boot.ini entries ?

[ANE]

Yes, just tried that, got it to boot by editing boot.ini with Knoppix.

Changed it from default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS to default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS and now it actually boots.

However, I get a new error, that says: LSASS.EXE System Error - Directory Service cannot start error 0xc00002e1. Press OK to shutdown the system. Use Recovery Console to diagnose further.

Directory Services Restore Mode refuses to start with the same error.  Am trying recovery console now - but not sure what to do once I get there?

[ANE]

Sure, the OS is Win2003 Server, and this is not a backup of an OEM setup from any major vendor.  There is no hidden OEM partition.

[ioniancat21]

Is this installation a backup of an OEM setup from the major vendors? The reason I ask is because if you do not back up all the hidden OEM partitions created and you attempt to restore, you will get similar failures since those hidden partitions affect the settings in boot.ini and other related files.

Also, it's kind of illogical to have your WINDOWS folder on one drive and your NTLDR and boot.ini files on another drive, which is probably having something to do with this issue. Probably during the Universal Restore process, BESR2010 is thinking that these files are all contained on one drive so when you restore and set the options for active partition, etc., the whole process becomes screwed and the custom paths for this tweak become undun.

If you get stuck, perform a Windows repair on the drive with most of the system files so the boot.ini and the other missing files can be restored to their default locations. Then you'll be able to perform a successful backup and restore.

[ioniancat21]

I noticed the OS version after and corrected above; also not having those pesky hidden partitions is helpful.

I can tell you this much about your error:

This problem occurs because one or more of the following conditions are true:

• The NTFS file system permissions on the root of the drive are too restrictive.
• The NTFS file system permissions on the NTDS folder are too restrictive.
• The drive letter of the volume that contains the Active Directory database has changed.
• The Active Directory database (Ntds.dit) is corrupted.
• The NTDS folder is compressed.

I highlighted the most probable cause of your LSASS error. Here's a MS article on all of it, hope it's helpful!!!

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=258062 

[ANE]

Thanks much, will try renaming HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices before doing a new image using Symantec BESR.  Then try again.

[Markus_Koestler]

Any updates ?

[ANE · Accepted solution]

Markus, thanks for the follow up.  The same thing happened even after changing the registry key.

Ended up giving up on Symantec and using VMWare ESXi.  Then used VMWare Converter to resize each partition in the image.  Works fine. 

[Markus_Koestler]

OK, so may i ask you to mark this post as solved ?

[ANE]

I just wrote solved in the subject of the first post - is that it or are there any other things I need to do to mark it as solved?

[Markus_Koestler]

There's a "mark as solved" link on the bottom of each post in this thread. Feel free to click this link on the post that contains the solution.