I have a mess on my hands.....

[grantm]

Hello:
I have a real problem I am dealing with.
Lenovo T61 laptop
Windows XP (32 bit)
All updates (software, hardware, drivers)
Although I have a Gold Plan and marked my situation as Critical, no response from tech staff. Perhaps anyone here can solve the problem. Here is what happens:

Startup sequence
1. Lenovo splash screen
2. Rollback screen
3. Try to rollback to latest snapshot - doesn't happen.
4. Screen showing "We apologize for the inconvenience........ options to start normal, last known config, safe mode, etc. I try all options – no luck.
5. Then the blue screen with a 0x000000007B message
6. Blue screen for 15 seconds
7. Starts over again

Thanks in advance for your help

[HDS-Jacob]

Hello grantm,

Welcome to the Horizon DataSys forum. I apologize for the inconvenience. When was the ticket submitted? Rest assured, the support team should be getting back to you asap. I'll flag this for Nick and let's see if we can get some suggestions for you here as well.

Thanks,
Jacob

[Owl]

No matter how good any software is, it can't survive hardware problems and that's what I think has happened here - probably something to do with the disc.

What to do now depends on your attitude to time. If you really must ressurect the Lenovo, be prepared to spend a lot of time. If you have urgent work to do, go and buy another one. If you have urgent work already done on the disc in the dead machine and no back-up, get another machine and a USB disc adapter (eg this: Maplin) then see if you can read the old disc from the new machine. It will probably be quicker to just do the work again if possible.

Once the pressure is off you can try to salvage the Lenovo in "slow time", but with a suspect hard disc I would be inclined to fit a new one and reinstall from scratch. Once you have another machine running (by whatever means), if the old disc doesn't read straight-off (assuming it spins at all) there are various utilities that will help you extract whatever is extractable short of sending it to a data recovery company.

[grantm]

The hard disk is fine. It was installed last month with a clean install using the of Lenovo startup disks. Now, any hard drive can fail the next day but the disk is booting up. I removed the drive and hooked it up via USB to another computer. I can see the partitions and I can access the files except for the ones in the Rollback partition.

This is a software issue with Rollback RX - it is supposed to rollback to a previous snapshot and it's not doing that.

[pvsurfer]

Originally Posted by grantm

This is a software issue with Rollback RX - it is supposed to rollback to a previous snapshot and it's not doing that.

Hi grantm,

I suggest uninstalling Rollback Rx from its boot-up console (to your last known good snapshot) in order to evaluate the state of your system. Please let us know the results.

Good luck,
pv

-----
PS. Rollback Rx provides extremely convenient interim system backups (snapshots), but it doesn't take the place of a disk-image backup. The latter has a vital place in good 'PC-housekeeping' practices!

[grantm]

PV - I tried that several times with different snapshots. See an earlier post about this. Occassionally, I get a request for activation. I entered the code Horizon gave me but it doesn't work. I thought with a Gold support subscription, I would get a call back but it hasn't happened despite leaving a voice mail to tech support at corporate.

I would be willing to pay $100 to get this problem resolved.

[pvsurfer]

From my own recent experience I know that RBRx activation issues are a PITA. Until HDS support finds the time to get back to you, I would just uninstall RBRx and then boot your system to the 'Advanced (Safe Mode) Menu' by tapping f8 rapidly while booting. If you can get that far, select 'Last Known Good Configuration' and see if that helps to restore a stable system.

pv

[grantm]

pvsurfer:

I tried the "known last configuration but I got he "blue screen" with the 7b warning. Rollback should be starting the program before that.

If I uninstall the Rollback, will I be able to get the files between the last backup 1/3/2001 and date I encountered this problem 1/6/2011?

Thanks in advance for your or anyone else's answer to my problem. Much appreciated.

[pvsurfer]

Originally Posted by grantm

pvsurfer:

I tried the "known last configuration but I got he "blue screen" with the 7b warning. Rollback should be starting the program before that.

If I uninstall the Rollback, will I be able to get the files between the last backup 1/3/2001 and date I encountered this problem 1/6/2011?

Thanks in advance for your or anyone else's answer to my problem. Much appreciated.

Sorry to hear that, but I will suggest one more Safe Mode effort. Boot to the Advanced Selections Menu (by tapping f8 when system starts to boot) and select Safe Mode with Command Prompt. If you get there without a BSoD, run chkdsk /r. If that doesn't help, see below.*

Under normal circumstances, uninstalling RBRx to a snapshot taken subsequent to 1/6/11 should retain all of your files prior to the date & time of that snapshot, but your system is not behaving normally! As you don't want to lose certain files created/modified between your last backup and 1/6/11, I suggest getting a 'live' Boot CD (Linux or WinPE), set you BIOS' boot-sequence to boot from CD first, and then boot into that live OS. Once there you can find and copy those files to an external drive. Now you can attempt to uninstall RBRx and hope for the best.

Good luck,
pv

* Edit: Having tried the method in the 2nd paragraph, I now see it does not work - the live OS just sees the baseline snapshot (which I should have known)! But I still think that you should attempt the repairs I suggested in the 1st paragraph above.

[grantm]

I can access the files on my hard drive. I need

I took the drive out of my laptop and connected it via USB to another computer. I cannot find any files that were created after 12/21/2010 on the drive.

Here is the "select a snapshot" menu when I hit "home" as my laptop boots:

2010-12-21 Snapshot at installation
2010-12-28 Snapshot
2010-12-29 Snapshot
2010-12-30 Snapshot
2011-01-04 Snapshot

So when I take the hard drive out and connect it to another computer via USB, I cannot find any files AFTER 12/21/2010 even though there are 4 subsequent snapshots after it. I need the files after 12/21/2010. Are the files from 12/21/2010 - 1/4/2011 in a hidden folder or in a hidden partition on my hard drive?

Finding the files between 12/21/2011 and 1/4/2011 are all I'm interested in!