Drive Image 7 corrupts without even running a process!

In case anyone has an interest or ideas that could be helpful... help
would be appreciated and Symantec support is just useless.

I am having a problem with PowerQuest Drive Image 7, which appears to
be corrupting my system drive. I have experienced the situation
described here 3 times since I have owned the product, and I have
finally realized that Drive Image is causing the problem.

I each case, I have been using a Toshiba Tecra M1 notebook computer
with 768MB of RAM, 40GB hard drive, 1.4 GHz processor. My OS is
Windows XP Pro SP1 and the internal hard drive uses NTFS.

My goal has been to use Drive Image to create an image of my drive
immediately after I complete Toshiba's factory restore procedure and
make a few updates to the system, so that I don't need to repeat this
procedure in the future. It is important to note that, because I have
been using Drive Image after the factory restore, the system is totally
virgin at that point -- no applications have been installed and the
system runs perfectly.

Also note that I ran chkdsk on the system drive several times before
installing Drive Image 7, including immediately before installing the
product. As expected after the factory restore, there were no errors
found at all.

Here is what happens:

First, I install the .Net Framework 1.1, as required by Drive Image.
Then I install Drive Image. I open it and type in my serial number and
it is accepted. Then I close the program and install the 7.03 update
that I downloaded from your website. All of these steps are completed
without incident.

Next, I open Drive Image and start the wizard for creating an image. I
set everything up, and right before clicking the final 'Next' to start
the process, I decide to open a command prompt and run chkdsk again,
just to make sure that the drive is totally clean. Surprisingly, and
unfortunately, chkdsk now returns errors!

Did Drive Image corrupt the disk without even starting an operation?

So I cancel the image wizard and close Drive Image without having done
anything with it. Then I tell chkdsk to run with the /f switch at the
next startup, to fix the drive errors. I restart the computer, and it
does so.

I log into Windows and run chkdsk again. Now there are no errors on
the drive. I open Drive Image and start the wizard again. And again,
I wait until the end of the wizard, before the process starts, and run
chkdsk. And now there are errors on the drive again!!

So, again, I abort the wizard and close Drive Image. Now, however, it
appears that the drive has been severely corrupted. I have run chkdsk
/f (at startup) at least five times and the errors are still not
resolved!

I completed these steps this weekend on Sat and Sun (yesterday). I did
not realize until this weekend that problems that developed on the
computer after using Drive Image on two separate occasions earlier this
year are very similar and likely the result of using Drive Image.

I want a reliable imaging tool, but more importantly, right now I want
my computer repaired so that I do not have to complete the factory
restore again. If the drive is totally corrupted, then all of the time
I spent doing that this weekend was a waste!
It would be nice to understand why Drive Image would do this.

Brian Finkel wrote:
In case anyone has an interest or ideas that could be helpful... help
would be appreciated and Symantec support is just useless.

I am having a problem with PowerQuest Drive Image 7, which appears to
be corrupting my system drive. I have experienced the situation
described here 3 times since I have owned the product, and I have
finally realized that Drive Image is causing the problem.

I each case, I have been using a Toshiba Tecra M1 notebook computer
with 768MB of RAM, 40GB hard drive, 1.4 GHz processor. My OS is
Windows XP Pro SP1 and the internal hard drive uses NTFS.

My goal has been to use Drive Image to create an image of my drive
immediately after I complete Toshiba's factory restore procedure and
make a few updates to the system, so that I don't need to repeat this
procedure in the future. It is important to note that, because I have
been using Drive Image after the factory restore, the system is
totally virgin at that point -- no applications have been installed
and the system runs perfectly.

Also note that I ran chkdsk on the system drive several times before
installing Drive Image 7, including immediately before installing the
product. As expected after the factory restore, there were no errors
found at all.

Here is what happens:

First, I install the .Net Framework 1.1, as required by Drive Image.
Then I install Drive Image. I open it and type in my serial number
and it is accepted. Then I close the program and install the 7.03
update that I downloaded from your website. All of these steps are
completed without incident.

Next, I open Drive Image and start the wizard for creating an image.
I set everything up, and right before clicking the final 'Next' to
start the process, I decide to open a command prompt and run chkdsk
again, just to make sure that the drive is totally clean.
Surprisingly, and unfortunately, chkdsk now returns errors!

Did Drive Image corrupt the disk without even starting an operation?

So I cancel the image wizard and close Drive Image without having done
anything with it. Then I tell chkdsk to run with the /f switch at the
next startup, to fix the drive errors. I restart the computer, and it
does so.

I log into Windows and run chkdsk again. Now there are no errors on
the drive. I open Drive Image and start the wizard again. And again,
I wait until the end of the wizard, before the process starts, and run
chkdsk. And now there are errors on the drive again!!

So, again, I abort the wizard and close Drive Image. Now, however, it
appears that the drive has been severely corrupted. I have run chkdsk
/f (at startup) at least five times and the errors are still not
resolved!

I completed these steps this weekend on Sat and Sun (yesterday). I
did not realize until this weekend that problems that developed on the
computer after using Drive Image on two separate occasions earlier
this year are very similar and likely the result of using Drive Image.

I want a reliable imaging tool, but more importantly, right now I want
my computer repaired so that I do not have to complete the factory
restore again. If the drive is totally corrupted, then all of the
time I spent doing that this weekend was a waste!
It would be nice to understand why Drive Image would do this.

What kind of error(s) does CHKDSK /f report? I think it is a NTFS Volume
bitmap related one?
I believe disk corruption is not the proper definition of the issue here! I
have had a similar issue, but have experienced no negative outcomes when
checking (verifying a backup image). Even restoring a backup image results
in a healthy system.

--
M.f.G.
Michael Kimmer

"Ein Tag an dem Du nicht lächelst ist ein verlorener Tag"
"Eine Nacht in der Du nicht schläfst ist eine verschlafene Nacht"

"Brian Finkel" wrote in message
ups.com...
In case anyone has an interest or ideas that could be helpful... help
would be appreciated and Symantec support is just useless.

I am having a problem with PowerQuest Drive Image 7, which appears to
be corrupting my system drive. I have experienced the situation
described here 3 times since I have owned the product, and I have
finally realized that Drive Image is causing the problem.

I each case, I have been using a Toshiba Tecra M1 notebook computer
with 768MB of RAM, 40GB hard drive, 1.4 GHz processor. My OS is
Windows XP Pro SP1 and the internal hard drive uses NTFS.

My goal has been to use Drive Image to create an image of my drive
immediately after I complete Toshiba's factory restore procedure and
make a few updates to the system, so that I don't need to repeat this
procedure in the future. It is important to note that, because I have
been using Drive Image after the factory restore, the system is totally
virgin at that point -- no applications have been installed and the
system runs perfectly.

Also note that I ran chkdsk on the system drive several times before
installing Drive Image 7, including immediately before installing the
product. As expected after the factory restore, there were no errors
found at all.

Here is what happens:

First, I install the .Net Framework 1.1, as required by Drive Image.
Then I install Drive Image. I open it and type in my serial number and
it is accepted. Then I close the program and install the 7.03 update
that I downloaded from your website. All of these steps are completed
without incident.

Next, I open Drive Image and start the wizard for creating an image. I
set everything up, and right before clicking the final 'Next' to start
the process, I decide to open a command prompt and run chkdsk again,
just to make sure that the drive is totally clean. Surprisingly, and
unfortunately, chkdsk now returns errors!

Did Drive Image corrupt the disk without even starting an operation?

So I cancel the image wizard and close Drive Image without having done
anything with it. Then I tell chkdsk to run with the /f switch at the
next startup, to fix the drive errors. I restart the computer, and it
does so.

I log into Windows and run chkdsk again. Now there are no errors on
the drive. I open Drive Image and start the wizard again. And again,
I wait until the end of the wizard, before the process starts, and run
chkdsk. And now there are errors on the drive again!!

So, again, I abort the wizard and close Drive Image. Now, however, it
appears that the drive has been severely corrupted. I have run chkdsk
/f (at startup) at least five times and the errors are still not
resolved!

I completed these steps this weekend on Sat and Sun (yesterday). I did
not realize until this weekend that problems that developed on the
computer after using Drive Image on two separate occasions earlier this
year are very similar and likely the result of using Drive Image.

I want a reliable imaging tool, but more importantly, right now I want
my computer repaired so that I do not have to complete the factory
restore again. If the drive is totally corrupted, then all of the time
I spent doing that this weekend was a waste!
It would be nice to understand why Drive Image would do this.


Uhh. Have you considered running and completing chkdsk before opening DI,
not while DI is running?