The other day I got a call from someone with a non booting computer. User was concerned because of course, they didn’t have a recent backup of the main application they use to run their business. Since I knew there was critical data, my first process before troubleshooting the issue is to pull the drive and hook it up to the bench computer in my shop and attempt data access. I was able to access the drive without issue and quickly backed up the application data. Once I had that, I used Storagecraft ShadowProtect to create a full image backup of the drive.
Then I placed the drive back in the computer and powered it up to see what I got. I was quickly presented with a ‘Missing operating system’ message and that’s it. I then booted to an XP CD in repair mode and ran FIXMBR (which didn’t work), then also ran a CHKDSK (also which didn’t help).
On a whim, from my bench computer I attempted a virtual boot of the backup image I had created earlier. Much to my surprise, Windows booted to the login screen. Interesting. I couldn’t log in though because of activation issues (Thanks Microsoft). But based on that successful boot up I wanted to try something. I grabbed an old hard drive that I had laying around and performed a restoration of the image to that drive. I did choose to install a new MBR though. Once completed, I hooked that drive up the computer, and to an even bigger surprise, Windows completed booted up AND allowed me to log in. With the machine looking to me as if it is running again, I had the customer come in and verify everything worked. He was ecstatic when he saw all his data in the app.
ShadowProtect from Storagecraft is an awesome program for backups. I use it in my office and at many clients to backup critical systems and servers. It’s saved the day more than once.
Would you like to learn more about backing up your computer systems with ShadowProtect? Please contact me at Badger IT Solutions, LLC and we can discuss backup strategies for your personal and business computer systems.