I have a problem that involves Dantz Retrospect 5.6, Partition Magic 7, Promise Fasttrack 100, and W2K. When attempting to use the Dantz emergency rescue CD to do a complete restore of my C drive, W2K is unable to see that the hard drive is partitioned. My system: W2K SP3 AMD 1.33 GHz CPU ASUS A7M266 mobo 512 MB RAM Win2000 Promise FastTrack 100 PCI Card Raid Controller Two 60 GB IBM Hard Drives in RAID 0 (Striped) configuration (i.e., the CPU thinks there is one 120 GB Hard Drive) formatted into two NTFS primary partitions (C (80 GB) + I (40 GB)) LaCie 60 GB Firewire Studio Drive PIONEER DVD-ROM DVD-105 [CD-ROM drive] PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W1610A CDRW PowerQuest Partition Magic 7.0 (everything latest drivers, firmware, BIOS) I am trying to use the Dantz CD to replace all content on the C drive from a backup on the I drive. (Yes I know that this will not help if either of the IBM hard drives fail, but if I do not use this method, when restoring a sick system, Retrospect will not replace, but duplicate all system files; and it is a real pain to have to manually delete them all.) I would have liked to use the LaCie FireWire drive, but when I attempted a recovery using the CD made from this set, I learned that because windows can not boot from FireWire, I could not use the LaCie in this manner – in a disaster recovery Retrospect must install a working copy of the OS on the disk which contains the backup file and boot from it. So next, thinking I would try a workaround, using Partition Magic, I partitioned the RAID 0 (striped) 120 GB hard drive into two smaller drives (C: 80 GB + I: 40 GB). (So of course, I can sill boot from my C drive.) I then made another Backup Set (B) to the 40 GB I partition, and then another disaster recovery CD. Up to this point, no problems Finally, to see that all would function properly, I booted from the Retrospect CD. The first attempt failed with this message. “your computer’s startup program cannot gain access to the disk containing the partitions or free space you chose. setup cannot install W2K on this hard disk. disk not visible to the startup program unless special software is installed. contact your hard disk controller manufacturer” Underneath was indicated: “No hard drives” So remembering that earlier in the Retrospect CD loading process, I was given an opportunity to load special hardware drivers by pressing F6, I rebooted and when prompted, inserted the Promise FastTrack floppy with the RAID drivers. This must have been successful because I did not get the above message about there being no accessible hard drives. Instead, I got the following screen: the following list shows the existing partitioned and unpartitioned space on this computer. unknown 120 GB I am then given the choice of: set up W2K in selected partition create a partition in unpartitioned space delete selected partitioned However, when I attempted to select “create a partition” (just to see what would happen) there was no response. Furthermore, at the bottom of the screen, only the keyboard commands for “set up W2K” and “delete selected partition” are present. At this point, I had to cancel the attempt. This is where I am now. Notice that even tho after installing the Promise RAID drivers, the hard drive is then visible, the C (80 GB) and I (40 GB) partitions do not show up – just an “unknown” 120 GB disk. Since I want to do an emergency install form the backup file on I to C, obviously this won’t do. I suspect that the problem has nothing to do with Retropect. When creating the emergency repair CD, it was necessary to add most of the Windows 2000 Setup Disk, and it is the W2K part of the Retrospect CD that fails to see the partitions. Is it possible that in addition to the RAID drivers I must also load something without which the Emergency Repair disk can’t see the partitions? Also, I have read elsewhere something about W2K SP3 interferring with backup software – could this be at the root of the problem? I have tried posting to the Dantz forum, but no one seems to have an answer. Does anyone have any idea what is the source of this problem and how I might solve it? I would be very grateful for any assistance.

I would say the source of the problem is the NTFS format on the drives. If thier bootable CD does not have some form of accessing and writing to the NTFS partition then ummm your out of luck. Try using FAT32.

The problem would seem to have nothing to do with Retrospect, as the inability of the rescue disk to see the main drive partitions occurs at the point in the process when Retrospect has ceded all control to the W2K setup program copied from the Windows setup disks. In fact the windows are the same that one sees when first installing W2K. To check this out, I tried to do a reinstall of the OS using the W2K setup disks. The results were the same: 1) without loading the Promise RAID drivers, setup sees no disk at all 2) after loading the RAID drivers, setup sees the disk, but not the partitions. I again get the above mentioned: the following list shows the existing partitioned and unpartitioned space on this computer. unknown 120 GB If I try to install W2K by pressing Enter, I get the following message: "Setup cannot install W2K on this partition, but you can delete the partition and setup will create a new partition on which to install W2K." Certainly, W2K setup should be able to install on a NTFS partition. Attempting a repair of the OS using the W2k Setup disks, produces similar results. Setup cannot find the OS and any commands that I try to enter in C:\ produces the following: "The specified drive is not valid or there is no disk in the drive." So, the question now is, why can't W2K Setup see the partitions. If loading the RAID drivers allows Setup to see the hard drive, why can't it see the partitions?

When you see that "unknown 120 GB" message, it's because the program running is DOS based, and it can't see NTFS drives. I would bet that you would be happier with a disk imaging program such as Drive Image or Norton Ghost. Even then, Ghost requires that backup images be stored on a FAT32 volume so that the DOS restore process can see the backups. Drive Image 2002 can read NTFS volumes and even includes Partition Magic's disk partitioning abilities.