http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320 Giveaway of the Day Forums » Topic: Paragon Virtualization Manager install put my system into an endless reboot loop en-US Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:32:26 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-66411 Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:41:13 +0000 KarlM 66411@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>Thanks for all the comments and tips everyone. BentlyTCow thanks for your install record and Robert thanks for also pointing out the driver files.</p> <p>After a week of recovery efforts, I finally have some time to catch my breath and post an update.</p> <p>As far as I can tell, I must have had a hard drive failure which coincidentally happened just after installing Paragon VM to that drive when it asked to reboot the system. Before that, the drive had shown no signs of failure, no sounds, errors or signs of file corruption. Just before installing Paragon VM I was browsing around on the drive and I downloaded the installer and set it up on that drive. Then I let it reboot the system and POOF the drive had failed.</p> <p>After trying a few things without success, I simply unplugged the drive (my secondary D: drive) and I was able to boot the System with only the main system drive C:. Unfortunately, many files, installed Programs and my page file were on D.</p> <p>After failing to read or recover anything with Windows utilities, I spent most of the past week trying a few flavors of Linux recovery CDs. I was able to make a partial image of the corrupted drive with ddrescue. After making a second backup, I ran CHKDSK on that and had a readable drive (copy) with some intact files, but many other files were only empty zeroed out files (viewed in a hex viewer) with the names and paths recreated from the index by CHKDSK, but without any data or program content. So, I made a second copy of the ddrescue file and ran Photorec on it. I&#39;m still combing through those files (which are just randomly named and sorted by extension), but there are a few more files I was able recover by that method. At the same time, I dug through all my old backup discs and managed to find a few more files. So, through all methods combined, I have found a majority of the important files, although not all and there were plenty of lower priority files which are completely gone.</p> <p>It was interesting to note that the Paragon VM setup file and program files were completely gone. I haven&#39;t turned up any sign of them in any recovered files, although the C: system drive and registry do show Paragon VM as installed (on the dying drive).</p> <p>After recovering most of my key files, I decided to give Paragon VM another chance. This time I was able to successfully install and reboot without any problems. I&#39;ve made a couple test images of my C: system drive and now I&#39;ve got one running in VirtualBox. The Adjust P2V for running in a VM option didn&#39;t work for me. I used some registry settings and system drivers from a VirtualBox Windows imaging guide and that finally worked.</p> <p>So, it&#39;s been quite an adventure. I just wanted to try out Paragon VM to see if I could make a working image of an older system and I ended up with a lot more trouble than I excepted. Anyway, now I have finally ended up with a working virtual image of the System, but unfortunately I lost a real drive and some data in the process. </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-65663 Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:52:05 +0000 watcher13 65663@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>Sorry to here that Karl. I suppose you&#39;ll have to borrow a computer to read this. This isn&#39;t unheard of. If Windows can&#39;t load a core module - usually a driver - it will sometimes just stop and sometimes a protection feature will cause it to restart. In XP and Vista, there&#39;s an option under f8 that says &quot;disable automatic restart on system failure&quot;, but I don&#39;t believe you have that in 2000. If it&#39;s not going into Safe Mode then the Paragon software has insinuated itself at a very low level, or has damaged something basic on your system. Either that, or it&#39;s just a coincidence and you&#39;ve developed a hardware problem, like a failing power supply or memory card.</p> <p>I&#39;d go with Robert&#39;s suggestion of booting off you&#39;re 2000 disk. Or if you have any disks that will scan your HD and repair errors,if you don&#39;t have your 2000 disks. Some Anti-virus rescue disks have that included, but you can run a scan from your 2000 repair disks if you have them. Maybe you can borrow a repair disk from somebody else, if not. It&#39;s possible that it&#39;s a coincidence and you got a virus at the same time. But, I&#39;d go with the repair installation first. Your repair disks have a hardware scanner if you want to check that, too. But it&#39;s probably Paragon. </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-65618 Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:02:06 +0000 BentlyTCow 65618@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>I just hope he comes back to look :) </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-65550 Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:13:21 +0000 Robert 65550@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>Deleting hotcorewin2k.sys from your &#39;windows32\DRVSTORE\&#39;,and &#39;biontdrv.sys&#39; from the program folder might help.<br /> (Clear up your &#39;Temp&#39; folder too)</p> <p>If not,I would be tempted to try this option:<br /> Insert your win2000 cd (or your setup floppys) ,reboot,after the &#39;welcome screen&#39; press press F10 or R to repair.<br /> Then press C to start the Windows 2000 Recovery Console and use the fixboot/fixmbr<br /> command.<br /> Nice job, Bently! </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-65547 Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:33:05 +0000 Whiterabbit-uk 65547@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>Nice one Bently </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-65543 Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:23:53 +0000 BentlyTCow 65543@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>Hi Karl, I have a record of all the file and registry changes made during installation (using ZSoft Uninstaller) though it doesn&#39;t include the reboot. Hopefully there&#39;s something in here that can help! I&#39;ve zipped it into a text file and put a password on it just to keep random people from opening it, but the password is simply: GAOTD so it shouldn&#39;t be too hard to download and open. <a href="http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I0ND7C96">Here&#39;s the link.</a> Sorry I couldn&#39;t be of more assistance!</p> <p>p.s. you might need <a href="http://www.7-zip.org/">7-zip</a> to open it as the standard Windows zip doesn&#39;t seem to like the password. Sorry! </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-65541 Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:30:07 +0000 notblocklox 65541@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>When you don&#39;t get any answer on Twitter, go to: </p> <p><a href="http://www.paragon-software.com/support/" rel="nofollow">http://www.paragon-software.com/support/</a></p> <p>I once got help from there after one day. </p> <p>There you&#39;ll find even a &quot;Knowledge Base&quot; and a &quot;Community Forum&quot;.<br /> In the forum is at least one other user with your problem.<br /> <a href="http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1554932#post1554932" rel="nofollow">http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=1554932#post1554932</a></p> <p>Good luck! </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-65540 Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:23:46 +0000 BuBBy 65540@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>As a first option - on the giveaway download page a representative from Paragon mentioned that they will have free product support available via twitter.</p> <blockquote><p>During the Giveaway period Paragon Software provides technical support at <a href="http://twitter.com/paragonsoftware" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/paragonsoftware</a>. Please, post your questions if you have any troubles while downloading, registering and using the software. Paragon Software’s support team will reply you as soon as possible.</p></blockquote> <p>Perhaps they may also extend this support to the consequences of a failed setup of their product. </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-65535 Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:26:16 +0000 Chronopie 65535@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>Try a linux boot disk... all i can think of really.</p> <p>Maybe someone more tech savvy can help. </p> http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/6320#post-65534 Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:06:03 +0000 KarlM 65534@http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/ <p>I just tried to install the Giveaway of the Day - Paragon Virtualization Manager 2009 Personal on an older system running Windows 2000 Pro (listed as compatible in the System Requirements). It went through the installation without a problem, then asked to Restart the system. I clicked yes and Rebooted, but now it reboots every time I log in and before the desktop loads.</p> <p>I went through the reboot cycle a number times to make sure it wasn&#39;t just a normal part of the install.</p> <p>I tried booting into safe mode with F8, and then I got a Blue Screen error STOP:0x0000000A IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL from ntoskrnl.exe.</p> <p>I tried F8 Last Known Good Configuration and it just went into the Reboot cycle again.</p> <p>From the Blue Screen error, my first guess is that Paragon VM tried to install a virtual hard ware driver which conflicts with my actual hardware and IRQ settings.</p> <p>This had been a trouble free machine for the past few years until today.</p> <p>Does anyone know how to fully uninstall Paragon Virtualization Manager from a boot disk or with the drive in a different machine, since I can&#39;t boot into the system? For those with a successful install, aside from the Program Files directory what other System or Documents and Settings files, Drivers, Services or Startup Files does this software install? A list of these files would be a help in removing or disabling it as I try to fix my Windows loading problem. </p>