Use the information in this section to help troubleshoot general operational issues in Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT) 7.

Note
If you have problems when you access any of the functionality in DaRT, you should first check whether your problem might be caused by security issues, disk space limitations, dependent technologies, or network connectivity.

Troubleshooting Issues in DaRT

The following are some issues that you might encounter when you run DaRT and solutions to help troubleshoot these issues:

The Startup Repair tool in WinRE starts to run when you boot into DaRT

Sometimes, Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) automatically runs Startup Repair when you boot into DaRT. This issue typically occurs if WinRE detects or suspects that Windows 7 shut down incorrectly the last time that it was started.

The exact moment that Startup Repair starts to run in this situation is as follows:

  1. As the computer is booting into the DaRT recovery image, the NetStart dialog box appears. Click Yes or No to specify whether to initialize network services.

  2. Following the network initialization dialog box, you are asked whether you want to remap the drive letters. Click Yes or No.

  3. In the System Recovery Options window, select the keyboard input method and then click Next.

  4. In the System Recovery Options window, select the operating system that you want to repair and then click Next.

At this point, if WinRE detects or suspects that the specified operating system did not start the last time that it was tried, it might start to run Startup Repair. Startup Repair can take a very long time to run, sometimes longer than an hour. When Startup Repair finishes, you are given the option of clicking Finish. If you click Finish, the computer might restart and the whole process might begin again.

Solution

Follow these steps to try to resolve this issue.

If you are still booting into DaRT and have the option to select the operating system that you want to repair (step 4 earlier in this section):
  1. Select Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier and then click Next.

    The Re-image your computer window appears and starts to search for a system image.

  2. Click Cancel to end the search for a system image.

    The System Recovery Options window opens.

You can now access the DaRT tools by clicking Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset.

If the Startup Repair process has already started running:
  1. Click Cancel immediately.

    If you can cancel the process quickly enough, it might prevent Startup Repair from continuing. If Startup Repair continues to run, it might take more than an hour to finish.

  2. After Startup Repair finishes or is canceled, a window appears that might list problems that Startup Repair found.

    Important
    Do not click Finish.
  3. Click the View advanced options for system recovery and support link.

    The System Recovery Options window opens.

You can now access the DaRT tools by clicking Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset.

Problems booting into DaRT if the recovery image is BitLocker encrypted

Because of the design of Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE), you can only access an encrypted recovery image by typing in the recovery key.

Solution

If you are trying to boot into a DaRT recovery image that is BitLocker encrypted, you must manually enter the BitLocker recovery key to continue.

All folder contents added to recovery image when you specify additional drivers

When you create the DaRT recovery image, you can include additional drivers by specifying the required files for each driver that you want to include. By default, when you select a Setup Information file (INF) from a particular folder, all additional files and subfolders that are located in that folder are added into the DaRT recovery image. This can cause unintended consequences, for example, by making the recovery image size too large.

Solution

Create a new folder and copy into it all the required files that correspond to only the drivers that you want to include on your recovery image. Then, in the DaRT Recovery Image Wizard, select the copied INF file in the new folder to copy all files into the DaRT image.

Browse button returns an error in the DaRT Recovery Image Wizard

When you run the DaRT Recovery Image Wizard as a different user and try to add more files to the recovery image, you might receive an error message if you do not have permissions to access the other user's Temp folder.

Solution

If you decide to run the wizard as a different user, we recommend that you log on by using that different user account before you run the wizard. If you run the DaRT Recovery Image Wizard as a different user and do not have permissions to access the Temp folder, you can still create a DaRT recovery image. However, you cannot include additional files.

Cannot access check box in Disk Commander tool by using the keyboard

If you are using the Disk Commander tool in the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset window, you cannot select the Bootable check box in the Restore Volumes window by using your keyboard.

Solution

If you are using only your keyboard when you run Disk Commander, you can switch to the Computer Management tool to make the recovered volume bootable.

Disk Commander reports more volumes than were actually deleted

In some cases, Disk Commander will report more volumes than were actually deleted. This can be because data blocks in the specified location appeared to be valid partitions. Typically, these false partitions are much smaller than the actual volume that you want to recover.

See Also