Help ! Can't get my HD to Boot

Hi zapjb.

Different software ? As in perhaps a different OS or something else?

What do you suggest I try ?

 

pratzert,

I doubt the image is corrupt as you could explore the files when it was mounted.
On Monday I suggest you restore the image to the original HD. Maybe the 4 TB HD was an issue but that's a guess. Over the weekend I'd use Macrium and create an Entire Drive image of the original HD for backup purposes.

 

Hi Brian K.

Yes. I will put that plan in the works. I'll do a Macrium Image backup of that trashed drive.

Then, I can try to restore the image onto the old drive in the work desktop.

Before I re-write over the old OS drive (and after I make an image backup) do you think it would be worth it to try some of the other software to try to get the drive to boot ?

 

Sorry, but I think you would be wasting your time. Microsoft has already done many "Repairing your computer" and the more that are done, the less the chance of the OS booting.

You have already restored the image to this drive so you won't lose data by restoring it again. We hope you get a bootable OS this time.

 

Thank Brian K and to everyone for all the help !

You all are great .

 

Maybe this.

AOMEI Backupper Standard 3.5 Freeware

http://www.backup-utility.com/free-backup-software.html

Dissimilar Hardware Restore
Restore a backup image created on one computer to another/new computer with dissimilar hardware, or migrate system from physical to virtual (P2V) machine.

 

Thanks zapjb. I'll check it out !

 

I have the work (trashed) HD installed in my home Desktop, which also has 2 x 2TB drives in it.

I wanted to have Macrium make an Image of the trashed drive and save it on one of my hard drives that has plenty of room on it.

But when I started the Macrium process to create an image. I was not given the option to save the image on the one HD that has plenty of room on it.

It only gave me the option to save it on the drive that I boot from which is nearly full.

I played around with it and figured out I had to physically type in the drive and folder name as the destination.

Harder then it should be in my opinion. If Macrium sees the other drives, it should show them all as destination options.

Oh well....

 

Hi stapp.

Thank you for your input.

Yes, I did see those menus/windows/options. But I the one marked "Destination, It only gave me one pre-filled option. No matter what I did I could not get it to show any other options besides the one folder it decided was the most logical/convenient.

I did a little google searching and learned that I could make it save the image to the drive and folder I wanted my manually typing in the drive letter and folder I created on the destination drive.

Another that makes me do a double take, was it refers my "image" as a "Backup". When I most definitely selected for a creation of n "image".

I am assuming all is god and it is steaming along right now creating my image on the drive & folder I wanted.

I hope once it finished creating that image, that I can more easily look thru the files to pick and chose what I want to recover or move off the image into another location.

Particualarly my .pst file(s). I really want my old emails and addresses.

I hope I don't have to fiddle around with taking ownership of things again. That was very cumbersome.

I believe that if I have to somehow "take ownership" there is a way to take ownership of the entire drive image, but I don't want to have to go thru that hassle.

 

Hi All.

Exactly what is WINRE_Backup_Partition_Marker? I found it on the "Recovery Partition" on the trashed drive. It is associated with the WIN10 upgrade, but is it useful in attempting some sort of restore of the trashed drive?

Can I use it to restore all of the previous Partition on the trashed drive ?

I completed making an image of the trashed drive and then mounted the image. No real luck in finding the missing PST files, but I did find one which contained the "Deleted" email from old from years ago when I ran Recuva. I let Recuva do a deep scan (searching for *pst*) and it found 1 million files, but after analyzing them, the only thing it recovered was that old pst file, not any recent PST's or emails. I did see a few OAB files but can't open them to see if they have addresses, plus, they were pretty small.

It's odd that many of the files dates are dated April of this year, which is when the image is also dated that I have on the DATA drive at work from which I am trying to do an image restore onto that 4TB drive.

I am thinking that our Computer Tech company (which had my computer for a week after it crashed) had tried the image restore.

The resolution may still revolve around trying to restore that 4th partition somehow, but I am less hopeful if the drive has been overwritten by a previous image restore attempt.

Although, I still do not know exactly what is really in that image, and I don't really know exactly what is in that "backup" I have either.

Now that I at least have an image of the trashed drive as it is right now, I feel a little more comfortable trying to play around with it.

I will still try to do the image restore, and backup restore" from the DATA drive at work to see what happens.

But is there anything else I can try to do to recover any PST files for now since Recuva didn't have much luck ?

Thanks !

 

BTW... when I did that upgrade to Win10, shouldn't there have been a file created called "Windows.Old" ?

Would that have all of the previous Registry/Partition/MBR info ?

I searched for it and could not find such a file. It's possible when I attempted the revert back to WIn7 that it was deleted.

 

pratzert,

We know the backup image doesn't include the final partition containing your data and .PST

Best case scenario...

The image restores in a few hours
Windows boots
Disk Management shows 500 GB of Free Space at the end of the drive
We Undelete the final partition
Your data and .PST are intact

 

Thanks Brian K.

I guess it depends a lot on what may have been, or will be, overwritten with the image restore, correct?

But I would think that a true image restore will/should restore/write only to the sectors that they were originally written and leave the area alone where the last partition is located.

I don't know the technicalities of it all.

Thanks very much for the help.

 

Just for kicks, I am running AOMEI Partition Recovery Assistant, just to see what it may show.

I do NOT intend to try to recover any partitions at this point, I just wanted to see what shows up.

Once the software scans the disk, it lists all the partitions it finds and supposedly I will be able to browse the files in each found partition.l

So far, it has found 16 partitions.... so something is whacked out with the drive or the software.

 

I have been following this with great interest, but I was lost early on... But, I hope it all turns out for the best for you.

 

Thanks Tarnak.

I have been encouraged greatly by all the help and suggestions by the members here on the forum.

What a a good bunch of people !

Realistically, I am stuck again until Monday, when I will take my trashed drive back to work and install it in my work desktop.

Hopefully, with all the original hardware in place, the image I have will restore properly.

At the very least, I am hoping I can somehow recover the few really important files I need/want. (PST files with emails and addresses.)

 

I will install the trashed HD in the work desktop tomorrow.

Since it's the original Drive, do I still follow these specific commands, or something different?

Thanks.

 

Yes, do everything. I think Diskpart "clean" is important as it removes the current visible partitions. It won't remove data from your partition containing the .PST.

 

OK... I'll do it exactly like that.

Thanks !

 

Good Morning All.

I wanted to give an update so you don't think as am slacking.

This morning upon arrival at work, the image restore I started right before I left form work on Friday was still running.

It had not stopped, nor re-booted or anything, so I am letting run its course for now until it hiccups again, or completes.

What do I have to lose? It's about 1/3 of the way completed. It's still restoring very slowly.......

Maybe I'll get lucky this time.

 

So.... late yesterday afternoon, the restore crashed once again.

I didn't get a chance to install the original OS drive and start the restore yesterday afternoon. It would have been nice to have it run all night to see the progress this morning, but I didn't get it started until this morning.

Now that it has started the restore, it seems to be moving just as slowly as it did when I had the 4TB drive in place.

I hope this isn't a sign that it too will not complete. All I can do is let it run and hope for success.

I'll report back on how it goes.

Regards.

 

Hi All.

It's still at a snails pace.

I had run across an interesting post on a forum board where someone suspected the image was somehow corrupted and had used Macrium to create an image the VHD file(s) and then restored from those imaged VHD files. One of the VHD's was the 100mb system reserve partition.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/210195-system-image-recover-broken-windows-7-system-image.html

Does this sound like a possibility in case this restore doesn't work ?

 

pratzert,

Interesting and worth trying.

I know you set the BIOS to defaults but I'm still concerned there could be a BIOS setting that is making your computer run at PIO speed. Try a Google search for PIO and DMA for your motherboard BIOS. I'd try putting both HDs in your home computer and see if the restore runs at normal speed.

When you decide you have had enough of the current slow restore, boot a BIBM CD and let us know about the partitions which should be there despite the failed restore. Does the OS partition fill the drive or is it followed by Free Space?

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/dual-booting-efi-win-10-questions.388740/#post-2620236

Post #17 re building a BIBM CD.

 

Hey, Thank Brian K.

I'll see what the status is tomorrow morning and go from there. But It's certainly worth a shot to put the drives in my home computer. The two systems are not exactly the same, but pretty similar.

I had read about changing the BIOS setting for the drive(s) from AHCI to RAID and I did it, but it didn't help, I kept getting some sort of error about the drive(s), so I set it back to AHCI and started the restore.

When I left work today, the restore had made some progress, but certainly not much.

Doing a BIBM CD looks a little intimidating, but I'll give it a go as my next step depending on the restore progress.

I have already had an overwhelming urge to drop kick the HD out the window.... but I NEED those emails on the drive.

Thanks for the help and guidance.