New Drive Snapshot build released.

Dear Brian,

Yes that's what I suspected too. I should have re-created the C partition before the restore.
Regarding the "restore partition structure" - I guess maybe because I did not delete all partitions (I kept MSR partition) therefore the partition structure are not completely desctroyed, therefore the restore option did not work?
I'll test again if I can find some time soon.

Thanks again for your and and help.

Regards,
oliverjia

 

oliverjia,

In my second test I only deleted 3 partitions. One remained. I could still use "restore partition structure" by selecting any of the 4 images. Even when all 4 partitions were present I could still "restore partition structure".

 

Thanks Brian.. I will test again and see if it works on my computer.

Best,
oliverjia

 

oliverjia,

Anything to report?

 

Just tested it again last night. Strange enough, I still could not use "restore partition structure" even when all 4 partitions were deleted. Please see the picture attached.

http://postimg.org/image/edcc65exr/

When I tried to restore the image of C: , it prompted to resize the partition - which tells me that the image does not have the partition structure information so I aborted the restore process.

http://postimg.org/image/p15e5ssih/

In summary, it does not work for me. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I run DS from Windows 8.1SE?
I again used IFW to restore all 4 partitions to their original state from a previous backup image.

 

Oliverjia, thanks for testing.
Did you really remove all partitions from the disk? From the screenshot it looks like they're still there?
Also, did you right-click on the partition, or on the disk (on the left)? When you right click on the disk, can't you select "clean disk" first? Then after that, "restore partition structure"?
If you already did all that, you could always contact the authors, they're German, and I'm sure they know about the Win8.1SE project (It was mentioned in Germany's best computer magazine c't multiple times). Drive Snapshot is also available on the c't DVD every now and then.
Good luck, please don't give up!

 

Partition D and E are data partitions so I did not delete them. The ones that were deleted were Recovery, EFI, MSR and original C: partition.

I tried right clicked on either the disk or partition. As you can see from the pic, all options were greyed out when right click on disk. when right click on C partition, I had only one option "restore partition" (not partition structure).

Yeah maybe I'll contact the authors regarding this problem. I guess the problem with my setup is probably due to the 2 additional data partitions.

 

Oliverjia, thanks for your reply. I thought for this test you removed all partitions.
It's still an interesting problem...

 

oliverjia,

Can you try a different WinPE? I just tried TBWinRE and a Win8 DVD and Snapshot worked fine.

What is the C: drive? It only contains 100 MB.

I note HD 1 is GPT but I can't see the small UEFI partitions.

Edit... I guess you had deleted those partitions.

Which image of a HD 1 partition did you select to get to the first screenshot?

 

Yes I deleted the GPT partitions in screenshot 1. I used the main image for C partition, which is the main image.
Now I think about it, it might also related to the fact that I have two data partitions on the same disk. However IFW and Acronis have no problems restoring to original state.
I've emailed DS tech support and referred to this thread. Hopefully they'll respond to my inquiry. If so I'll share in here.

 

oliverjia,

I can reproduce your problem. Simple answer. You can't Restore the Partition Structure from an image on the same HD as the "partition structure". Copy your image to a USB HD (or any internal HD or CD or UFD) and it will work.

 

Thanks Brian for your help.

Yeah the tech support said the same thing. However I still prefer the ability to restore only the "involved portion" of partition structure backup and restore, i.e., the ability to ONLY backup and restore the partition structure of the partitions that are ACTUALLY backed up, NOT the partition structure of all partitions on the WHOLE DISK.

Based on the reply from DS tech support, there is no way to restore the partial partition structure if you have extra data partitions on the same disk and if you want to keep your data partitions intact. This is a huge drawback the way I see it. Hopefully DS will consider change this behavior.

 

oliverjia,

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to do. Can you give an example?

In practice you don't need to restore a partition structure when you are restoring images. Say your OS partition is infected by a virus. You would just restore an image to the OS partition that is already present. If you experience a HD failure then you would Restore Partition Structure to a new HD, but we know that does work.

 

For example, I have a UEFI GPT disk that has both Windows 8.1 OS and data partitions. I made an image of the OS partitions (including the small GPT partitions) using DS. I don't have an external USB drive to store the image so I have to store the image on a data partition of the same disk. Then I tried Ubuntu on the same disk (deleted all GPT partitions + C partition to create a new partition and installed Ubuntu on the new partition) for some time. later I decided to restore my Windows 8.1 system from the image file I created before Ubuntu installation.

In this case, DS won't work because the image was stored on the data partition on the same disk and the original structure of GPT + C partitions are gone. So if I need to restore the original GPT partitions+C partition structure and restore the Windows 8.1 image that is located on a data partition on the same disk, I would have to use Acronis or IFW. I was wondering if DS can add this feature so that the image restore can work under this circumstance. I know I can use diskpart to create the 3 GPT partitions manually or use a script, then restore the image, however this practice kind of defeating the purpose of an imaging software imho. I believe most ppl would just use other imaging solutions instead.

 

I understand.

It's a pity DS can't restore images to unallocated free space. Then you wouldn't have to Restore Partition Structure.

 

Exactly. Restoring to unallocated free space is another great feature DS might want to add.

Being so tiny in size is certainly an advantage of DS, however I, and I believe most users won't mind if DS would consider adding these features we discussed here, at the cost of a larger size installer/exe file (say a few MB or even larger). Then it's easier to use DS under more complicated situations.

 

Thank you very much for this information Oliverjia and Brian K.
In conclusion to this specific "problem", what would be the best way to create the partitions "by hand" (leaving the data partitions unharmed)?
Brian K, perhaps you can give a diskpart script example? Thanks!

 

You would have needed to have recorded (on paper) the partition sizes and positions so you could recreate the partition structure with a partitioning boot disk.

But prevention is better than cure. Having your image on the same HD is bad practice. If the HD fails you lose the OS, data and backup image.

Edit... An easy way to restore the deleted partitions (Raw) is to restore a First Track backup taken prior to the partitions being deleted. But not for the faint-hearted. This is probably what DS does.

 

A new version was released on April 1st... v1.43.16747.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on the update.

 

Just one week has gone by since the last release and yet another build (v1.43.16754) was released today!

Cruise

 

I wonder what all these updates / improvements are? Since I doubt they concern XP, I think I'll continue to use the version that has never failed me (yet).

 

Updated, thanks

 

Just a guess of course, but I suspect they are mostly having to do with UEFI/GPT issues.

Cruise

 

I'm sure that Win 8.x also brought about a need for program changes. For example, I don't see how initiating a 'hot' DS restore (from within Windows) would even work with Win 8.1's Fast Startup enabled.

Btw Cruise, thanks for the heads-up on today's release.