Failed UEFI restores to a new HD

Pete,

The window I mentioned above doesn't have Right click options.

In Disk Map there are Right click options. I chose Restore Disk layout from image. I browsed to the partition images. Each one I tried was reported as "Invalid File" (The file does not have valid partition information).

I tried Initialize Disk which creates partitions for the EFI and MSR. I restored the EFI image but it said the next partition was too small for the MSR image.

 

oliverjia,

Can you try booting an IFD disk (CD or UFD)?

Whether it boots or not depends on how you have set up your UEFI firmware. In my test computer I can boot Legacy or UEFI disks/systems. I need that because I change OS frequently.

 

Yes, all 4 partitions were imaged.

When I click the blank space in the window I referred to above, there are no options. Right or left click. Maybe there is another window I haven't found?

 

manolito,

Interesting thought. It worked with AOMEI and DS. I didn't try it with Clonezilla and to tell the truth, I'd like to avoid using Clonezilla again as I prefer to create images in Windows.

 

An addition to Post #51

After doing a SP Initialize Disk I checked the partitions in BIBM. The partition for EFI was 99 MiB which is OK but the partition for the MSR was 127 MiB which is too small. 128 MiB is needed.

 

Slightly different...

Tasks, Restore Disk Layout from Image. I browsed to the partition images. Each one I tried was reported as "Invalid File" (The file does not have valid partition information).

Same problem as before.

 

I'm not using the Disk Map anymore.

 

Pete, it seems SP needs a partition to restore an image into. It won't restore to Unallocated Free Space. But I can't Restore the Disk Layout from Image.

 

Pete,

Using SP I imaged a 2 partition Win8.1 MBR system. The image was restored to a new, empty HD. It was as easy as pie. Win8.1 booted normally.

I used MBRWork to restore the First Track to a new, empty HD. Then booted to the SP recovery environment and restored the 4 images to the partitions just created on the new HD. Win8.1 booted normally.

Unfortunately I don't think a UEFI Win8.1 system can be restored to a new, empty HD using SP as "Restore the Disk Layout from Image" doesn't work in a non MBR system. Using MBRWork is cheating but it works.

What do you think?

 

64bit WinPE boot disk is not my concern as I have my own custom 64bit WinPE, I can run it easily.
What I concern is that it updates rarely, let people think that it may not be developed

My current list of imaging apps are Acronis, Macrium and Paragon.

 

Interesting.

 

I think 6.0.3 in "Active Data Studio 9" is equal to 6.0.2
The version number in Active Boot Disk sometimes will higher than its general release

 

manolito,

You can run MBRWork from a DOS or TBOSDT boot disk. Or you could use a TBOSDT boot disk to backup and restore the first 2048 sectors. You can use TBOSDT in Windows to backup the first 2048 sectors of HD0 but the restore must be done from a boot disk.

Any other apps that you use?

 

Brian,

I am not affected by all this stuff since I do not use any UEFI / GPT hardware. I do use Rollback RX, and to safeguard against a non-bootable system after a restore from an Acronis backup I use BootICE to backup my MBR. Restoring this MBR is all I need to recover from a non-bootable system.

I am just curious how to come up with a fool-proof method to recover from a non-bootable Win 8.1 UEFI / GPT system after restoring a backup from an imager which cannot do this by itself (AOMEI, AX64 and the others you found). Will restoring track 0 be enough (63 sectors on current HDDs), or is it necessary to backup and restore the first 2048 sectors? And will this work each and every time regardless of the image backupper which was used?


Cheers
manolito

 

manolito,

There were only a few imaging apps that failed the UEFI test of restoring images to a new, empty HD. A failed HD scenario.
Restoring the first 63 sectors seems enough. In my case restoring the first 3 sectors would have been enough as the following sectors were zeroes.

How do you use BootICE to restore the MBR? I haven't tried it.

 

BootICE is portable, it can be run from any WinPE media which lets you get into a console window.

I usually have BootICE.exe and the stored MBR on the same external HDD I use for storing the backups. Using a PE based rescue media makes it a snap to run BootICE to restore the saved MBR (or any number of sectors you have backed up).


Cheers
manolito

 

I had a look at BootICE. It looks easy and there is less likelihood of user errors than MBRWork.

 

I have read the latest posts with great intereset.
I was thinking about using Bootice to restore the saved MBR before, as well, but didn't think Brian would approve hat method. So now it looks like he does. Brian, I'm looking forward to any tips you might have on the best method of using Bootice to fix the sector 0 problems. Maybe a little "HowTo"?

 

Atari800xl,

I've used it for a minute. Manolito has the experience.

Basically it is backup 63 sectors. Restore them to the new empty HD before/after using the imaging app.

 

manolito,

I was just putting BootICE through its paces and noticed you can't restore the MBR to a new, empty HD. Have I missed something. The "Process MBR" button is greyed out.

 

I mentioned earlier that the failed restores were "missing" 3 sectors in the First Track.

LBA-0 contains the Protective MBR

LBA-1 contains the Primary GPT Header

LBA-2 contains the partition table

As I only had 4 partitions there was no code in LBA-3, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table