New motherboard with UEFI and installing/imaging Win 7.

TheKid7...

Click your start/windows-button, then in the search field type: regedit (press enter when selected). A window will pop up, that contains your registry.

Work your way to these paths:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Msahci\Start
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide\Start

...and maybe this one if Intel SATA chipset is on-board...

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV\Start

Start with the first path, in the RIGHT pane, <right-click> on the registry entry ("start"), choose "modify" and set the value to: 0. Do the same thing for the second path (and 3rd path if found). A value of 0 (ZERO) tells the OS to load that driver when it boots.

Reboot, and you should be able to flick/toggle between IDE/AHCI/RAID from your BIOS and boot fine.

Be very careful working in the System REGISTRY if you've never been in there before.

 

Hi Foggie,

Thank you for the registry entries.

Best regards,

Mohamed

 

Thank you for your help.

 

PS- Make sure you make the edits BEFORE you change the BiOS mode or the BOOT will fail as before.

 

You're very welcome.

 

I didn't see the scroll bar in the UEFI BIOS. SATA 5 & SATA 6 were showing up before. I didn't notice them before because I needed to scroll down to see them.

 

Mohamed,

One of the great things about imaging is there are so many ways of achieving the final result. What do you think of this?

Using BIBM, delete the recovery partition (but don't Clear the Boot Sector). See if Win boots. If it does then Slide it to the front of the drive. See if it boots. If it does then resize it up to the EFI partition. See if it boots.

If Win7 doesn't boot after deleting the recovery partition then use BIBM to select the unallocated space and Undelete the partition.

I assume Win7 will boot after removing the recovery partition, sliding and resizing. Next step...

Using BIBM, delete the EFI partition (but don't Clear the Boot Sector). See if Win boots. If it does then great, do no more to the HD.

If Win7 doesn't boot after deleting the EFI partition then use BIBM to select the unallocated space and Undelete the partition. If it doesn't undelete you can restore the EFI partition from your Entire drive image. A two second job.

Let me know what happens.

 

Is this normal?

It seems like this should not be normal since you would not be able to boot a hard drive diagnostics or other diagnostics software if a hard drive fails. When the UEFI would freeze, I was unable to get to the boot menu.

 

Hi Brian,

Did as you suggested and now only have one OS partition on the original hard drive and it is booting fine. See attached image. 140GB as OS Partition and the rest of the hard drive as unallocated space of 790GB.

I bought the BIBM on your and Padlouck recommendations. Never used it before, but put it up on the top shelf. It is an excellent program, especially undelete of Partition and Slide of Partition.

In about two hours, I will be taking the computer to the ASUS repair man.

Many, many thanks!

Best regards,

Mohamed

P.S. Will keep you posted when I get the computer back. Maybe, couple of days from now.

 

Mohamed,

You have probably done something like this already. If not I'd delete the partition on the SSD. Then use IFW to "Copy" the Win7 partition (not the Entire Drive) to the SSD. Don't resize. The partition on the SSD will be the same size as on the HD. You can deal with the remaining unallocated space later.

Questions?

 

Hi Brian,

I have already made an image with IFW, Macrium Reflect and AX64. I also own Casper 8.0. Supposedly, Casper makes a bootable drive to be replaced in case of hard drive failure.

I am right now using Casper to make this bootable drive. It should be ready in about 47 minutes.

Though one thing is very surprising. When I first time made a clone of the three partitions on the SSD about a week ago, with Macrium Reflect, it was there on the SSD today, when I inserted it again in the computer.

Today, twice I cloned the only remaining OS partition on the SSD with Macrium Reflect, it is there. But to my amazement when I remove SSD and re-insert it again, there is nothing there. It is an empty un-formatted drive.

Maybe, I am not removing it properly. Maybe, I need to turn off my computer and while it is off, to remove it.

Any ideas?

Maybe, the SSD is bad?

Best regards,

Mohamed

 

Casper™ 8.0

SMARTCLONE™ TECHNOLOGY BRIEF

Link: http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/smartclone.aspx

 

Here is the screen shot of Accu Clone of Casper 8.0

Best regards,

Mohamed

 

When you use a cloning app (entire drive) the target HD has the same disk signature as the source drive so there will be a signature collision if both drives are visible. You should see the target partition in Disk Management but without a Drive Letter. Don't give it one.

I know you want an OS on the SSD but it doesn't matter if it is there or not prior to the Asus man. The SSD OS should boot but if it doesn't, don't worry as we can fix it.

 

Thank you Brain for the re-assurance. I will heading out with the computer to the ASUS repair man as soon as the cloning is done.

Best regards,

Mohamed

P.S. Will keep you posted when I get the computer back.

 

Dearest Brian,

Got my computer today and it booted fine into Windows with the new SSD. Here is a screen shot.

Many, many thanks for your great help and your excellent expertise. Without you, I wouldn't have done it.

Best regards,

Mohamed

 

Mohamed,

Excellent news. How does the SSD perform compared with the HD?

 

Hi Brian,

Of course, very fast!

All my computers, including the laptops have SSDs. This was the only one didn't have. The problem with this one that I couldn't open it myself and play around it.

When I first took the 120GB SSD to the ASUS repair man about six months ago, he said there are extra connectors so that I can leave both my hard drive and DVD drive. However, upon opening it up, there were no extra connectors. I even bought from eBay and gave him the Y cables for both the SATA connector and the Power connector. The SATA connector in the computer was not a normal connector.

So, I have to make one of the following two choices.

1. Remove the hard drive and insert a bigger SSD.
2. Or, remove the DVD and insert the SSD in the DVD slot.

I went for the first option with a 240GB SSD.

Now I have a 120GB SSD and a 64GB SSD, both collecting dust. I might give one to my friend for his computer or keep them for future upgrade to the children's computers.

Best regards,

Mohamed