UEFI clean W7: Recovering Extra Drives HELP

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by MattMiller747, Dec 16, 2013.

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  1. MattMiller747

    MattMiller747 Registered Member

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    Dear all Please forgive me if this has already been addressed! I'm new here and brand new to UEFI. Yesterday a friend called out for help with his Custom ASUS I7 with 4 drives...as the Primary crashed....and he couldn't install W8 or W7 to new 4 Tb drive. So I called Asus and they talked me through flashing the Bios to a UEFI bios! W7 then installed, but divided the 4 Tb to 2 and 2. I then successfully resized it using Easeus to 100gig and 2tb, but I could not get the last 2 tb to be use-able :-( I tried via Easeus and W7 Disk management. HELP Also 1 of his 2 other drives was appearing, but not the other ? :-((( Please HELP! I'm hoping not to have to do another clean install again, as I have all his drivers loaded and that took a long time! Thank you !!!! PS One extra drive I formatted, but the other 2 have data and hopefully won't have to be formatted?! If necessary...I could conceivably, if necessary, use a Sata to USB adapter to transfer his data from the 3rd dirve to the now empty 2nd, and then the 4th to the 3rd.......but obviously would love it if someone could tell me if there is a way to get all the drives to appear without that effort! Thanks again ! PPS I was reading in this forum...is Macrium Reflect Free the Imaging Software of choice now.....or should I use Symantec System Recovery?
     
  2. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Matt,

    Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management?

    In Disk Management, can you right click on the Disk 0 icon (just above the word Basic), click Properties, Volumes tab. What is in the Partition style line?
     
  3. MattMiller747

    MattMiller747 Registered Member

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    HI Brian Sorry it took me so long,.... my buddy has been working 12 hr days.... As you can see its MBR ....why C is not Disk "0" I dunno ? And its all Primarys.....Is there a way to make all the other Drives and Partitions " Logicals' without deleting the data? That is THE problem, Yes? As well as being able to use the 1.6Tbs on Disk 2 Disk 0 is also MBR THANK YOU for your help ! :)))
     

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  4. MattMiller747

    MattMiller747 Registered Member

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    I was just researching....I guess my friend 'shot himself in the foot' by buying a 4 TB and using it for his Boot drive? Is the solution to swap that out for a 2 Tb max?......anyway, I'll now wait for your expertise.... :) !
     
  5. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Matt,

    Good news. It is not a UEFI system. That makes the following easier.

    The OS is not on HD0 and this does happen with Win7 at times.

    Primary partitions are good. Avoid logical volumes if you can.

    The G: drive is probably doing nothing and can be deleted later. The booting files are on HD0. I assume there is nothing else on HD0 so I'd resize the HD0 partition to 100 MB and clone the Win7 OS to the newly created unallocated space on HD0. Win7 on HD0 will need a BCD Edit and once it is booting you can delete Win7 on HD2 and convert HD2 to a GPT disk.
     
  6. MattMiller747

    MattMiller747 Registered Member

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    Wow that was quick :)

    Disk 0 is full of DATA :-( So is Disk 3 -( Disk 1 is Empty
    and you said to resize disk 0 to 100 mb and leave that alone for the System Files,,,and then image the OS to a new partition following it?
    but the Data ;-(((

    Would it be better to start from scratch
    what a mess :-(

    Again Data that he wants is on Disk 0 and Disk 3

    W7 installs really quick and we have all the Drivers now
    If I do the clean install route, should all drives be wiped 1st

    What would you do, Considering all the data on the drives!
     
  7. MattMiller747

    MattMiller747 Registered Member

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    PS I'm wondering now looking at the JPG of the Disks if he accidently wiped Disk 0 trying to reinstall Windows himself.......? whats the story with the 'hash marks' on disk 0?
     
  8. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Are you sure? It doesn't have a drive letter. The % Free in Disk Management might not be reliable with a System Partition. So how do you know it is full of data? You need to look at the partition offline to see how much data it contains.

    OK. Delete the D: drive and clone the OS to Disk 1. Easy.

    It just means you clicked that rectangle.

    Edit. Make sure Disk 2 is disconnected from the Motherboard for the first boot from the cloned Win7.
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2013
  9. MattMiller747

    MattMiller747 Registered Member

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    Not sure about disk 0.....I'm not there....although I can look remotely tomorrow night. And if there is Data.......how to make it 'Read' ??!!!

    And using D.....not sure how old it is.......but appreciate the advice !!!!!!!!
    thank you !!!!!

    Question.....can you guess as to why disk 2 was not set up as GPT when W7 installed to it?

    Thats why I'm wondering if its not better to start over o_O?
    If so will W7 set up the 4tb as a GPT automatically?
    and if I hook up the drives with data in them after W7 is installed, will the Data be visible and useable?

    PS Whats your Cloning Software of choice!?
     
  10. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    The BIOS is in Legacy and not UEFI mode.

    No, you have to do that manually.

    Yes.

    TeraByte Unlimited software. IFW, IFD, IFL.

    This will be a good exercise for you. It should work but if you mess up, install Win7 from scratch.
     
  11. MattMiller747

    MattMiller747 Registered Member

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    THANK YOU AGAIN :)))
     
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