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Backupper Recovery Environment won't boot off C:\ drive install

I used the Backupper "Tools | Recovery Environment" option to
"Enable the boot option of AOMEI Backupper recovery environment".

However, when I try to boot to this option, I just get a blank screen and eventually a reboot. (The recovery environment WinPE *.wim files seems to be good -- testing discussed below.)

It looks like "Tools | Recovery Environment" option created a folder called
"C:\AomeiRecovery\"
with these files in it:
AomeiBoot.sdi
AomeiBoot.wim
version.ini

and it also setup some Windows Boot Configuration Data (BCD) boot options pointing to these files, i.e.:

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {265188c5-0965-4b5c-bd7e-61db25e099b3}
device                  ramdisk=[C:]\AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.wim,{28ec7a44-37db-418c-91fe-125a800fa314}
description             AOMEI Backupper Recovery
osdevice                ramdisk=[C:]\AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.wim,{28ec7a44-37db-418c-91fe-125a800fa314}
systemroot              \Windows
nx                      OptIn
detecthal               Yes
winpe                   Yes
....
Device options
--------------
identifier              {28ec7a44-37db-418c-91fe-125a800fa314}
ramdisksdidevice        partition=C:
ramdisksdipath          \AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.sdi  

Oddly enough, I can take the 
C:\AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.wim
file and rename it to
boot.wim
and put it in place of the 
\sources\boot.wim
on the USB drive created by the "Tools | Create Bootable Media | Windows PE..." option,
and the image will boot fine -- so it seems like a good, compatible WinPE image. However, the same AomeiBoot.wim image won't successfully launch from the Windows BCD context made by the "Tools | Recovery Environment" option.

Unfortunately, I also don't see any feedback during the unsuccessful boots that would give a clue as to what is failing..

Any suggestions for troubleshooting and getting the Backupper recovery environment to launch from the BCD menu entry?

Choosing the recovery environment from a BCD menu item will much more elegant than having to insert a USB, choose it as a boot up device from the BIOS, keep the USB updated, etc.

Thanks for any help

Comments

  • Hi jeverett, I do not work for AOMEI and am just another user of Backupper like yourself (AOMEI Backupper Professional 7.1.0) and am using it under Windows 10 Pro (Version 21H2 - OS Build 19044.2130).  I will give you some info which might be of some help?

    I have been doing backups, including scheduled System Backup images, to an external 6 TB USB drive.  I successfully setup the Recovery Environment on first setting up the product on 6 November and actually successfully did a full system restore yesterday using it, so it worked fine (although I initially had a problem rebooting to Windows after the restore and had to boot to a Windows 10 DVD I had to fix the startup environment, which then worked correctly again).

    You do not say what version of Windows or Backupper you are using, but there are some things that I did which may help you get your Recovery Environment working?  You say "..when I try to boot to this option, I just get a blank screen and eventually a reboot...", so on a boot, presumably you are getting a Windows Boot Manager screen with options to boot to Windows or Backupper and the problem occurs after you choose "Enter into AOMEI Backupper" (note I set my timeout to 30 seconds) ?

    My screen is like this:



    After choosing the Backupper option, I get this:



    It appears that you are not getting to that stage, so I wonder if you are having an issue with not being able to load a suitable graphics driver?

    Then the Backupper loads and I can choose a backup image to restore from (I actually chose one from 6 November to restore from this morning (not showing on my snapshot).


    It actually restored 3 partitions all on an SSD drive (I have 3 SSDs and 2 hard drives in this computer).

    Anyway, I can confirm that I have the identical files as yourself in a "C:\AomeiRecovery\" directory.  I am not sure where you copied your information from starting:

    Windows Boot Loader
    -------------------
    identifier              {265188c5-0965-4b5c-bd7e-61db25e099b3}
    device                  ramdisk=[C:]\AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.wim,{28ec7a44-37db-418c-91fe-125a800fa314}

    I have looked at my registry and the only thing found in it for AomeiRecovery is this key:


    At least you have some information from a working system, even if it is not terribly helpful to fix yours.  I use a free utility called winaerotweaker to set up my boot environment anyway, available here:

    https://winaerotweaker.com/

    These are the boot options that I use, which were set up prior to setting up recovery environment in Backupper using the  "Tools | Recovery Environment" option



    Hope something here help?

    Cheers and good luck,

    Richard.
  • edited November 2022
    Hi Richard/ @G4WKW, thanks for the helping hand and talking me through some stuff. I also appreciate the tip about WinAero Tweaker -- I'll check it out.

    I got the boot start up entries from my system with:
    bcdedit /enum all
    ... that'll show you both the AEOMI recovery regular boot menu entry (that you see with the default 'bcdedit' or 'bcdedit /enum'), as well as the extra supporting ramdisk settings ("Device options"), like you see on mine:
    Windows Boot Loader
    -------------------
    identifier              {265188c5-0965-4b5c-bd7e-61db25e099b3}
    device                  ramdisk=[C:]\AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.wim,{28ec7a44-37db-418c-91fe-125a800fa314}
    description             AOMEI Backupper W10
    osdevice                ramdisk=[C:]\AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.wim,{28ec7a44-37db-418c-91fe-125a800fa314}
    systemroot              \Windows
    nx                      OptIn
    detecthal               Yes
    winpe                   Yes
    ....
    Device options
    --------------
    identifier              {28ec7a44-37db-418c-91fe-125a800fa314}
    ramdisksdidevice        partition=C:
    ramdisksdipath          \AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.sdi  

    Anyway, to clarify my situation, following your good documentation example:
    I'm running AOMEI Backupper Workstation Edition 7.1.0 on Windows 10 Pro 22H2 19045.2251. I have another partition on the drive with Windows 11, so I'll have the Windows 11 boot loader, however.

    When I boot up, I have all the options I put into the Windows BCD, one of which is what the Backupper "Tools | Recovery Environment" option put in there -- I only changed the description text to say "AOMEI Backupper W10" instead of the default string.:


    When selecting "AOMEI Backupper W10" (which has the values shown by the BCDedit output above), the system just gives me a black screen... until I eventually see my machine rebooting:


    Now, if I instead boot of a USB disk, using the same C:\AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.wim Windows PE image as the above on hard disk recovery, I instead see Windows PE come up:




    I do have a mismatched video -- my Nvidia 3080ti doesn't seem to play well with whatever UEFI VGA Windows PE is going on here -- so I have to grab edges of the screen and scroll around to see everything. But, the Backupper recovery environment does run.

    I can also load up the video driver for the Aspeed IPMI VGA adapter on my motherboard and get full (if imperfect video) resolution out that adapter:




    So, a little quirky, but usable -- and far from just a black screen and a reboot.

    As such, I'm at a loss why the C:\AomeiRecovery\AomeiBoot.wim Windows PE image I have would boot well enough off a USB drive, but it just fails to boot off the hard drive and Windows boot menu system....

    ...hmmm, unless maybe because my C:\ drive is a NVMe drive (a Samsung 980 Pro), and maybe the support for that type of drive isn't baked into the Windows PE image, and needs it to be added somehow.
  • ...hmmm, my C:\ drive is a NVMe drive (a Samsung 980 Pro), and maybe the support for that type of drive isn't baked into the Windows PE image, and needs it to be added somehow.
    Seems like there has indeed been a history of problems with Windows PE supporting NVMe drives; I found a few issues searching for "windows PE nvme boot driver support". It seems like there indeed may be some extra driver support for the Backupper "Tools | Recovery Environment" option to work if you system boots off a NVMe drive.

    Does anyone here have any success booting the Backupper recovery environment off a NVMe drive on their system, rather than off a USB drive?

    (Interestingly, I had a similar problem with my system where the Backupper USB media would boot off my Thunderbolt port, but NOT off the other USB ports on my motherboard (which were all off a AMD WRX80 chipset USB 3.1 controller.) Ultimately, I had to add the (newer?) usbxhci driver from the regular Windows to the PE environment to get it working.) Maybe, the recovery PE also needs some newer support for NVMe drives.

    I looked at the drivers in regular Windows for the NVMe drive:


    and tried adding those -- at least, stornvme.sys and disk.sys (I couldn't find *.inf files for the others), but the PE still wouldn't boot of the NVMe.

    Any other advice? Or is PE boot off NVMe just not going to work, and I should settle for running it off USB?






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