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Disk restore trashed my system

I was having windows problems, so I decided to restore from an AOMEI standard disk backup. After that, my whole system was trashed and I couldn't get past the Dell boot menu. None of the partitions contained usable information. With the help of Dell support, I was able to do a clean Windows install. But I'd greatly prefer to try the restore again using my backup drive, so I don't have to reinstall all of my software. 
I'm assuming that I did something wrong in the restore process. I should be able to restore all of the partitions as the were before, correct?
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Comments

  • I just thought of something- I created the disk backup rubbing aomei under windows. Does that mean that i don't have a true full disk backup? Ugh. 
  • Please try to explore the disk backup to see if it's valid.
  • I ran the verification today, and there were no errors. 
  • edited August 2018
    I also successfully restored a data file (by exploring the backup). What I want to do is restore my entire system, if possible. 
  • I have no idea if this is/was your problem but from past personal experience with Backupper, I have seen this program assign drive letters to partitions that shouldn't have a drive letter after a disk restore. It seems if you can recover a file your backup image might be ok. If you're up to it you can try another restore. If you can do this using a spare drive as your destination you can avoid ruining your good drive. If it boots, great. If not, boot from your good drive with the spare also connected. Then you can go into disk management and see what the spare drive looks like. If it has letters assigned to any partition that your C drive doesn't, remove them, disconnect your C drive and try to boot from the spare again. If that works we can go from there. If that wasn't your problem maybe the admin has another idea. Again, this may not be your problem but it's something to eliminate. Good luck.
  • edited August 2018
    Oh hey, thanks, Flyer! I'm not sure I have another drive with enough capacity. My original drive is an ssd. Can I restore to a regular hard drive?

    I'm willing to try restoring to the original drive again. I haven't put much energy into customizing the clean windows install, so I can always go back to that. 
  • Yes you can restore to a HHD. the main reason why I suggested using another drive was if it failed you could use disk management to view the structure of that disk. This could also be done using diskpart and fixed that way but would be much harder to do unless you're familiar with using it.  When you say it wouldnt go past the boot menu, did it try to load windows and then give you an error message? Knowing if it did and what the message said could go a long way to resolve this. And just to clarify, you were doing a DISK restore and not a SYSTEM restore? Aomei doesn't add the extra partition letters in a SYSTEM restore. And again, I have no idea if this could be your problem. I only said this because if a letter was added to the partition containing the Master Boot Record this would stop the boot process. But this is only one possibility.
  • Thanks. I see your point, but anyway I don't have another 1tb drive I can use, unfortunately.
    Is there a good disk management utility that can be included in a bootable thumb drive which I could run after I do the restore, but before attempting to boot from the restored SSD?
    Yes, it's a DISK backup, not a system backup.
    Finally, Flyer, would you be willing to talk to me on the phone? If so, please PM me.
  • edited August 2018
    Admin or Flyer, please help!

    When I explore the AOMEI disk image, I see the following 5 partitions
       ESP (*:) Fat32 500.00mb
       OS (C:) Ntfs 965.48gb
       (*:) NTFS 881.57MB
       iMAGE(*:) NTFS 10.04GB
       DELLSUPPORT(*:) 1.08 GB

    When I look at diskmgt in my clean windows install, I see 3 partitions:
       C - NTFS Boot Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition - 977.49gb
       Disk 0 partition 1 - Recovery Partition - 499mb
       Disk 0 partition 2 - EFI System Partition - 100mb

    I don't know exactly what I should be restoring and where, if I try another restore from my disk backup. 
  • ps. admin - if I buy the pro version, can I get phone support for this?
  • I have installed AOMEI partition assistant and have created a bootable drive with it. Perhaps this will help with resolving any partition issues after the restore?
  • edited August 2018
    Interesting comment from https://www.backup-utility.com/features/disk-restore.html. This makes me think I should choose a different backup software: 
         "The AOMEI recovery process is just so unreliable. The recovery disk fails to work with Windows 10 UEFI disks and doesn't create the proper partitions to boot, always resulting in a blue screen! With the time it takes stuffing around with AOMEI disk recovery your better off just doing a fresh install and then a normal recovery. AOMEI needs to thoroughly test this process on the latest O/S's and systems. Alternatively they should come out with a much better boot recover system".
  • I sent you a PM.
    Don't give up yet. Aomei does have some faults but it does work. And you should have a good image so either I can help you, the admin can help you or someone else here on the forum can help you getting it restored. I tried a test of the Disk restore and found the drive letter was added for me but only in the Recovery partition. I've seen other posts here that their Disk restore also added the drive letter to the ESF partition. I have an MBR setup and a long time ago, a Norton Ghost restore eliminated my System Reserve partition and moved all I needed to boot to the active C drive. So I never knew if it would have added it there. Anyway, because of this, I do System Backups instead. All my test restores and using system restore (in lieu of cloning) to transfer the drive to a new one, for me and several friends has worked like a charm every time I've used it.

    So others here reading this might chime in, I suggested in my PM that it says it's possible to just restore a single partition from a Disk image. If this really does work, she might just try restoring her C partition image to her current C drive since everything works like it should. I have no idea if this will work so someone else may comment on this task.

  • Can you provide more details on "couldn't get past the Dell boot menu"?
  • Sorry, I can't remember exactly what happened before I did the fresh windows install. Do you think it's a good idea to restore only the c-drive partition?
  • I was having windows problems which the recovery processes could not resolve.
    I tried the restore twice, both of which appeared to be successful. The first time, when I restarted, I ended up in an endless loop of windows recovery. 

    The second time, I selected some different options (which I don't remember). After that, when I restarted, I didn't even get the Dell logo. With help from Dell support, I managed to boot to an install thumb drive, which left me with a nice clean windows install, but none of my applications.
  • @admin - please help!

    In my most recent restore attempt, I had done a clean install of windows, and then tried restoring only the "C" partition from my DISK backup. This resulted in these messages
     "diagnosing PC", then "attempting repairs", then "Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC".
    That is also what I got when I originally tried to do a full disk restore.   

    After the restore, using a Partition Assistant bootable thumb drive, I can see that there are now 5 partitions. Before the restore, there were only 3 - the first, second and fourth below are the ones which were present before the restore.
        *; Recovery NTFS 499mb
        *: FAT32 100MB
        *: Other 16mb
        C: OS NTFS 965.48
        *: Unallocated 12gb  

    I have the files from this link, but I don't know how they can be used: 
  • Let's delay our phone call
  • Run AOMEI Boot Repair.exe, choose the unbootable system and click OneKey Repair.
  • @admin
    It would help her and others (me included) if you could explain where that file is located and how you run it if your PC won't boot. I've told @Maxinegerb about your Boot Repair 1.0 zip (is that the same program?) but I have no idea how to use it or run it when you can't boot your PC. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated. Please be as specific as possible. Thank you. 
  • I think that exe file is easy to find? Unzip the archive and you will see it.
    You could boot from the source drive or a functional computer, connect the target drive and click repair.
    Also, there's a bootable ISO version that you could try.
    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx1HyPJEMTrNNzBkaFo2TDRCZ00
  • edited August 2018
    The "target drive" is internal to my laptop, so I can't connect it to a functional computer. I don't know what you mean by "source drive".
    Can I copy the .exe & .dlls to a bootable thumb drive, start the laptop from the thumb drive and run the repair targeting the laptop's C drive? If I do that, do I also need to copy all of the .dlls from the .zip file?


  • You have to burn it to the USB so it will open when you boot from it on your Win 10 PC. If right clicking the file on your Win 7 PC doesn't have the burn option, use free program Rufus, or one from the OTHER section in the Aomei help files for Backupper. 

  • I cleaned the laptop drive with diskpart, and then I did am AOMEI full DISK restore from my backup. When I restarted, I saw the message "scanning and repairing drive". Restarting after the repair completed continuously gave me the message "your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart"

    Then I created a boot USB from the .iso file and I ran the repair tool. Again when I restart, I continuously get "your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart". 

    Are there additional steps I can take, or do I need to re-install windows and all of my software?


  • One more thing. I notice in Partition Assistant that the C drive does NOT have status = Boot. Is it supposed to?
  • @admin

    I have documented the partitions as they are now. See screen shot below. The upper part shows the results from AOMEI partition assistant and the lower part shows the results from DISKPART. 

    Should E have a letter?
    I think that F and G should not have letters, is that correct?
    Should C have status = Boot?
    How many boot partitions should there be?




  • edited August 2018
    A. What is the Dell boot menu? Is this something special that interferes with Aomei?
    B. I would have suggested too to restore only the C: partition into the new and working C: partition of the clean install. But that did not work for you?
    C. Then I would suggest another workaround: do the clean install again, so you have a small Windows installation of around 10 GB.
        1. Install EasyBCD (Free) from Neosmart.net
        2. Install Aomei 
        3  With Windows Disk management decrease the C drive of that Windows to around 15GB leaving you  950GB of unallocated space. You don't really need 950GB, do you? Than you can make it 30-935 or 100-865 or so.
         4. Restore only the C: partition of your backup into that unallocated partition. 
         5. In EasyBCD add the restored C: partition to the boot menu giving you a dual boot (new and old Windows)
    .    6. Restart and see if you can start both versions of Windows
         7. If so, install EasyBCD in the restored Windows. You can alter the boot menu to skip the menu and go directly to your old Windows. Also disable Metro boot menu style. But if you want to keep the boot menu and use both versions of windows on a regular basis you need to disable Fast Startup in both Windows. See Power Options in Control Panel (Make a shortcut to Control.exe in Windows 10)
     
    Good luck!

  • Thanks! That's an amazing and creative solution.
    I understand it all except "Metro boot menu style".
    After doing all of the above, can I wipe the little windows partition and merge it with the big one? Or will that 10gb partition always be there?
    I guess my inclination is to bite the bullet and do a clean windows install, reload all of my software, restore my data and kiss AOMEI goodbye. I've obviously been avoiding that, but maybe that's my cleanest way forward. 
  • I'm trying to follow your script above. When I go to disk management, it says that I can only shrink my disk by half, ie. "size of available shrink space in MB" is 499910 (out of 1000946).
    I don't want to lose half of my 1tb drive. Is there another utility I can use to shrink it to 20 or 30gb as you suggested?
  • I figured it out. I needed to disable storage protection.
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