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?
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?
Comments
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.
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.
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.
"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".
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.
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.
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
That is also what I got when I originally tried to do a full disk restore.
*: FAT32 100MB
*: Other 16mb
C: OS NTFS 965.48
*: Unallocated 12gb
Please respond as soon as possible.
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.
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
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?
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?
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?
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!
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 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?