Windows 10: cannot use recovery partition on new cloned samsung 850 pro ssd

so i recently upgraded my hard drive to a new samsung 850 pro ssd 512 gb . i used the samsung migration software and it all went smooth , i checked the newly installed ssd in disk management and it shows that it copied all three partitions which are, 500mb healthy ( recovery partition) .........260mb healthy (EFI system partition) and windows (c*Smile 476.18gb NTFS healthy (boot,page file, crash Dump, primary partition) .

everything seemed to be working fine until tonight when i had a ethernet problem which turned out to be one of my ports on my router going bad . but before i realised that all i needed to do was try a different port on my router i tried resetting my pc to factory settings but it would not let me do it with the new ssd drive so i then tried making a recovery usb flash drive but windows said it could not do it because files were missing .


so even though it shows that i have a recovery partition in computer management i cannot use it . i have not got a clue on how to fix this problem with the new ssd . i swapped the old hard drive back in to the pc and tried to make a system recovery usb drive and it worked fine so why cant i do this from the new ssd and why would files be missing from the newly cloned disk ? any help would be great because as it stands i cannot use any sort of recovery on this new ssd not even restore the pc to a early point in time . i will list my pc specs if it helps..

i7 6700k
asrock z170 pro4s motherboard
32gb ram
gtx 980 TI
wd blue 3tb drive for storing music and games
samsung 512gb evo pro ssd boot drive
windows 10 operating system

:)

 

Remove Recovery Partition and Go to Recovery Drive During HDD to SSD Upgrade

Thank you Sangeeta,

"delete the recovery partition as part of the cloning of the HDD to the SSD" The meaning of this quote is as follows:

The recovery partition on the HDD will NOT be copied onto the SSD. This differs from most other data on the HDD which will be copied over onto the SSD. The word cloning is used because the emphasis is on having a functioning system on the SSD that truly
mimics the system that ran on the HDD. Just as a biological clone is the creation of an identical organism with the same behavior.

The specific SSD I have is a Samsung 850 EVO with 250 GB capacity. It comes with migration software. Further study on my part discovered the following from the migration software user guide "OEM Recovery partition created by the computer manufacturer as
a factory setting will not be cloned". So, Samsung does not carry the recovery partition across to the SSD - just as I wanted.

So, the SSD won't have the 16 GB recovery partition that the HDD had. Incidentally, Acer documentation says that if a new drive is installed, the ability to go back to the "original build factory settings" will be lost. So, they anticipated the loss if
the drive was replaced. And this is fine by me since I do not want to go back to Windows 7.

The bottom line is that the SSD won't have the recovery partition; I need to create a recovery drive once I have upgraded to the SSD. (I think it is best to create the recovery drive after the SSD is installed since there are subtle differences between
the SSD and HDD and the recovery tools should reflect the SSD.)

 

When upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, update fails and I get 80070002-20009 error

This failed installation was on a cloned ssd with win 8.1 Pro. I used the Samsung Migration software to copy my 8.1 installation on another ssd in my computer. I have 4 ssd physical drives. Only my latest one a Samsung 850 EVO has had this failure issue
with win 10. The other drives had successful installations of win 10 Pro. But I believe at least one other drive was cloned also. So I really can't be sure the cloning is the issue.

 

You need to install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free and assign a drive letter to the recovery partition. Also, in Partition Wizard, right click on the recovery partition and select explore to determine the paths to install.wim and WindowsRE. Then from an elevated command prompt ("run as administrator" command prompt) run:

REAGENTC.EXE /setreimage /path r:\Recovery\WindowsRE

The path in red will be the path to WindowsRE that you find with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

REAGENTC.EXE /setosimage /path r:\Recovery\WindowsRE /index 1

The path in red will be the path to the folder containing the install.wim file (or possibly install.esd)

Then run REAGENTC /enable

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

After you get it all set up you can then remove the drive letter from the recovery partition.

For example, my custom recovery partition looks like this:




So, with T: as the drive letter I assigned, my commands would be:
REAGENTC.EXE /setreimage /path T:\Recovery\WindowsRE

and

REAGENTC.EXE /setosimage /path T:\Images /index 1

 

wow this seems complicated ,can i just delete the recovery partition and have windows create a new one ?

 

Well, actually looking back at your OP - I think your recovery partition may actually be assigned correctly. It's only 500mb though, so it only has the recovery environment files in it and not the Windows 10 installation files required to make a recovery drive with the capability to re-install Windows from.

Right click on the Windows (Start) icon, from the menu that appears, select command prompt (admin). Answer yes to the popup. Type the command reagentc /info

You should see a result that says recovery is enabled, and a location for the WindowsRE environment should be listed. The location for the OS image and custom OS image should be blank.

Without the Windows 10 install files in the recovery partition, that is all you can hope for. To make a recovery drive you will have to uncheck the block for copy system files to the recovery drive and you will end up with basically a USB that you can boot your computer with, maybe do a startup repair to fix boot issues, and not much else. In that situation you will want to download a Windows 10 ISO from either Media Creation Tool or Microsoft Tech Bench and make yourself a Windows 10 install USB or DVD.

Windows 10 ISO Download - Windows 10 Forums

 

thanks for your help .. what about if i re cloned the original drive with software that is known to work properly . do you know of any cloning software that would fix my problem as the original drive works fine . or is that one of the problems with cloning (data migration) .. i have read many reviews on the samsung 850 pro and people say they had no problems . is it possible to clone the original drive and have the recovery partition working as normal ?

 

If the only recovery partition on the original drive is 500 mb, then what you have now is working properly and is all you will get. If you want the ability to re-install Windows, you will have to make a Windows 10 install USB or DVD.

 

Focusing just on this part - I didn't trust the Samsung migration software (based on what I read back in June '15) and decided to use Macrium Reflect for replacing the HDD with a Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB drive in two different laptops at home. I used an image/restore sequence but cloning is also done reliably with Macrium Reflect - the free version is fully functional for what you're doing.

You may well be fine as NavyLCDR says but thought I would respond regarding an alternative to the Samsung cloning software.