Windows 10: Macrium image restore changes partition layout

Stay aware, Windows 10 is changing the way recovery drives and partition configurations are done. You may be experiencing the changeover in some manner.

Reagentc may be pretty much irrelevant in regard to any recovery images since an new Windows 10 install does not use a Recovery Image. How this may effect a Macrium recovery image, I do not know since I do not use Macrium.

 

Windows 10 partitions are either standard Uefi or standard bios.

All Uefi installs of Windows have an EFI, MSR and System (C drive) partition. Windows 10 installs a fourth recovery partition, which is different to previous versions, as it is not a copy of the OS as in traditional recovery partitions, being much smaller.

The recovery partition just contains the software to rebuild the OS from the winsnxs folders in Windows 10.

Macrium Reflect knows nothing about this. It simply backs up or restores whatever it is told to backup or restore.

 

Bottom line though, I still can't use Shift+Restart to get to Safe Mode.

For now I used:
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu True
Now when I get the boot menu I can press F8 to get the Advanced Boot Options menu.
I set it to timeout in 3 seconds so it's a minimal impact to boot time.

I'd still like to fix the shift+restart problem if anyone has any suggestions.

 

You do have a Winre image in the Recovery Tools partition?

The Recovery Image entry is not relevant with Windows 10, or so it seems.

Here is some info you might be able to use. This is a OEM Windows 10 install and you may notice they set the Recovery Tools partition next to the last partition.

 

Yes, WinRE is there:\. I assigned Q: as a drive letter:





With Q: assigned:

Code: C:\Users\rrkurtz>reagentc /info Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration Information: Windows RE status: Enabled Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 4f8fcc2d-ced2-11e5-8a83-448a5b06acdb Recovery image location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk1\partition2\Recimage Recovery image index: 1 Custom image location: Custom image index: 0[/quote] Interestingly, I had to give myself Read access to both the Recovery and WindowsRE folders before I could see any of the above.

 

Why are you still showing an OS image in Partition 2. I would not think the EFI partition would have a Recovery Image.

The Winre image you show in the Recovery Tools partition is or is not a Windows 10 Tools version.

You might check the reagent.xml you show in the Recovery Tools Partition and see what it shows.

 

It shows in partition 2 because that's where I've been telling it is. I should be saying partition 1. I'll try that, should fix it.

Thanks

Above not true. I've no idea why it said partition 2. I've been assigning Q: to partition 1 then doing

assign Q: to partition 1
reagentc /disable
reagentc /setreimage /path Q:\Recovery\WindowsRE
reagentc /enable
remove Q:

Right now it looks like this:

Code: C:\Users\rrkurtz>reagentc /info Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration Information: Windows RE status: Enabled Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 4f8fcc2f-ced2-11e5-8a83-448a5b06acdb Recovery image location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk1\partition2\Recimage Recovery image index: 1 Custom image location: Custom image index: 0 REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.[/quote] I'm going to reboot and see what it looks like. If okay I'll try shift+restart again.

 

After reboot, it's disabled again.

 

I will bring up the reagent.xml file again. That seems to be the file created using reagentc. You may try altering it directly and remove the reference to Partition 2.

 

• Run: reagentc /disable and also remove the letter Q
• go to: C:\Windows\System32\Recovery. There should be 2 files:WinRE.wim and ReAgent.xml
• Edit ReAgent.xml and replace the content with:
  NOTE: Might have to save it to desktop first then move to replace
  Code: <?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' standalone='yes'?> <WindowsRE version="2.0"> <WinreBCD id=""></WinreBCD> <WinreLocation path="" id="0" offset="0"></WinreLocation> <ImageLocation path="" id="0" offset="0"></ImageLocation> <PBRImageLocation path="" id="0" offset="0" index="0"></PBRImageLocation> <PBRCustomImageLocation path="" id="0" offset="0" index="0"></PBRCustomImageLocation> <InstallState state="0"></InstallState> <OsInstallAvailable state="0"></OsInstallAvailable> <CustomImageAvailable state="0"></CustomImageAvailable> <WinREStaged state="0"></WinREStaged> <ScheduledOperation state="4"></ScheduledOperation> <OperationParam path=""></OperationParam> <OsBuildVersion path=""></OsBuildVersion> <OemTool state="0"></OemTool> </WindowsRE>[/quote]
• Run: reagentc /enable
• then run: reagentc /info. It should be: enable

 

Wouldn't the OP have to run reagentc /setreimage to point to the WinRE.wim in System32 first before enabling it via reagentc?

 

C:\Windows\System32\Recovery\ReAgent.xml starts with x'EFBBBF'. Is this correct and normal?
Seems to be as it's the same on my Win 10 Oracle VM.

Other than that it's identical to what you asked me to replace it with.

NavyLCDR, no WinRE.wim in System32. No WinRe.wim anywhere on my computer.

 

No, It does not look normal. Somehow, the ReAgent.xml got corrupted.
Did you run step #1 above ? When you run: reagentc /disable , windows should move the WinRe.wim back to C:\Windows\System32\Recovery folder along with ReAgent.xml

No, reagentc /setreimage is used when the Recovery partition is moved but before enabling it, WinRE.wim must exist in C:\Windows\System32\Recovery folder, not in System32

With reagentc /disable:




With reagentc /enable, the content of ReAgent.xml changed. The GUID must match what in BCD, the offset must match with the output from diskpart (detail partition):

 

That's why reagentc won't stay enabled. WinRE.wim IS the recovery environment! It's not going to matter how much you edit reagent.xml files. That would be like trying to boot into a Windows installation without a \Windows folder. No matter how much you edit the BCD, it just won't happen.

 

WinRE.wim only exists in \disk0\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE, it does not exist in C:\Windows\System32\Recovery.
With reagentc set to enable or disable does not matter, WinRE.wim is never placed in C:\Windows\System32\Recovery.

I even copied WinRE.wim from \disk0\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE to C:\Windows\System32\Recovery then did an enable and disable and it was deleted from C:\Windows\System32\Recovery and no additional enable/disable put it back again. That seems to be the basis of my problem.

A clean install would fix this but not something I'm willing to do at this time, especially since I can access F8 from the boot menu at boot time now so the need for a working shift+restart is no linger necessary.

If you can think of a way to fix this I'm willing to give it a try though.

Thanks for all your efforts so far.