Windows 10: Reflect Restore Issues

I've been experimenting installing Windows 10 on an old PC - see Windows 10 on 2004 PC?. I have 2 drives - a SSD containing the OS files and an old HDD for storing downloads and OS backups.

I got Windows 10 FCU 32 bit working and activated with a digital licence linked to my MS account. I made a Reflect backup of the SSD OS drive on an external USB drive.

I then tried clean installing the 64 bit version of Windows 10 FCU which failed by whichever route I tried at the first boot screen. I've now given up and restored the 32 bit installation using a Reflect boot disk.

The restore worked OK but I had several issues:

• The restored OS was initially not activated but eventually activated with the digital licence after an hour - is this normal?
• The second HDD was not listed in This PC. I looked at disk management and noted the drive was inactive since both drives had the same signature. I used the DISKPART UNIQUEID command to change the signature of the HDD and it was then displayed. Why did this happen after restoring the backup image?
• I first made a Reflect recovery drive using PE 10 rescue media on a DVD but this wouldn't boot on my old PC. I then made another rescue DVD using PE 3.1 and that booted and worked fine. Why is the PE type sensitive to the age of the PC?

:)

 

Can you back up a labtop running on windows 10 and restore that data on a new labtop or pc if something goes wrong with the other one?

I have heard Macrium reflect pro has a setting to be able to restore an image to another/different computer although I don't know how you'd go on with activation issues.

 

Wi-Fi and Ethernet no longer working after restoring disk image backup via Macrium

I've restored plenty of Reflect backups ... let's say I like to 'experiment' with my PC ... and have never had a problem. You should post your question in the Reflect user forum.

 

Did you use Reflect 6 or 7? Version 7 has many problems, I recommend using v6 instead.

 

I used v7. Such is progress!

 

I stay on v6 so cannot help unfortunately...

 

V7 was updated today to 7.1.2695. It works great for me.

 

1. It's activated thru MS account or on MS servers, not localy so it may take some time to connect and go thru, even a day or two or longer.
3. Windows PE reflects the windows version it's made from, it's just any exceptionally small and reduced OS.

 

Thanks. I didn't realise activation can take a day or more since activation of my previous updates on other PCs was very quick.