Windows 10: Restored Macrium Reflect Image not bootable

Good day,

I bought a new desktop (Lenovo Gaming IdeaCentre Computer, Y710 Cube-15). It comes with a pitiful 100 GB SSD + 1 TB HD. My existing desktop has a 460GB SSD + 3 TB HD. I'd like to move my existing SSD + HD over to the new Lenovo desktop. It seems that this could be as simple as just moving the drives over, maybe even without running sysprep. So that's my plan.

Now, I'm a bit nervous about this move, so I figured I would do a dry run first. I imaged my existing SSD (bootable c: drive), and then restored that image onto an older HD. However, when I plugin this HD into the new desktop, it won't boot; the bios just says "Checking Media Presence....", and won't start. I've checked the bios setting, made sure the HD is first in the boot sequence, but the result is the same.

Looking at the restored image on the old HD on my old desktop, I noticed the "System reserved" partition was showing up as another hard drive (I expect this partition to be hidden). I removed the drive letter associated with the partition, but that did not change anything on the new desktop - still won't start. There are other differences with restored partitions, compared to the original partitions; here is a screenshot:





The original system reserved partition is "System, Active, Primary Partition"; the original other partition is "Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition".

The restored system reserved partition is "Active, Primary Partition" (missing "System"); the restored other partition is "Primary Partition" (missing Boot, Page File, Crash Dump).

I don't know if these missing partition properties are causing the issue, but I suspect so.

1. Is there are a way to set these properties now, on the existing restored partitions? Is there an issue with having another "Boot" partition on my old desktop (or a partition marked as "Page File", and/or "Crash Dump"?) After writing this post, I saw Fix Boot Problems - is this the best way to fix these partition issues?

2. What caused the issue in the first place? Did I screw up something with Macrium Reflect when creating the image? When Restoring the image?

I suppose I could clone the original SSD onto the old HD (perhaps these partition property issues won't show up with cloning, vs image + restore), though, in the grander scheme of things, I'd like to have some confidence that I can restore Macrium Reflect images properly, including being bootable.

Thanks
Jimmy

:)

 

Windows Boot Sector corrupted

Does your HDD installation still work? If so then this would be the correct procedure to follow:

• Use Macrium Reflect (or a similar tool) to create an image of your installation.
• Disconnect the HDD, connect the SSD.
• Boot the machine with the Macrium Reflect bootable rescue flash disk.
• Restore the image to the SSD.

In general: When restoring images you must make sure at the first reboot to connect the new disk only. If both disks are connected then you risk ruining both installations.

 

Correct Format for USB Stick | FAT32? | NTFS? | Some Other Format?

Windows 10 on PC.

I plan to use Macrium Reflect Free to create a System Image on a USB stick (not a removable USB drive). Macrium will create the Image as a .mcimg file. The file will be approximately 74 GB. In the future, when
I want to restore to the System Image, I plan to use Macrium to perform the restore. Because Macrium will be used for the restore, the USB stick does not have to be bootable.

Given this scenario, what format should be used for the USB stick? FAT32, or NTFS, or some other format?

Thanks

 

The old computer was legacy BIOS (uses an NTFS system reserved partition to boot from). The new computer is UEFI and trying to boot in UEFI mode (which does not use a system reserved partition to boot from, it uses a FAT32 EFI System partition to boot from).

You will have to create your own FAT32 EFI System partition to boot into the existing Windows partition. Or boot the new computer is CSM mode, but creating the FAT32 EFI System partition is pretty easy, but you need a bootable Windows 10 USB flash drive or DVD to boot into.

See post #69 here:
Windows 10 Windows 7 Dual Boot - Can it be done Solved - Page 7 - Windows 10 Forums

Before creating the EFI System Partition with diskpart, you can also use diskpart to delete the existing System Reserved partition if you want to.

I recommend using Kyhi's Recovery Tools, it should have everything you need on it:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

To make a bootable USB flash drive of it, insert a flash drive, run diskpart and the commands are:

diskpart
list disk
select disk # <- replace # sign with the actual drive number of the USB flash drive
clean <- this will erase the selected disk above, make sure it is the USB flash drive!
create part pri
format fs=fat32 quick
active
assign
exit
exit


Then mount the ISO file of Kyhi's recovery drive and copy all the files and folders from the mounted ISO file to the USB flash drive.

One other consideration is to partition the test hard drive using GPT partitioning (UEFI) instead of MBR partitioning (legacy BIOS). You would want to do that before you copy the Windows partition over to it.

 

Thank you for the detailed and enlightening response.

If I do this, restoring the two partitions with Macrium Reflect will maintain GPT partitioning? I don't know much about this, but instinctively I thought Macrium Reflect restoring might just use the same partitioning scheme as in the image. But now that I think about it, I suppose it does make sense that Macrium Reflect restoring respects whatever partitioning scheme is in place on the target drive.

As for the actual SSD, is it possible to have the same OS instance boot either in GPT (on the new computer) or in MBR (on the old computer) (just in case I need to "roll back" to the old computer)? The post you refer to (Windows 10 Windows 7 Dual Boot - Can it be done Solved - Page 7 - Windows 10 Forums) seems to do dual booting, but for two different instances of an OS (if I understand correctly). Or maybe it just makes more sense to boot the new computer in CSM mode?

Thanks again,
Jimmy

 

You can restore the same backup image to either a GPT drive or an MBR drive. The difference is going to be the partition the computer boots from. If you boot the new computer is CSM mode, then the partition the computer boots from will be the same. I am not sure if booting in CSM mode from a GPT partition type drive will work, but if you are booting from an SSD, MBR and CSM booting vs. GPT and UEFI booting does not make that much difference.

If you want to maintain 100% compatibility, then partition the SSD with MBR, and boot from a System Reserved Partition in CSM mode.

 

Success! Enabling CSM mode was the way to go. Everything was trivial after that.

After a successful dry run, I went ahead and plugged in the old SSD & HD in the new computer. Windows started fine, "initalizing new hardware" for a minute or so. No need to run sysprep or anything.