Windows 10: Wanting to use unallocated space on my hard drive, any dos and don'ts?

After getting some sleep, I realized I did not use the network when I did all my cloning, upgrading on the 2nd PC. I used the network while in Windows. After some troubleshooting last night, we now have the method to make it work while booted to the Macrium USB/Macrium recovery boot menu (the one you can install from Other Tasks menu). I hope the OP's backup ran successfully.

 

Any updates @ACMDogfight1997 ?

 

Well, it's taking more that 3-5 hours to finish that's for sure. I'm on my second attempt now because the first one failed after 52 GB went through over Sunday night (about 6-7%). This attempt so far is doing much better as it's now at 39% after over 21 hours of transferring over the network. Hopefully, this will be finished sometime tomorrow. Also, will doing this add data usage to my ISP because my household had an issue during February where our data usage rapidly increased reaching well over our limit likely because of some kind of malware.

 

No data at all on the ISP. This is directly over the local connection. Wow and it's taking a long time.

 

*sigh*, finally.

 

Holy time taken Batman. I am happy for ya! Now you can slap a Windows 10 usb/dvd in the pc, delete everything when it asks ya where to install. highlight the unallocated space and install. Install Macrium Free when you get into Windows so you can copy back anything you want of course. Good luck with it. Post back if you need any help.

 

Okay, I've got one more thing, I think. I just installed Macrium on the PC that I just recently reinstalled Windows on and I'm about to perform the retrieval of the backup from my laptop to the desktop. However, it wants to associate the backup to a drive letter.

I know that my issue with Windows not launching properly before which led me to perform this incredibly long backup from my desktop to my laptop had started after I merged the C: partition, which was a newly installed partition of Windows, and the D: partition, which is the partition with my old stuff, with Partition Wizard. I did that because Windows would not boot all my program shortcuts and settings and instead I have to search through the D: partition on Windows Explorer if I had to find I program that I needed to launch, to which I couldn't accept. I want to figure out a way to get all my settings back and all my programs easily available to me when I launch into Windows without having to repeat the same mistakes that got me here.

 

In Macrium, open the program and under the Other Tasks menu, and click on Add recovery Boot Menu Option.





You can set this boot menu to 5 seconds. That way when you reboot or turn on your PC it will boot to this menu and you will have 5 seconds to select recovery if needed. After the 5 seconds it will just boot into windows automatically. Make sure Windows 10 is default in the list.





If you don't still have the bootable Macrium you used for backup, make a DVD or use a flash drive to have one handy in case you ever cannot boot to the recovery menu.

Now on to the drive letter:
It will add a drive letter in your File Explorer, for me it is the first unused drive letter after C:\, which for me is E:\ as I just tested exploring the image. Once you have let it add the drive letter, it will open another File Explorer window with an exact looking copy of the hard disk you backed up.

Anything installed on the old image will need to be reinstalled. It is near impossible to be able to copy a program folder over and have it run correctly and not recommended.

Any and all files you may have had there, like documents, pictures, music, etc can all be copied to your current Windows installation. Look through everything there and make sure you copy all the stuff you want in your Windows you have installed now.

Once you are done installing your programs and done copying all files and folders you want on your PC, you should make a current image of the system as it is. This way if you have any issue like this again, you can simply restore the image and it will be just like you installed clean and put all your programs on the PC.

EDIT: once you are done copying all the data you want from the image, you can simply right click the drive letter it added in File Explorer, point to Macrium and select Unmount. This will remove it from File Explorer.

 

Okay, apparently I the option I though was right didn't turn out to be, I think. How do I transfer the backup file from the laptop back to the desktop on Macrium? I don't know if this is the best way or not.

 

If you want the backup file on the PC, just copy it like you would any file over the network. The folder you backed up too, is public. You can just browse over there in File Explorer.

Also if the laptop is on wifi, it would be faster if you had a ethernet cord to attach it to the router/modem your PC is plugged into.

 

The best way I think would be to add the drive letter and copy just what you want back over. Copying the whole image will give you all the windows stuff and tons more that you dont want to copy.

 

Okay, I found an option to restore the backup image to my desktop through the network (Restore/Browse for an image or backup file to restore). It tells me to boot into Windows PE since the C: partition on my desktop is currently being used and it asks for a username and password. Is there something wrong?

 

If you restore that image you will restore it back to not working. It is an exact image of the non working drive you had before.

 

You will have to browse to the backup over the network. Right click it and explore image. Add the drive letter when it asks. It will open a window up showing all the folders and files just as they were when you could not boot. You will need to copy any data you want on your PC from there. There is no way to get back the programs working without installing them on the PC again. Any documents, music or pictures or videos you had on the backup will need to be copied over also if you want them. Anything you want from the hard drive that would not boot, will need to be copied over.

You cannot restore the image or you will be back where you were before the backup and needing to install Windows again.

 

Okay, I'm seriously not liking this. I'm looking up the backup file and I'm not seeing any files or folders that have my stuff I had before. I'm afraid that the merge screwed up even worse than I thought and somehow it didn't save the information regarding the files I had before the merge on the former D: partition but just left the used hard drive space indicating it was there before.

If there's no way I'm getting my old files back then I am really disappointed. *Sad