How to Rescue Windows 7 in the Event of SSD Failure

My O/S (Win7 x64) is on an SSD and after my brother had his SSD fail recently, I thought I would post about recovery options (assuming that it is a hardware failure)..

I make fairly regular backups of my C Drive as a system image (via the Windows 7 option) - and also the registry via ERDNT. My question is this: if I created a new, empty Primary Partition on one of my SATA drives, in the event that the SSD failed and Windows could not find the C Drive currently on the SSD, would Windows allow me to change the empty SATA partition's drive letter to 'C' and restore the system image there? Or can anyone see that in practice there would be 'issues' with that? I clearly don't want to test this out for real when the current C Drive is operating normally - this is just a precautionary measure of course.

Not sure either at this stage how to restore the system image to a different partition yet, but I guess the information is out there (probably in Win7 Help too) ...

Any comments on this? Thanks,

Martin

I think it should after you have unplugged the defective SSD. But because I have never faced this situation I am not 100% sure.

The drive letters are only valid for the currently loaded OS. If you were to connect another drive with say Windows 7 on it you would likely notice that it becomes C: and what was C: changes to another drive letter. Also Windows 7 won't let you change the drive letter for the drive it is installed to and currently running from. If your currently installed OS is using C for its drive letter it won't let you change it or assign it to another drive. That shouldn't be a problem though. If you restore your image to the correct partition on the replacement hard drive and that partition is marked as the boot partition, one would think that Windows would boot up as C:. I would think that you would want to mirror your current disk structure. For me that would be System Reserved (Active Primary), Windows 7 (Boot), etc. I don't think you can just arbitrarily put it on any partition and expect it to work. I'm no expert on this and I may have gotten some of it wrong but thats the way I "think" it works.

Yeah, there is room for improvement in your strategy;

1. Using Windows7 imaging is not such a good idea. When the time comes to restore, it can be very iffy and does not work in many cases. There are ways to recover from that (if the images are on an external drive and if you have another working system), but this recovery is very involved - see here.

2. I would recommend you use free Macrium for imaging. That is more robust and you have much better control. Free Paragon is another alternative if e.g. you prefer differential images. But that is a bit more complex.

3. Your copy on the HDD won't help you unless this is a full installation. And you cannot just rename a partition to be C. If you have an additional Win7 installation on the HDD partition, you need to change the BIOS boot sequence in order to boot from that and then this partition will assume the letter C automatically. And if the SSD goes belly up, that will only work if that partition has its own bootmgr and not a double boot where the bootmgr is on the SSD.

But that strategy may set you back by months because all the activity you did on your SSD will be lost. Frequent imaging is a much better option.

4. I assume you have a seperate data partition which you backup as needed. That can be imaged or synced. But you have to backup your data even more often than the system. The system can always be rebuilt - one way or another. But if you lose your data, that is more tragic.

And enable the restore points on your data partition. Then you can always recover things when you lose a file or folder. E.g. like this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/132087-shadowexplorer-recover-lost-files-folders.html

5. SSDs are no more fragile than HDDs - just the opposite. The problem your brother had was bad luck. I have 6 SSDs and they all work well (knock on wood). The oldest one is over 3 years old.

Thanks very much for the replies.

I am downloading Macrium 5.0, as you suggest WHS. I will make an image of the C partition using that, once I have read and understood the instructions: I've downloaded the video too (though I can only hear it if I turn my PC volume to maximum!).

My current image, using Windows 7 imaging, is of the C partition and the 'System Reserved' space. I actually use the PC in question pretty much exclusively for MS Flight Simulator. On one SDD, divided into two partitions, I have the O/S in one partition and Flight Simulator X on the other. On a 2nd. SDD I have Flight Simulator 9. I back up/sync the entire FSX and FS9 root folders using XXCopy (in other words, yes, I do have a backup of my data files). I also have two SATA drives with other stuff, documents etc. - I use the 2nd. SATA disc as a backup for the 1st. In addition, I keep a copy of my C drive image on an external drive - so all in all I think I have all the backups I would need (and I have plenty of experience restoring the data on the PC - it's the O/S that 'worries' me). But of course all that would be in vain if the backup programme won't restore the O/S in the event of an SSD failure and Macrium seems to be reliable in that respect, from what I read at least.

Using Macrium, I guess your paragraph 3 no longer applies? I need to read up about how to recover the O/S partition using Macrium of course ..

But as you say, maybe (fingers crossed) I will have no problems with my SSDs and they will survive to a ripe old age!

Thanks again,

Martin

the C partition and the 'System Reserved' space

Click to expand...

Note that Macrium does not image the small system partition automatically with C as Windows7 imaging does.

Therefore, before you start imaging with Macrium, I highly recommend to move your bootmgr from the small system partition to the C partition. It is very easy. Here is how. That will make your life a lot easier and you then can disregard the small system partition. No need to delete it though. It is too small to be useful for anything.

And I am sorry for the sound. Some people had the same problem - others did not.

Hi again. What would be the alternative to moving the bootmgr? Using Windows 7 to image just the system partition and using that in tandem with Macrium? As my system is working fine I am just envisaging the whole thing going awry by moving system files like this. Or is it really a risk-free operation via EasyBCD??

Martin

Martin, just do it. I have done it half a dozen times. It is completely risk free and you are done in 1 minute. It will make your life a lot easier, believe me.

Btw: I assume your SSD is well aligned. Better check it: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/113967-ssd-alignment.html?ltr=S

Ok, I'll check.

Meanwhile I have created the bootable rescue discs (WindowsPE and Linux, as per your video) and the create a disc wizard showed both as successfully done. When I reboot with the discs in the DVD drive however, the former doesn't work (I do choose my DVD drive from the boot menu of course) and booting from the Linux CD simply opens a black screen with a command prompt at "Grub>" .. I have no idea what is happening there or what I am supposed to get. I can't see anywhere in the tutorials that says how I am supposed to use the rescue disc to help restore an image - I'd be grateful for some further indications. Is there a step-by-step guide somewhere I have missed to this?

Thanks again,

M

Hmm, that is really strange. That must be a 'local' problem because I have never heard anything alike. Try to create the WinPE as USB stick - 1 or 2GB is plenty. That is fast and works well too.
But you better check what could be wrong with your optical drive.

Hi again,

The optical drive works just fine with any other DVD/CD-ROM I put into it .. I have burned the WindowsPE image file again and the disc now boots OK, but of course until I move the bootmgr it won't work.

I think though that before I start doing things like moving the bootmgr (BTW, is that just as easily reversible via EasyBCD?) I need to look at a tutorial showing how to restore the C drive using the recovery disc so I know what should be happening - I reckon I could mess up my system by doing something wrong here otherwise. I can't find anything about this (possibly my fault!) - as far as I can see, the Macrium help file shows how to create a disc, but nothing about what happens when you boot with it. Do you know where there is such a tutorial?

As for alignment - the thread you quoted says "If you install Windows7 on a brand new SSD, you need not make any special arrangements because the Windows7 installer will do the alignment for you"..., so as that is my case, I guess all should be OK.

Thanks again for your time and help,

Martin

Glad you got the CD problem out of the way. In my Macrium tutorial there is a link to a video tutorial that Keith (Kado) made. That shows the recovery portition with the WinPE DVD (or USB stick).

Regarding the bootmgr - you can move that around to any partition. But it belongs into C:.

Oh, I missed that - downloading it now, thank you. Will report back when there is any 'news'!

M.

Ok, I have watched the video - but it says nothing about the recovery disc. What happens if my SSD fails and I can't access Windows? Does the recovery disc enable me to start Macrium as if Windows were running (like a BartPE disc), or am I going to get a 'DOS' window first? As I say, I really would like to be confident of what will happen when I boot using the WindowsPE disc before I move the Bootmgr. Have you ever restored the O/S using the recovery disc?

Thanks ...

M.

When you boot the WinPE disc, you get exactly what Keith is showing in the video. He had a clever setup running the WinPE in a virtual partition. That way he was able to record the video with regular Win7 tools. Normally, you would not have any such tools when running the WinPE.

I suggest you burn the DVD (or a small stick which is even better), load from it and see how it looks. It is very easy to recover. You just have to navigate to the image you want to use and drag that into the partition you want to recover.

Make a little 2GB test partition and try out the whole process: Image > modify something in the little partition > Recover. If your modification has been set back to the original state, then you know the recovery worked. And with a 2GB partition and a couple of folders in it, that is a matter of seconds. The fastest image I ever took with Macrium took only 2 seconds (as you can see in my video tutorial).

Hi,

OK, I moved the Bootmgr using EasyBCD and then made another Windows PE rescue disc. (I left the system partition as it is, only I removed the drive letter).

The disc boots just fine and accesses the Macrium interface. I may test it on a small partition as you say, but will in any case clean up my C drive and make an image of it today. I won't bother with the Linux version of the rescue disc if I have a working Windows disc..

Well, I am really glad that I learned the easy way that the Windows 7 backup/imaging tool is not reliable for restoring the O/S and hope that the Macrium will do the job - well, actually of course I hope that I never need to find out!

Thanks again for your patience and advice - much appreciated. I'll post back to this thread in the future if there are any problems!

Martin

Martin, you are welcome. Keep in touch.

Windows now takes a lot longer to start up than when I had the Bootmgr in the reserved system partition. Is that normal/fixable? I wonder whether to make the reserved partition the boot partition again now that the backup image has been made?

Martin

Hmm, that is news to me and there is really no logical reason. Are you sure that addl. delay is not caused by something else. Test it - move the bootmgr back and see what happens. You may have to give the 100MB partition a drive letter if it is hidden. And please report back. That is an interesting case.

Hi. That was quick!

I have rebooted a few times to test this and it is definitely a lot slower - the 'Windows is starting' screen (or whatever it is called - with the coloured logo) sits there for some 30 seconds now - before it was less than 10 seconds maximum.

Did the system reserved partition have a drive letter before I moved the bootmgr to the C drive? I think it didn't - I never saw it in 'My Computer'. Or was it hidden? After moving the bootmgr to C, the reserved partition suddenly acquired a drive letter (which I removed). You think I need to put a letter back?

I have to go abroad for a few days (am off to the airport in a few minutes) so don't have time to test this right now - I'll get back to it at the weekend.

Thanks,

Martin