Imaging To an Identical SSD, Question

Well I have removed the filth I call EaseUS Todo Backup. I am being harsh with it because I found it installed a program called CleanUI in the background and had to regedit to get rid of it.

I am going with Macrium next. I got paid for the item I sold and the SSD will be coming soon but have a question about preparing any SSD/HDD that will receive the recovery image and run from it.

How would you prep the disk? The one I have in mind is a HDD 750GB with a 100MB EFI partition and a healthy primary. I want to try the saved image from an SSD recovered to a HDD thing just to see for myself.
Thanks

2therock said:

The one I have in mind is a HDD 750GB with a 100MB EFI partition and a healthy primary. I want to try the saved image from an SSD recovered to a HDD thing just to see for myself.
Thanks

I'd probably disconnect all drives except your Windows disk and the 750. Boot into Windows and go to a command prompt and run Diskpart.

When in Diskpart, select the 750 and run the "clean" command. That should delete all partitions within seconds.

If you are worried that maybe a little unwanted code might still exist on the 750 after the clean command, you could instead run the "clean all" command, which might take some time to complete.

I'd probably just try "clean" if I were testing an image restoration.

Or you could use any other tool you want. The point is to delete all partitions first.

No need to make partitions or format after the disk is cleaned. Just use it as if it were new out of the box. Let the image restoration program (Macrium or ?) do the necessary as it sees fit.

It's possible the image restoration would work even if you did not first delete partitions---the restoration normally formats as necessary. But you've got that EFI partition on there and who knows what else hidden, so I'd personally delete all partitions manually with Diskpart or another tool.

Not surprised by your experience with EaseUS. I had EaseUS Todo Backup installed a few years ago and gave up on it. Can't recall exactly why, but I do remember it took up some ungodly amount of space.

Hi,

Well using Macrium Home Free I made an image, did a recovery of it to the destination disk and it went smooth but I couldn't get the PC to boot to it. I'll list my work flow.

This is an attempt to image my 1TB SSD OS drive to a 750GB HDD.
Three drives connected.
C: OS SSD
Y: Single partition HDD drive holding 1 image and 1 differential.
X: Single partition HDD Cleaned in diskpart.

1. Create image and let it go overnight to see how the differential scheduler worked and it made one.
2. Disconnect C:
3. Boot to Macrium boot USB stick.
4. Select image to restore. I chose the differential as I have read it will associate with the full and equal to a most recent image.
5. Select the destination drive X:, the so called cleaned in diskpart, it still displayed 2 partitions. Maybe it needed a "clean all".
6. Used the Macrium "Delete this partition?" option on both partitions.
7. Executed the restore. 1hr and 12 minutes later its done.
8. Shut down, disconnected the image source and tried to boot.

It just would not do it. Is there anything wrong with my work flow?

Assuming C booted the PC by itself, the only things I can think of are:

1: An issue related to differentials. I don't use them as I want as little complexity as possible. What's the over-riding reason you need to use differentials?

2: Confusion regarding disk X, the destination drive. You first say it has a "single partition". In step 4, you say it has 2 partitions. I'd prefer it had zero partitions. Let Macrium handle the partitioning as if it were a brand new and unpartitioned drive. I'd try "clean all" or whatever else I had to do to get it to show as no partitions whatsoever.

3: I don't know exactly what choices you made in the Macrium interface when you made the image file. Possibly you went off the track there, although it's a pretty simple interface. You need to ensure that you made the choices necessary to make ONE image file containing ALL partitions on your boot drive.

4: You may have gone off track with the Diskpart tool, although that would be tough to do. I assume you had only 2 drives connected when you ran it---your boot drive and the drive you wanted to wipe. You'd need to run list disk and select disk within Diskpart (before "clean all") to ensure you were wiping the destination drive. If you had only 2 drives connected, I don't think you could wipe your boot drive by mistake as Diskpart shouldn't allow you to select the drive from which you are booted.

I'd try again, wiping all partitions with "clean all" or another tool of your choice, and leaving the destination drive unpartitioned. Make a single full image file. No differentials. See if you can restore that. If you have success and a bit of confidence in how Macrium works, then consider adding differentials into the mix if you feel they are necessary.

Thanks,

Yes the PC will boot with only the C:\ SSD drive connected alone.

I am doing the differential because I don't have my 2nd SSD yet and want to test (practice).
I may have hit on it because when I do a clean all and then open disk management and do simple volume and allocate it creates a 128MB partition.
I think Macrium may not totally get it removed. Macrium gives the option for the destination drive to "Delete this partition?" and I select it on any partition shown but it may still be seen at boot?

I'm going to do a clean all again on the destination and not allocate or simple volume the drive, just leave it alone. If Macrium can and see the drive and the option to delete a partition is still available in Macrium at that step. If so I will choose it and give it another try.

If this fails I will wait for the new SSD.

Thanks

OOOps! My bad. By diferential I caught myself thinking of SSD to HDD.

I read on the Macrium Q&A that a full image is made and then differentials. When one wants to restore he can pick the full to restore for the date it was created, or a differential and the image of the disk will be of the one on the date the differential was made. Its supposed to know this is what you want.
So I was choosing the differential for the most recent date.

That said I did a "clean-all" on the recovery destination disk and chose the original full image. It copied over.
After completion I opened explorer windows for the SSD C:\ Drive I run off of, and the disk the image was restored onto.
The folder list for both drives are the same.
I started down the list opening folders on each drive and on the recovery destination disk I have several folders that will not open with the error;

F:\ESCORT (my Escort Radar Detector folder)
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.

I guess I should have had it verify? This is where its sitting right now. I'm not taking another step until I hear back here.

see comments in bold

2therock said:

OOOps! My bad. By diferential I caught myself thinking of SSD to HDD.

I read on the Macrium Q&A that a full image is made and then differentials. When one wants to restore he can pick the full to restore for the date it was created, or a differential and the image of the disk will be of the one on the date the differential was made.

You still haven't explained why you need differentials AT ALL. They are optional. They are a complication. They are a possible point of failure. You may have a decent reason, but you are keeping it to yourself.

That said I did a "clean-all" on the recovery destination disk and chose the original full image. It copied over.
After completion I opened explorer windows for the SSD C:\ Drive I run off of, and the disk the image was restored onto.

Why do that? Either the restored drive boots or it doesn't. I assume it will not, but you haven't said so one way or another.

"Copied over"?? Do you mean you copied something? Do you mean you went through a supposed restoration of an image file? Do you mean something else?



The folder list for both drives are the same.
I started down the list opening folders on each drive and on the recovery destination disk I have several folders that will not open with the error;

F:\ESCORT (my Escort Radar Detector folder)

As far as I know, F is not on the same drive as your boot partition (drive 0) and would therefore not be a part of your image file or part of your restoration, so I don't understand why F would have anything to do with a test of whether or not you can successfully use Macrium. How does the F drive even end up on your destination drive if you made an image of drive 0?



I guess I should have had it verify? This is where its sitting right now. I'm not taking another step until I hear back here.


Verification is no guarantee of a successful restore.

I'm afraid I really don't understand your thought processes and will bow out of this thread. We aren't communicating or making any headway..

Maybe someone else can help you. Good luck.

Close the thread I guess. Unsubscribing.

This was done on Windows 10. It should help you although the partition structure may be different than yours. Macrium Reflect - Backup & Restore - Windows 10 Forums

IMO, I never use Differential backups. I always do a full backup and verify it. Differential backups can make the time shorter and the space taken smaller. The downside is it creates more points of failure. It is sort of like a chain. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. The downside to me far exceeds the savings in space and time. A backup you can't restore is worthless.

Just take the backup and restore it for a test. I would suggest to disconnect the original disk before booting into the restored system.

Hi,
Nice tutorial of Kari's :)