system image doesnt restore 2nd partition

[pcbtmr]

Drive has 2 partitions (C & D). Completed a system image for a bogus win10 installation. Went to restore from the image, drive D now has noting on it. How do I get the drive contents back?

Thanks.

 

[RolandJS]

What was the utility you used to do the restore? Reason for asking: I'm very used to Macrium Reflect and Acronis True Image. I'm just starting to learn Image for Windows. I'm trying to visualize what you saw in the boxes during the restore process.
Do you by any chance have the image of your drive D [partition D] that you made when drive D [partition D] had all of its contents? Reason for asking: What is important is that we can restore that good image of your original full of data drive D [partition D] onto that partition of your hard-drive which you know to be drive D [which I call partition D].
I think what happened is: Drive letters were shuffled in the box you were presented within that backup/restore utility. Partitions C and D are often given different drive letters during backup and restore operations. By accident, you restored a wrong image onto your partition D.
I do not know an easy/quick to bring back the original partition D, others here might. All I know is: restore the earlier correct image of partition D back onto the real partition D, regardless of the drive letter shuffle played by almost all backup/restore utilities.

 

[RolandJS]

Let's pretend you have that earlier correct full image of the original full of data partition D.
Before we do anything further, I would highly recommend you create a usb or dvd boot partition manager utility.
With this utility, look very carefully at your hard-drive. What you KNOW to be drive C [partition C], label that C-Drive.
What you KNOW to be drive D [partition D], label that D-Drive.
There is no need to do anything else with that partition utility.
What we have done: going forward, from now on, regardless of the drive letter dance/shuffle/pokerplaying etc. done by any backup/restore utility, you know which is drive C [partition C] and you know which is drive D [partition D].

 

[pcbtmr]

I used windows 7 built in system image & restore. I honestly dont recall seeing an option of which partition to restore to.

 

[pcbtmr]

Actually, they are labeled DrvC & DataDrv

 

[RolandJS]

I highly recommend DrvC and DrvD. I hope you still have the full-of-data-partition-D image that was made by Windows Backup. I do not know anything about Windows Backup, I have no more advice. From here on out, I will listen in and learn alongside you.

 

[DavidE]

Drive has 2 partitions (C & D). Completed a system image for a bogus win10 installation. Went to restore from the image, drive D now has noting on it. How do I get the drive contents back?

Thanks.

If i understand correctly,
You created a system image after a failed Win 10 install attempt, and then restored that image.
The Data drive [D] is now empty - no files.

Did you create a system image backup before attempting the Win 10 install ?

You can try to attach/mount a system image to see what files are in the image.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24771-system-image-extract-files-using-disk-management.html

 

[pcbtmr]

No, I created the image before the Win10 install.
Just now went to re-image to the same backup and the final dialog box shows the date/time/PC name & Drives to Restore but the last is not editable.

 

[Brds7t7]

No, I created the image before the Win10 install.
Just now went to re-image to the same backup and the final dialog box shows the date/time/PC name & Drives to Restore but the last is not editable.

Did you check the size of the partitions after you upgraded to Windows 10? If any partitions have changed even slightly then the whole drive can be formatted to restore the original partitions.
Did you get any warning before the restore started stating "The Drive which contains Windows/the Recovery Partition needs to be reformatted"?
Unfortunately this sometimes wipes all the partitions, not just the ones you want to restore.

I'm only guessing but I'm sure when you upgrade from 7 to 10 the System Reserved gets increased from 100mb to 500mb this would mean when you do the restore it might reformat all partitions on this drive. This is why some people choose to use a 3rd party image tool like Macrium.

 

[pcbtmr]

Yes, I got the message and interpreted it as meaning only the OS partition (C) was going to be reformated. It said nothing about "BTW, your second partition that has nothing to do with the OS will also be erased..."
I am beginning to see the significance of "3rd party anything beyond MS".

 

[Brds7t7]

Yep, unfortunately if you see that message it will reformat all the partitions. Badly worded I'm afraid. Windows backup doesn't handle partition changes very well.
Firstly, DO NOT write anything to the D: Drive, the partition isn't lost unless you start writing to it, this will overwrite data. I think minitool partition wizard free has a partition recovery option but I'm not an expert on that. All is not lost though, there will be other users who are experts on this. Just don't touch the D partition for now.

 

[Brds7t7]

Pcbtmr, have a look here, this might help:
https://www.partitionwizard.com/help/partition-recovery.html

This could also help if the partition is showing up as usual but just no files:
https://www.piriform.com/recuva

 

[pcbtmr]

Thanks for the suggestions. Recuva didn't find anything except a couple of txt files that were over 10MB each. Nothing as far as an original folder structure. After that, I gave up and started writing to the drive/partition.

 

[Brds7t7]

Sorry to hear that. Did you have your stuff backed up?
The Windows utility works okay but if you change partitions it just doesn't handle it well. It's probably because it just assumes you have all your data in the default C Drive.
Switch to Macrium and you can safely restore your partitions. You can choose to restore the OS partitions and exclude the D drive from the restore, so it will never get wiped if any of the other partitions get altered.