Recovery Partition

[Captain Spaulding]

Hi,

I have a customers Sony Vaio VGN-NR21E/S running Vista, hard disk is failing, Windows freezes at random times after booting, HD diagnostics fail.

Customer has a backup of their data and I've also managed to create a backup using a live CD just in case.

Customer wants a fresh install of Vista and they will restore their data. OK so far but there is no recovery media only a recovery partition on the failing disk.

I can install Vista using a Dell OEM disk and activate with the product key on the laptop but I would rather use the proper recovery media.

I tried to copy the recovery partition to the new disk using Easeus Todo Backup, it complete fine and I can boot into F10 however when I try the install I get the message "The recovery drive letter is the same as the system drive letter".

So is it possible to create recovery DVD's from the recovery partition? Or has anyone else managed to clone the recovery partition to the new disk and if so how?

Cheers.

 

[StableSolutions]

I don't think the recovery partition is available inside of windows, and since its a laptop its a little trickier than a desktop.

What I would try is just popping out the hard-drive and hook it up to your desktop. (If you have a Notebook HD to USB or Notebook HD to SATA/IDE cable) If not, then this idea doesn't work. And copy or ghost the partition to a designated partition on the new hard-drive you plan on using.

 

[jfmiller52]

there may be a solution. If you can access that recovery partition, since it's a vista machine, you should look for a large WIM file or a set of them Install1.wim, Install2.wim, etc. backup those wim files to a drive. you can then use imagex to apply that wim file to the new drive. it will not create a new recovery partition but it should give you the result of running the recovery parition. you will need to have WAIK installed first on the technician machine as well.

you should also check out gimagex as a GUI to imagex.

this works, i've done it before.

edit: you will need to partition and format the new drive first before applying the wim file to it. WIM files aren't like a ghost or acronis image where it contains partitioning data, think of them more like a giant zip file of everything.

 

[jfmiller52]

There are some guides around on how to do it but if you have any questions just pm me. I've done this a ton of times and it has saved me more than once.

Here's a link to GImageX
http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit-tools/gimagex/

How can i restore my system from a WIM file?
http://superuser.com/questions/238413/how-can-i-restore-my-system-from-wim-files

Restoring from Restore partition without Ctrl+f11 nor restore disks.
http://www.notebookforums.com/t/213...-partition-without-ctrl-f11-nor-restore-disks

Recovering Recovery Partitions
http://www.ctrl-shift.net/today/2011/01/recovering-recovery-partitions/

 

[Martyn]

Hi,

I have a customers Sony Vaio VGN-NR21E/S running Vista, hard disk is failing, Windows freezes at random times after booting, HD diagnostics fail.

Customer has a backup of their data and I've also managed to create a backup using a live CD just in case.

Customer wants a fresh install of Vista and they will restore their data. OK so far but there is no recovery media only a recovery partition on the failing disk.

I can install Vista using a Dell OEM disk and activate with the product key on the laptop but I would rather use the proper recovery media.

I tried to copy the recovery partition to the new disk using Easeus Todo Backup, it complete fine and I can boot into F10 however when I try the install I get the message "The recovery drive letter is the same as the system drive letter".

So is it possible to create recovery DVD's from the recovery partition? Or has anyone else managed to clone the recovery partition to the new disk and if so how?

Cheers.

It sounds like you cloned the drive to a single partition. I just recently cloned a disk with Acronis including the recovery partition and it worked fine selecting the recovery partition to reinstall. You have to clone the disk rather than copy the partition I think.

 

[Captain Spaulding]

It sounds like you cloned the drive to a single partition. I just recently cloned a disk with Acronis including the recovery partition and it worked fine selecting the recovery partition to reinstall. You have to clone the disk rather than copy the partition I think.

Yeah that's what I did. I used EaseUS ToDo backup, I backed up the recovery partition not the customers c: drive (whole disk) as I didn't think it would complete with a failing disk. I restored it to a single partition on the new drive.

Would Acronis deal with a failing disk though if it couldn't read part of it?

Thanks for the other suggestions, in the end I just used the Dell OEM disk but I'll try Acronis or the WIM file method next time.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Would Acronis deal with a failing disk though if it couldn't read part of it?

If the cloning process fails even though you told it to ignore errors and bad sectors, just image the drive, with the option set to skip bad sectors, then restore that image to the new drive. Takes much longer but it works for me.

 

[OldSchoolPC]

At this point, I'd just us a different disk such as an OEM you have laying around. It's not too difficult to get appropriate drivers. The main reason I'd do it this way, is because the drive is FAILING. Got the data you need? Great. Now forget that drive all-together.