Broadback wrote:
I have tried Macrium, the problem there is that is reformats the "dump"
disc into a format that windows10 10 does not recognise, so restore not
only fails but I ended up with an unusable system. being rather simple a
s straight forward program is required. Any suggestions please?
Acronis had a relatively easy program to use.
I downloaded a trial and tested the interface and
the interface is easier to use than Macrium.
There are *lots* of backup programs. This list isn't
up to date, but it's still a start. Several programs
offer free versions (capable of making Full backups
but you pay money for Incremental capability).
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/10-comme...ed-comparison/
Windows 10 itself has a program called "Windows 7 backup".
It currently stores partitions as .vhdx files. It's
a full backup. If the GUI is not present, you can do a
backup with it like this. The allCritical parameter
specifies that the system and boot partitions be backed up,
the Include option covers any other partitions you might
like. Even though C: is covered twice in this command example,
only one backup of it is made. And restored later. Boot the
installer DVD, to access E: and do a restore.
wbAdmin start backup -backupTarget:E: -include:C:,D:,F: -allCritical -quiet
Output would be in E:\WindowsImageBackup .
*******
I'm not sure I'm following your assertion about Macrium.
Are you saying the backup to the External disk failed in some way ?
Or, that during restoration, things did not turn out in
a "bootable" condition ?
It's possible to be too selective and not back up
enough partitions to make Windows boot later. If your
boot materials are spread over multiple disks, you
might inadvertently lose some when making your Full backup.
The Macrium Rescue CD you used during restore, has a
Boot Repair option in one of the menus. It will
rebuild the BCD. I prefer it slightly, to the repair
capabilities that Windows 10 has during startup
(which don't always work). The repair order is:
1) Install and cable up, only the disk needing repair. Don't
complicate the situation by having too many disks
present, getting the wrong ones scanned and so on.
That way, it might only show one item to select in the
menu in (2), resulting in less hair loss.
2) Boot Macrium Rescue CD, use Boot Repair. Reboot is next.
3) Attempt to boot windows. If Windows 10 won't start,
the Windows Repair will run. If Macrium has had a crack
at it first, the Windows Repair can then finish the job.
*******
Now, if you're saying some partition type has changed,
that seems unlikely.
You can use TestDisk to scan a disk. But I hardly ever
use this for repairing the partition table (in the
MBR or otherwise), because there is too much digital
noise for the scan to correctly rebuild the table.
But, TestDisk can "list" and "copy" files from hidden
partitions. I can use it to find cases where materials
have gone missing.
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk # server down at the moment
There is a Windows version, as well as a lot of Linux distros
have TestDisk in their package tree. The Linux versions
will not be dependent on that web server being working,
whereas that's the site you'd use to get the Windows download.
Linux GPARTED is another one that can be used to examine
the partitions. Or gnome-disk (which seems to elevate on its own).
sudo apt install gparted # Install, if missing
sudo gparted # All disks in machine listed, select one
sudo gparted /dev/sda # Select just the first disk for attention
And Gnome-disks (displays partitions like it was Disk Management in Windows)
gnome-disks # full names some distros use
disks # truncated name used by others
apt search disks # if the package is missing, you can search
# Not all distros use "apt". This is just a
# very quick example.
The Windows 10 C:\ can be mounted in Linux, but because of some
custom Reparse points in NTFS, Linux will return "I/O Error" when
it cannot understand some of what it is reading. Many Windows 10
installs use "new style compression" on C:\Windows files, making
them rather inaccessible in Linux. You can use the "compact"
command in Windows 10 to disable this compression, such that
more files will be accessible for alteration in Linux, later.
compact.exe /compactos:query
compact.exe /compactos:never # Improve Linux access, still not perfection though.
*******
If you've given up and flattened the thing, that's
OK too. There isn't a lot of tolerance of failure
these days.
Macrium can "mount" .mrimg contents, if you need to
look at the files in there for any reason. Or check to
see what partitions got backed up.
Paul