Sign in
Microsoft.com
 
Microsoft
 
 
 

locked
I thought restoring would be easier than this... RRS feed

 > 

  • Question

  • Question
    Sign in to vote
    0
    Sign in to vote

    Server: Windows Home Server 2011

    Client: Windows 7 x64

     

    Today my laptop decided to crash and refused to reboot. Windows complains that it failed to start, some registry file or other is corrupt, and after several attempts at repairing the problem (including Startup Repair and System Restore from the Windows 7 DVD), I have a doorstop where my laptop used to be.

    No problem, I said to my self - that why I installed WHS, right?

    So I login to the dashboard from another machine and look at my backups for the failed PC. Great - I have a good backup from 1AM this morning - I'll have lost hardly anything from today since I've been mostly just surfing anyway.

    I grab the "Drivers for Full System Restore" from the backup and copy them to a USB drive. I put that drive and the WHS 2011 Restore CD in the busted machine.

    The Restore Wizard runs, loads my drivers, finds my server, and I choose my backup, and proceed to restore.

    After the restore is done, the machine still doesn't boot - exact same problem.

    What I want to try next is to nuke the tiny 100MB System Reserved partition and restore it from the backup, but the Wizard:

    a) doesn't recognize it if I leave it "Unallocated"

    b) doesn't recognize it if I create a simple volume but leave it unformatted

    c) doesn't let me restore to it after formatting because its too small (99MB)

    Must I repartition to create a slightly larger "System Reserved" partition?

    Although I have backed up the main partition separately, I really would have liked to have left it untouched while I try to restore this hidden partition.

    Any ideas?

    Sunday, July 31, 2011 1:10 AM

Answers

  • Question
    Sign in to vote
    0
    Sign in to vote
    No, just wipe your SSD (ideally using tools provided by your drive manufacturer - I use OCZ) and restore that drive - it will create the partitions itself. I have restored many times to a blank SSD which after restoring has a 101MB unallocated partition as well as C: and D: drives. Something that WHS2011 also does, if you use this method, is to create aligned partitions on your SSD so you get maximum read/write performance.
    Phil P.S. If you find my comment helpful or if it answers your question, please mark it as such.
    • Marked as answer by wbradney Sunday, July 31, 2011 4:52 PM
    Sunday, July 31, 2011 4:19 PM

All replies

  • Question
    Sign in to vote
    0
    Sign in to vote

    Two suggestions:

    • Try a restore from an earlier date as you don't know when the cause of the crashing problem occurred.

    If that doesn't work:

    • Remove all partitions from the disk (including system reserved) you are trying to restore to and do a full system restore.
    Phil P.S. If you find my comment helpful or if it answers your question, please mark it as such.
    Sunday, July 31, 2011 1:19 AM
  • Question
    Sign in to vote
    0
    Sign in to vote
    This error can also indicate hard disk problems, if yours is a recent laptop it should have some diagnostics built into the bios. If not you can get  diagnostic tools from the drive manufacturer.
    Sunday, July 31, 2011 10:23 AM
  • Question
    Sign in to vote
    0
    Sign in to vote

    Thanks for the suggestions. Since I had an identical spare SSD lying around, I decided to try to restore to that. This drive also had an identical partition layout to the broken one (with the 100MB System Reserved partition), so I asked the wizard to just restore both partitions. This got me back up and running. 

    I ran the Intel diagnostics on the failed drive and it didn't detect any problems. Now I have my laptop working again I may try another restore of both partitions to the failed drive.

    Phil,

    It's not clear to me how to do a "full system restore", ie get the wizard to create partitions matching those that are in the backup - it seems to want to have the partitions already created.

    This machine actually has two drives - an 80GB SSD system drive and a 500GB HDD, so the full backup includes both. Would I need to wipe both drives in order to do a "full system restore"?



    • Edited by wbradney Sunday, July 31, 2011 5:13 PM
    Sunday, July 31, 2011 3:34 PM
  • Question
    Sign in to vote
    0
    Sign in to vote
    No, just wipe your SSD (ideally using tools provided by your drive manufacturer - I use OCZ) and restore that drive - it will create the partitions itself. I have restored many times to a blank SSD which after restoring has a 101MB unallocated partition as well as C: and D: drives. Something that WHS2011 also does, if you use this method, is to create aligned partitions on your SSD so you get maximum read/write performance.
    Phil P.S. If you find my comment helpful or if it answers your question, please mark it as such.
    • Marked as answer by wbradney Sunday, July 31, 2011 4:52 PM
    Sunday, July 31, 2011 4:19 PM