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#1
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win 8.1 backup and disk questions
Hello all,
MIL poured coffee over her laptop and purchased a refurbished Asus. i3 processor with 6gig ram and 500 gig HD. I have not had any prior experience with win 8 machines, except for having tried to keep up reading here in anticipation of upgrading at some time. That said, I knew there was a chance the restore partition would be removed in the refurbishing process. The only thing that came with the laptop was one sheet of paper describing how the HD was wiped to remove any possible personal information of the previous owner, and that in fact the restore partition was removed, making the Asus restore disk program unusable. Once I fired it up, explorer showed two drives. C with 186 gig and D with 258 gig. Right off the bat, I could not see why this was done if the drive was formatted. Why wasn't it now a single drive? I'm not 100% sure if I am correct in my conclusion that my best bet to get them some kind of recovery solution would be to image the drive or not? But since the recovery partition was supposedly removed, I thought I didn't have any choice as they wouldn't have the necessary backup media even if I did create the windows boot disc. So I set up to make an image. It was only loaded with win 8, so not wanting to have to do all the updates again, I rolled the dice and installed around 100 updates, and then installed the 8.1 upgrade. I loaded Macrium to make a boot disc and create an image. This is where it gets funny. I took a screenshot of what it came up with for partitions. http://webpages.charter.net/wolverine01/Misc/disk.jpg I hoping someone can shed some light here as to what the first three partitions are, why they are not all NTFS, and why one is unformatted? It also appears that the 7th partition is the restore partition and is actually still there? Can this be recovered? Should I use a disk utility and get rid of the D partition? The imaging process is also confusing to me. I did an image for it in two ways to be safe, and am now doing the additional 45 or so windows updates since 8.1 upgrade was done. First I did the right click in explorer and told Macrium to make an image of the C drive. But I'm not sure exactly what that all included if you look at the image above, so I also made an image of all 7 partitions after actually opening Macrium and going through it's dialogue boxes. I've found this group pretty knowledgeable and helpful and appreciate any help you folks can give me here. Thanks. sticks |
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#2
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win 8.1 backup and disk questions
On 12/26/2014 11:38 AM, sticks wrote:
Hello all, MIL poured coffee over her laptop and purchased a refurbished Asus. i3 processor with 6gig ram and 500 gig HD. I have not had any prior experience with win 8 machines, except for having tried to keep up reading here in anticipation of upgrading at some time. That said, I knew there was a chance the restore partition would be removed in the refurbishing process. The only thing that came with the laptop was one sheet of paper describing how the HD was wiped to remove any possible personal information of the previous owner, and that in fact the restore partition was removed, making the Asus restore disk program unusable. Once I fired it up, explorer showed two drives. C with 186 gig and D with 258 gig. Right off the bat, I could not see why this was done if the drive was formatted. Why wasn't it now a single drive? I'm not 100% sure if I am correct in my conclusion that my best bet to get them some kind of recovery solution would be to image the drive or not? But since the recovery partition was supposedly removed, I thought I didn't have any choice as they wouldn't have the necessary backup media even if I did create the windows boot disc. So I set up to make an image. It was only loaded with win 8, so not wanting to have to do all the updates again, I rolled the dice and installed around 100 updates, and then installed the 8.1 upgrade. I loaded Macrium to make a boot disc and create an image. This is where it gets funny. I took a screenshot of what it came up with for partitions. http://webpages.charter.net/wolverine01/Misc/disk.jpg That's the most "messed up" partitioning scheme I've ever seen. Have them return the laptop and get one from some place that knows what they are doing. It can be fixed but that should not be your responsibility. |
#3
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win 8.1 backup and disk questions
sticks wrote:
Hello all, MIL poured coffee over her laptop and purchased a refurbished Asus. i3 processor with 6gig ram and 500 gig HD. I have not had any prior experience with win 8 machines, except for having tried to keep up reading here in anticipation of upgrading at some time. That said, I knew there was a chance the restore partition would be removed in the refurbishing process. The only thing that came with the laptop was one sheet of paper describing how the HD was wiped to remove any possible personal information of the previous owner, and that in fact the restore partition was removed, making the Asus restore disk program unusable. Once I fired it up, explorer showed two drives. C with 186 gig and D with 258 gig. Right off the bat, I could not see why this was done if the drive was formatted. Why wasn't it now a single drive? I'm not 100% sure if I am correct in my conclusion that my best bet to get them some kind of recovery solution would be to image the drive or not? But since the recovery partition was supposedly removed, I thought I didn't have any choice as they wouldn't have the necessary backup media even if I did create the windows boot disc. So I set up to make an image. It was only loaded with win 8, so not wanting to have to do all the updates again, I rolled the dice and installed around 100 updates, and then installed the 8.1 upgrade. I loaded Macrium to make a boot disc and create an image. This is where it gets funny. I took a screenshot of what it came up with for partitions. http://webpages.charter.net/wolverine01/Misc/disk.jpg I hoping someone can shed some light here as to what the first three partitions are, why they are not all NTFS, and why one is unformatted? It also appears that the 7th partition is the restore partition and is actually still there? Can this be recovered? Should I use a disk utility and get rid of the D partition? The imaging process is also confusing to me. I did an image for it in two ways to be safe, and am now doing the additional 45 or so windows updates since 8.1 upgrade was done. First I did the right click in explorer and told Macrium to make an image of the C drive. But I'm not sure exactly what that all included if you look at the image above, so I also made an image of all 7 partitions after actually opening Macrium and going through it's dialogue boxes. I've found this group pretty knowledgeable and helpful and appreciate any help you folks can give me here. Thanks. sticks The disk is GPT and not MBR. An MBR disk is also known as "MSDOS", referring to its ancient and venerable design. It supports four primary partitions, and has a 2.2TB limitation (32 bit LBA BIOS boot limitation, 512 byte sectors). Since bigger disks have been invented, a newer "GUID partition table" means of preparing the disks was found. Such a GPT disk, still has an MBR for sector 0, but like the Apple method, the MBR is "protective" and if older MBR-only partition management software is used, it basically sees a partition type that warns it is GPT. That's so you don't trash the disk, using Partition Magic. GPT needs a newer partition management software (and there are some free ones). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table In GPT, *everything* looks like a partition, and the result is a bewildering set of partitions seen in Disk Management. I'm not going to attempt to parse your setup. Simply use Macrium to backup the whole thing. And you can worry about what to restore, some other day :-) ******* To my way of thinking, the single most important item, is the license key. If the machine is a real OEM Windows 8 machine, the license key is stored in the BIOS. On older OSes, we relied as well, on a license key on a COA sticker. That was the "proof of purchase" in a sense. Now, would a refurbisher blow away the key in the BIOS ? Or is it still there ? The neat thing about the Windows 8 key in the BIOS, is it will activate either the OEM Win8, or it will activate the Retail Win8 if you install a comparable version. So if you ever need to reinstall with a Torrent-transferred MSDN subscription DVD, the key in the BIOS should do it for you. On the other hand, if the machine was originally Windows 7, and has Windows 8 loaded on it, you would really want a COA sticker on the outside of the PC. Windows 7 OEM (or older) machines, they have a SLIC table in the BIOS (which is not a license key, and basically declares "it's a Dell" kinda thing). A SLIC table activates an OEM OS installation (where the OS says "it's a Dell" as well). The Windows 8 OSes are not SLIC activated. Windows 8 can use a COA key in a retail box (or equivalent, which someone will undoubtedly argue about), or if the machine is an OEM Win8 machine with the actual key in the BIOS, it'll do the right thing for you, and provide the key with no fuss. Some tools for product keys (with the emphasis on Windows 8) http://www.technize.net/windows-8-product-key-bios/ Belarc Advisor "extract the product key from Windows Registry" ProduKey (Nirsoft) produkey.exe /WindowsKeys KeyFinder (The Magical Jelly Bean) [likely registry based...] http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html "Version 1.70 - Added support for BIOS OEM Key (Windows 8)." So it looks like the Nirsoft one, goes right to the source. Give it a try and see what it says. I'd rather start with the keyfinders I haven't used before, on the off-chance they don't use the Registry. As verifying the machine is Win8 era (and has a key in the BIOS) is important to future installations. Paul |
#4
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win 8.1 backup and disk questions
On 12/26/2014 1:30 PM, philo wrote:
On 12/26/2014 11:38 AM, sticks wrote: Hello all, MIL poured coffee over her laptop and purchased a refurbished Asus. i3 processor with 6gig ram and 500 gig HD. I have not had any prior experience with win 8 machines, except for having tried to keep up reading here in anticipation of upgrading at some time. That said, I knew there was a chance the restore partition would be removed in the refurbishing process. The only thing that came with the laptop was one sheet of paper describing how the HD was wiped to remove any possible personal information of the previous owner, and that in fact the restore partition was removed, making the Asus restore disk program unusable. Once I fired it up, explorer showed two drives. C with 186 gig and D with 258 gig. Right off the bat, I could not see why this was done if the drive was formatted. Why wasn't it now a single drive? I'm not 100% sure if I am correct in my conclusion that my best bet to get them some kind of recovery solution would be to image the drive or not? But since the recovery partition was supposedly removed, I thought I didn't have any choice as they wouldn't have the necessary backup media even if I did create the windows boot disc. So I set up to make an image. It was only loaded with win 8, so not wanting to have to do all the updates again, I rolled the dice and installed around 100 updates, and then installed the 8.1 upgrade. I loaded Macrium to make a boot disc and create an image. This is where it gets funny. I took a screenshot of what it came up with for partitions. http://webpages.charter.net/wolverine01/Misc/disk.jpg That's the most "messed up" partitioning scheme I've ever seen. Have them return the laptop and get one from some place that knows what they are doing. It can be fixed but that should not be your responsibility. In windows 8, the restore partition does not show up in the File Explorer, you must go to the Disk Management function to see if it is still there. On my 500 GB drive, there are two partitions one 260 MG called Healthy EFI System Partition and the other 350 MB Healthy Recovery Partition. As I understand Windows 8.1 does not create a new recover partition, so once you have updated to Windows 8.1, if you do have to restore from the disk you would have to go thorough ALL of the updates including Windows 8.1 again. I would recommend that the first thing you do is to go to the Desktop tool bar Properties and set it to open to the desktop. Then in the same place as the old Start Button you will see an MS Icon. Right clicking on this icon will give you access to all of the computer functions. Having set up a couple of computers, I know when you can not find something it cause a lot of frustration. Setting it to the desktop remove the frustration in trying to do it by chasing the Metro/Modern Icons |
#5
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win 8.1 backup and disk questions
On Fri, 26 Dec 2014 12:30:36 -0600, philo* wrote:
On 12/26/2014 11:38 AM, sticks wrote: It was only loaded with win 8, so not wanting to have to do all the updates again, I rolled the dice and installed around 100 updates, and then installed the 8.1 upgrade. I loaded Macrium to make a boot disc and create an image. This is where it gets funny. I took a screenshot of what it came up with for partitions. http://webpages.charter.net/wolverine01/Misc/disk.jpg That's the most "messed up" partitioning scheme I've ever seen. Have them return the laptop and get one from some place that knows what they are doing. It can be fixed but that should not be your responsibility. It looks quite normal (for Win 8.x) to me. My Dell laptop is the same way. |
#6
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win 8.1 backup and disk questions
On 12/26/2014 02:04 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 26 Dec 2014 12:30:36 -0600, philo wrote: On 12/26/2014 11:38 AM, sticks wrote: It was only loaded with win 8, so not wanting to have to do all the updates again, I rolled the dice and installed around 100 updates, and then installed the 8.1 upgrade. I loaded Macrium to make a boot disc and create an image. This is where it gets funny. I took a screenshot of what it came up with for partitions. http://webpages.charter.net/wolverine01/Misc/disk.jpg That's the most "messed up" partitioning scheme I've ever seen. Have them return the laptop and get one from some place that knows what they are doing. It can be fixed but that should not be your responsibility. It looks quite normal (for Win 8.x) to me. My Dell laptop is the same way. I made my comment before I saw Paul's mention of GPT |
#7
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win 8.1 backup and disk questions
On 12/26/2014 12:37 PM, Paul wrote:
sticks wrote: Hello all, MIL poured coffee over her laptop and purchased a refurbished Asus. i3 processor with 6gig ram and 500 gig HD. I have not had any prior experience with win 8 machines, except for having tried to keep up reading here in anticipation of upgrading at some time. That said, I knew there was a chance the restore partition would be removed in the refurbishing process. The only thing that came with the laptop was one sheet of paper describing how the HD was wiped to remove any possible personal information of the previous owner, and that in fact the restore partition was removed, making the Asus restore disk program unusable. Once I fired it up, explorer showed two drives. C with 186 gig and D with 258 gig. Right off the bat, I could not see why this was done if the drive was formatted. Why wasn't it now a single drive? I'm not 100% sure if I am correct in my conclusion that my best bet to get them some kind of recovery solution would be to image the drive or not? But since the recovery partition was supposedly removed, I thought I didn't have any choice as they wouldn't have the necessary backup media even if I did create the windows boot disc. So I set up to make an image. It was only loaded with win 8, so not wanting to have to do all the updates again, I rolled the dice and installed around 100 updates, and then installed the 8.1 upgrade. I loaded Macrium to make a boot disc and create an image. This is where it gets funny. I took a screenshot of what it came up with for partitions. http://webpages.charter.net/wolverine01/Misc/disk.jpg I hoping someone can shed some light here as to what the first three partitions are, why they are not all NTFS, and why one is unformatted? It also appears that the 7th partition is the restore partition and is actually still there? Can this be recovered? Should I use a disk utility and get rid of the D partition? The imaging process is also confusing to me. I did an image for it in two ways to be safe, and am now doing the additional 45 or so windows updates since 8.1 upgrade was done. First I did the right click in explorer and told Macrium to make an image of the C drive. But I'm not sure exactly what that all included if you look at the image above, so I also made an image of all 7 partitions after actually opening Macrium and going through it's dialogue boxes. I've found this group pretty knowledgeable and helpful and appreciate any help you folks can give me here. Thanks. sticks The disk is GPT and not MBR. An MBR disk is also known as "MSDOS", referring to its ancient and venerable design. It supports four primary partitions, and has a 2.2TB limitation (32 bit LBA BIOS boot limitation, 512 byte sectors). Since bigger disks have been invented, a newer "GUID partition table" means of preparing the disks was found. Such a GPT disk, still has an MBR for sector 0, but like the Apple method, the MBR is "protective" and if older MBR-only partition management software is used, it basically sees a partition type that warns it is GPT. That's so you don't trash the disk, using Partition Magic. GPT needs a newer partition management software (and there are some free ones). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table In GPT, *everything* looks like a partition, and the result is a bewildering set of partitions seen in Disk Management. I'm not going to attempt to parse your setup. Simply use Macrium to backup the whole thing. And you can worry about what to restore, some other day :-) ******* To my way of thinking, the single most important item, is the license key. If the machine is a real OEM Windows 8 machine, the license key is stored in the BIOS. On older OSes, we relied as well, on a license key on a COA sticker. That was the "proof of purchase" in a sense. Now, would a refurbisher blow away the key in the BIOS ? Or is it still there ? The neat thing about the Windows 8 key in the BIOS, is it will activate either the OEM Win8, or it will activate the Retail Win8 if you install a comparable version. So if you ever need to reinstall with a Torrent-transferred MSDN subscription DVD, the key in the BIOS should do it for you. On the other hand, if the machine was originally Windows 7, and has Windows 8 loaded on it, you would really want a COA sticker on the outside of the PC. Windows 7 OEM (or older) machines, they have a SLIC table in the BIOS (which is not a license key, and basically declares "it's a Dell" kinda thing). A SLIC table activates an OEM OS installation (where the OS says "it's a Dell" as well). The Windows 8 OSes are not SLIC activated. Windows 8 can use a COA key in a retail box (or equivalent, which someone will undoubtedly argue about), or if the machine is an OEM Win8 machine with the actual key in the BIOS, it'll do the right thing for you, and provide the key with no fuss. Some tools for product keys (with the emphasis on Windows 8) http://www.technize.net/windows-8-product-key-bios/ Belarc Advisor "extract the product key from Windows Registry" ProduKey (Nirsoft) produkey.exe /WindowsKeys KeyFinder (The Magical Jelly Bean) [likely registry based...] http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html "Version 1.70 - Added support for BIOS OEM Key (Windows 8)." So it looks like the Nirsoft one, goes right to the source. Give it a try and see what it says. I'd rather start with the keyfinders I haven't used before, on the off-chance they don't use the Registry. As verifying the machine is Win8 era (and has a key in the BIOS) is important to future installations. Paul Thank you for the help and great explanation. I figured it was something I was behind the curve on, and will continue trying to catch up. I used the Nirsoft utility and it easily extracted the key. FWIW, the report showed three keys extracted. Internet explorer, Windows 8 bios, and windows 8. All three used the same key. I should also add, though I was worried about the new win 8 interface, I believe the MIL will be very happy with this computer. Initial startup was rough and took me some time to figure out what was what. It also did not seem stable, and couldn't even shut down using a variety of methods. After getting it to 8.1 and fully updated, it seems completely stable, and very fast. Start up and shut down is incredibly quick compared to what I'm used to with Win 7. I had intended to install something to put the start menu back, but the way it is now I don't think she'll even miss it. The only thing flaky I've seen so far is not always hooking back up to the wireless after shutdown and even dropping it for some reason once connected. I give it to her tomorrow, so I'll spend the rest of the day just looking around. Thanks for the help. sticks |
#8
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win 8.1 backup and disk questions
On 12/26/2014 1:19 PM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
In windows 8, the restore partition does not show up in the File Explorer, you must go to the Disk Management function to see if it is still there. On my 500 GB drive, there are two partitions one 260 MG called Healthy EFI System Partition and the other 350 MB Healthy Recovery Partition. This was interesting as I went to Disk Management and only the C partition showed used space. The 20 gig recovery partition was visible, but showed it as having 100% free space? As I understand Windows 8.1 does not create a new recover partition, so once you have updated to Windows 8.1, if you do have to restore from the disk you would have to go thorough ALL of the updates including Windows 8.1 again. I guess it would be nice to have it as original, but with all it takes to get it from 8 to fully updated 8.1 I can't see doing anything but an image backup. Also interesting was that the Asus bios appears to give the option of backing up an image on it's own, apparently without the necessity of a Macrium boot disk. I know the disk works, so I'd probably just use that. I would recommend that the first thing you do is to go to the Desktop tool bar Properties and set it to open to the desktop. Then in the same place as the old Start Button you will see an MS Icon. Right clicking on this icon will give you access to all of the computer functions. Having set up a couple of computers, I know when you can not find something it cause a lot of frustration. Setting it to the desktop remove the frustration in trying to do it by chasing the Metro/Modern Icons Agreed. I like it going to the desktop, too. Thanks sticks |
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