Can't update to 2004. Can BIOS update help?

Jesper Kaas wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 15:58:01 +0200, Jesper Kaas
wrote:

I have started the 2004 opdate from Windows Update now. Gues it will have finished
or stopped late this evening.

It finished with negative result now. "We cannot install this update,
but you can try again (0xc0000005)." is the message in Windows Update.
The following happened:
1. Download 0-100% OK
2. Install 0-100% OK
3. Automatic reboot to a green screen that counts from 0-57% then
reboot.
4. During the reboot a splashscreen from BIOS is shown 2 times, the
second time with 5 small white balls running in a circle for half a
minute. This is like a normal reboot, but then a third BIOS splah
screen comes up, this time the picture is smaller.
5. Windows10 start screen comes up, enter pincode and normal running
Win10 opening, but still in version 1909.
I took a second reboot, and this time the reboot ran as normal.
So it got a little further, but no success. Next step for me is a
clean install of Win10 and all programs, unless you have some more
magic to share :-)


clean install of Win10 and all programs === Yes, do it.

The 0xc0000005 is an access violation in some code.
That means the code has a bug to start with. Dereferencing
a bad pointer in the code, is enough to do that.

I was hoping that the bug was related to the unexpected finding
of the missing Recovery partition, but maybe not. It was a
long shot, so at this point Clean Install is a practical
alternative.

What I don't want to see, is every problem solved by paving
over stuff.

The "promise" from Microsoft is that this would be SaaS
(Software as a Service), and that somehow maintenance
would be magical. We can put support for VR helmets in
the OS, we can have 3D sketch programs, but we can't
even get the basics right.

Like, I had hoped the "setupdiag.exe" would at least
make some hint as to root cause, but it didn't even do
that, and all it did was collect the logfiles for you.

It suggests the problem is somehow related to Recovery
partition, but the 0xc0000005 errors, they happen
when code tries to go to areas it's not mapped to use.
Which is a program logic error.

Paul

Jesper Kaas wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 15:58:01 +0200, Jesper Kaas
wrote:

I have started the 2004 opdate from Windows Update now. Gues it will have finished
or stopped late this evening.

It finished with negative result now. "We cannot install this update,
but you can try again (0xc0000005)." is the message in Windows Update.
The following happened:
1. Download 0-100% OK
2. Install 0-100% OK
3. Automatic reboot to a green screen that counts from 0-57% then
reboot.
4. During the reboot a splashscreen from BIOS is shown 2 times, the
second time with 5 small white balls running in a circle for half a
minute. This is like a normal reboot, but then a third BIOS splah
screen comes up, this time the picture is smaller.
5. Windows10 start screen comes up, enter pincode and normal running
Win10 opening, but still in version 1909.
I took a second reboot, and this time the reboot ran as normal.
So it got a little further, but no success. Next step for me is a
clean install of Win10 and all programs, unless you have some more
magic to share :-)


I finished my test.

1) Installed 1909. reagentc enabled.

2) Deleted Recovery partition. In diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
list partition
select partition 1
delete partition override
exit

3) Tried 2004 installation as an Upgrade install.
Fails with the 0xC0000005 error.
A side effect, is reagentc was left disabled.

4) Booted Macrium Reflect CD, selected boot repair from
the menu (even though the OS still boots and does not
actually have a booting problem). A new BCD file
was generated.

5) Tried the 2004 Upgrade Install again.
This time, it passed. For some reason, some of the
phases took a lot longer than previously.

https://i.postimg.cc/XJHRVZJc/2004-completed.gif

Paul

On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:44:36 -0400, Paul
wrote:

clean install of Win10 and all programs === Yes, do it.
I will. But first make a plan for it. No hurry. Fortunately I have a
500GB SSD with an old Win7 installation. I can clone the running Win10
to that just before I wipe the disk with Win10, so I am sure to have
everything frresh backed up. Can you suggest a good tool to wipe the
disk before the fresh install?

The 0xc0000005 is an access violation in some code.
That means the code has a bug to start with. Dereferencing
a bad pointer in the code, is enough to do that.
You think some of Microsofts code has tried to write to a location in
memory it was not permitted to. Naughty Microsoft. That must have
happened during some of the very last steps of the update, maybe in
some cleaning.

Thank you very much for leading me through this. Even if we did not
succeed, it was a learning experience for me.


I was hoping that the bug was related to the unexpected finding
of the missing Recovery partition, but maybe not. It was a
long shot, so at this point Clean Install is a practical
alternative.

What I don't want to see, is every problem solved by paving
over stuff.
Now we are ready for paving :-)

The "promise" from Microsoft is that this would be SaaS
(Software as a Service), and that somehow maintenance
would be magical. We can put support for VR helmets in
the OS, we can have 3D sketch programs, but we can't
even get the basics right.

Like, I had hoped the "setupdiag.exe" would at least
make some hint as to root cause, but it didn't even do
that, and all it did was collect the logfiles for you.

It suggests the problem is somehow related to Recovery
partition, but the 0xc0000005 errors, they happen
when code tries to go to areas it's not mapped to use.
Which is a program logic error.

Paul
--
Jesper Kaas -

On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 23:47:06 -0400, Paul
wrote:


I finished my test.

1) Installed 1909. reagentc enabled.

2) Deleted Recovery partition. In diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
list partition
select partition 1
delete partition override
exit

3) Tried 2004 installation as an Upgrade install.
Fails with the 0xC0000005 error.
A side effect, is reagentc was left disabled.

4) Booted Macrium Reflect CD, selected boot repair from
the menu (even though the OS still boots and does not
actually have a booting problem). A new BCD file
was generated.

5) Tried the 2004 Upgrade Install again.
This time, it passed. For some reason, some of the
phases took a lot longer than previously.

https://i.postimg.cc/XJHRVZJc/2004-completed.gif

Paul
Hosiana you are a genious! Fantastic that you have tested this.
I am hung up by now, but will try your steps in a few hours. And I
will take a disc back up with Macrium before starting. So in 4-6 hours
I have the result.
--
Jesper Kaas -

On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 23:47:06 -0400, Paul
wrote:

I finished my test.

1) Installed 1909. reagentc enabled.

2) Deleted Recovery partition. In diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
list partition
select partition 1
delete partition override
exit

3) Tried 2004 installation as an Upgrade install.
Fails with the 0xC0000005 error.
A side effect, is reagentc was left disabled.

4) Booted Macrium Reflect CD, selected boot repair from
the menu (even though the OS still boots and does not
actually have a booting problem). A new BCD file
was generated.

5) Tried the 2004 Upgrade Install again.
This time, it passed. For some reason, some of the
phases took a lot longer than previously.

https://i.postimg.cc/XJHRVZJc/2004-completed.gif

Paul
I tried your step 4), but did not get any "Healthy Recovery Partition"
like you did, but booting worked fine in every attempt.
I first tried from a fresh generated USB Macrium Reflect Home recovery
media. When that did not work i tried from Macrium Reflect in the
running Win10. There it is possible to choose base WIM (please check
the picture from link below), and i tried first Windows PE10, next
WindowsRE. Still no "Healthy recovery partition". The second attempt
(WindowsRE) resulted in actions that took a few minutes, and now I get
a boot menu with choices between Win10 and Macrium Reflect Rescue.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wa16mzyyo4...nager.PNG?dl=0

So "where can I buy a Healthy Recovery Partition"
By the way: My Macrium Reflect Home is version 7.2.4971.
--
Jesper Kaas -

Jesper Kaas wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 23:47:06 -0400, Paul
wrote:

I finished my test.

1) Installed 1909. reagentc enabled.

2) Deleted Recovery partition. In diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
list partition
select partition 1
delete partition override
exit

3) Tried 2004 installation as an Upgrade install.
Fails with the 0xC0000005 error.
A side effect, is reagentc was left disabled.

4) Booted Macrium Reflect CD, selected boot repair from
the menu (even though the OS still boots and does not
actually have a booting problem). A new BCD file
was generated.

5) Tried the 2004 Upgrade Install again.
This time, it passed. For some reason, some of the
phases took a lot longer than previously.

https://i.postimg.cc/XJHRVZJc/2004-completed.gif

Paul
I tried your step 4), but did not get any "Healthy Recovery Partition"
like you did, but booting worked fine in every attempt.
I first tried from a fresh generated USB Macrium Reflect Home recovery
media. When that did not work i tried from Macrium Reflect in the
running Win10. There it is possible to choose base WIM (please check
the picture from link below), and i tried first Windows PE10, next
WindowsRE. Still no "Healthy recovery partition". The second attempt
(WindowsRE) resulted in actions that took a few minutes, and now I get
a boot menu with choices between Win10 and Macrium Reflect Rescue.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wa16mzyyo4...nager.PNG?dl=0

So "where can I buy a Healthy Recovery Partition"
By the way: My Macrium Reflect Home is version 7.2.4971.

:-)

You cannot use the WinRE option in that menu at the moment.
And it's because you don't have the Recovery partition with
the WinRE.wim in it.

Instead, select the conventional WinPE 10 (WADK) option.

There will be 500-800MB of downloads from Microsoft, in the
form of around 8-10 files or so. Macrium will then place
the files in a ZIP file for later, and store the "kit" on disk.

The Rescue Disc can then be fabricated with that "kit".
The kit should include a WIM file. Macrium may also add
drivers to the kit, and any manually-specified drivers
the user added to the list for that purpose. On my machine,
I don't need to add any drivers, to get the Intel NIC working,
and this allows Macrium to make backups via File Sharing.

The first option, the WinRE option, did not always exist
in the product. Earlier versions of Macrium always relied
on a download, to get materials suitable for booting the
computer.

Options such as WinPE 4 are broken. Microsoft removed
a few files from some of the older materials, on their
server, and this prevents a "complete set" for kits
of that era. Macrium does not own the files, and
instead, Microsoft hosts WADK materials and reserves
the right to damage kits of older eras.

Paul

On Thu, 30 Jul 2020 17:41:51 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Jesper Kaas wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jul 2020 23:47:06 -0400, Paul
wrote:

I finished my test.

1) Installed 1909. reagentc enabled.

2) Deleted Recovery partition. In diskpart
list disk
select disk 1
list partition
select partition 1
delete partition override
exit

3) Tried 2004 installation as an Upgrade install.
Fails with the 0xC0000005 error.
A side effect, is reagentc was left disabled.

4) Booted Macrium Reflect CD, selected boot repair from
the menu (even though the OS still boots and does not
actually have a booting problem). A new BCD file
was generated.

5) Tried the 2004 Upgrade Install again.
This time, it passed. For some reason, some of the
phases took a lot longer than previously.

https://i.postimg.cc/XJHRVZJc/2004-completed.gif

Paul
I tried your step 4), but did not get any "Healthy Recovery Partition"
like you did, but booting worked fine in every attempt.
I first tried from a fresh generated USB Macrium Reflect Home recovery
media. When that did not work i tried from Macrium Reflect in the
running Win10. There it is possible to choose base WIM (please check
the picture from link below), and i tried first Windows PE10, next
WindowsRE. Still no "Healthy recovery partition". The second attempt
(WindowsRE) resulted in actions that took a few minutes, and now I get
a boot menu with choices between Win10 and Macrium Reflect Rescue.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wa16mzyyo4...nager.PNG?dl=0

So "where can I buy a Healthy Recovery Partition"
By the way: My Macrium Reflect Home is version 7.2.4971.

:-)

You cannot use the WinRE option in that menu at the moment.
And it's because you don't have the Recovery partition with
the WinRE.wim in it.

Instead, select the conventional WinPE 10 (WADK) option.

There will be 500-800MB of downloads from Microsoft, in the
form of around 8-10 files or so. Macrium will then place
the files in a ZIP file for later, and store the "kit" on disk.

The Rescue Disc can then be fabricated with that "kit".
The kit should include a WIM file. Macrium may also add
drivers to the kit, and any manually-specified drivers
the user added to the list for that purpose. On my machine,
I don't need to add any drivers, to get the Intel NIC working,
and this allows Macrium to make backups via File Sharing.

The first option, the WinRE option, did not always exist
in the product. Earlier versions of Macrium always relied
on a download, to get materials suitable for booting the
computer.

Options such as WinPE 4 are broken. Microsoft removed
a few files from some of the older materials, on their
server, and this prevents a "complete set" for kits
of that era. Macrium does not own the files, and
instead, Microsoft hosts WADK materials and reserves
the right to damage kits of older eras.

Paul
Hi again. Wanted to make a new boot repair with Windows PE10 selected
as you suggested, but now my Macrium will not show the "Fix boot
problems" menu. Saw the same thing yesterday, but suddenly after
booting from a Macrium USB rescue media and returning to Windows, the
Macrium running under Win10 had the menu choice both places you expect
it to be. But not today. Strange. The boot repair on rescue media does
not have possibility to select WIM.
Will try again later, but I have no more time now.
--
Jesper Kaas -

Jesper Kaas wrote:

Hi again. Wanted to make a new boot repair with Windows PE10 selected
as you suggested, but now my Macrium will not show the "Fix boot
problems" menu. Saw the same thing yesterday, but suddenly after
booting from a Macrium USB rescue media and returning to Windows, the
Macrium running under Win10 had the menu choice both places you expect
it to be. But not today. Strange. The boot repair on rescue media does
not have possibility to select WIM.
Will try again later, but I have no more time now.

What the Macrium download is doing, is acquiring "WinPE.wim", which is
boot media for a Preinstall Environment. WinPE is the same thing that
a Windows 10 installer DVD uses as part of its mini-OS during installations.

C:\Downloads\pe4x86.zip\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\
Windows Preinstallation Environment\x86\en-us\
winpe.wim 133,158,933 bytes

We're trying to get the Macrium CD or Macrium USB stick to boot
so that backups can run. But, there is also a menu item for Boot Repair
on the CD. And part of what that does, is regenerate the BCD file.

Regenerating the BCD file, can remove customizations, so this
isn't always a plus depending on your setup. But when a BCD has
bad identifiers in it, the boot repair can help. A bad reagentc
does not prevent booting, but we can see some evidence that
it might upset upgrading. Even though, in the picture I showed,
the new 2004 had its own brand-new Recovery partition and WinRE.Wim.
The WinRE.WIM in that case, came from the Windows 10 installer DVD content.

*******

Macrium will *not* put back WinRE.wim, as part of its Boot Repair.

Macrium needs WinPE.wim to make boot materials for itself (the CD).
Macrium even has an option to include these boot materials
on C: , but if you were to use that function, you probably
could not restore C: from there (because the WinPE.wim is
sitting on C: and would get clobbered).

*******

You can make a BCD file yourself. It's four commands total.
The advantage of Macrium boot CD offering to do it, is
it works properly more often. Less post-correction
than with "rebuildbcd".

Paul

On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 05:35:32 -0400, Paul
wrote:

What the Macrium download is doing, is acquiring "WinPE.wim", which is
boot media for a Preinstall Environment. WinPE is the same thing that
a Windows 10 installer DVD uses as part of its mini-OS during installations.

C:\Downloads\pe4x86.zip\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\
Windows Preinstallation Environment\x86\en-us\
winpe.wim 133,158,933 bytes

We're trying to get the Macrium CD or Macrium USB stick to boot
so that backups can run. But, there is also a menu item for Boot Repair
on the CD. And part of what that does, is regenerate the BCD file.

Regenerating the BCD file, can remove customizations, so this
isn't always a plus depending on your setup. But when a BCD has
bad identifiers in it, the boot repair can help. A bad reagentc
does not prevent booting, but we can see some evidence that
it might upset upgrading. Even though, in the picture I showed,
the new 2004 had its own brand-new Recovery partition and WinRE.Wim.
The WinRE.WIM in that case, came from the Windows 10 installer DVD content.

*******
I saw that you got a new Recovery partition by using Macrium Reflect
Boot repair. Unfortunately that did not work with my Macrium Reflect
Home, not by using Windows PE and not by using Windows RE.

You can make a BCD file yourself. It's four commands total.
The advantage of Macrium boot CD offering to do it, is
it works properly more often. Less post-correction
than with "rebuildbcd".
And what are those four commands please? :-)
Please observe it is the Recovery partition I am missing. Some idiot
deleted it :-) The PC boots fine.
If you mean using "bootrec /rebuildbcd", I have tried,but it will only
work om MBR disks, and mine is GPT, so i got an errormessage.
Also tried a program "MIniToolPartitionWizard". That seems to work, it
actually found the deleted Recovery partition. But for restoring the
Recovery partition you need to upgrade to version Pro Deluxe, and that
costs $99. That is too much for me as I will probably only use it this
one time.
--
Jesper Kaas -

Jesper Kaas wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2020 05:35:32 -0400, Paul
wrote:

What the Macrium download is doing, is acquiring "WinPE.wim", which is
boot media for a Preinstall Environment. WinPE is the same thing that
a Windows 10 installer DVD uses as part of its mini-OS during installations.

C:\Downloads\pe4x86.zip\Windows Kits\8.0\Assessment and Deployment Kit\
Windows Preinstallation Environment\x86\en-us\
winpe.wim 133,158,933 bytes

We're trying to get the Macrium CD or Macrium USB stick to boot
so that backups can run. But, there is also a menu item for Boot Repair
on the CD. And part of what that does, is regenerate the BCD file.

Regenerating the BCD file, can remove customizations, so this
isn't always a plus depending on your setup. But when a BCD has
bad identifiers in it, the boot repair can help. A bad reagentc
does not prevent booting, but we can see some evidence that
it might upset upgrading. Even though, in the picture I showed,
the new 2004 had its own brand-new Recovery partition and WinRE.Wim.
The WinRE.WIM in that case, came from the Windows 10 installer DVD content.

*******
I saw that you got a new Recovery partition by using Macrium Reflect
Boot repair. Unfortunately that did not work with my Macrium Reflect
Home, not by using Windows PE and not by using Windows RE.

You can make a BCD file yourself. It's four commands total.
The advantage of Macrium boot CD offering to do it, is
it works properly more often. Less post-correction
than with "rebuildbcd".
And what are those four commands please? :-)
Please observe it is the Recovery partition I am missing. Some idiot
deleted it :-) The PC boots fine.
If you mean using "bootrec /rebuildbcd", I have tried,but it will only
work om MBR disks, and mine is GPT, so i got an errormessage.
Also tried a program "MIniToolPartitionWizard". That seems to work, it
actually found the deleted Recovery partition. But for restoring the
Recovery partition you need to upgrade to version Pro Deluxe, and that
costs $99. That is too much for me as I will probably only use it this
one time.

TestDisk can recover a partition, and it's free.

But it also has a "low batting average" and can
just as easily trash a disk as fix it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TestDisk

Windows and Linux versions.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

The problem there is, you the operator know (roughly) what
a correct partition table looks like. If you had three
partitions and one deleted partition, then you want
the scanner to find *four* partitions, not five or
six partitions. It just doesn't find four partitions
all that often.

I could adopt a more hopeful tone, if the partitioning
was legacy MSDOS, because with legacy MSDOS, I could
use TestDisk plus PTEDIT32 to fix it. But without a
PTEDIT32 available for GPT disks, my hands are tied.

Hopefully, with TestDisk I would get the "dimensions"
of the partition. I could "dd" that amount of materials
off the disk and store them somewhere. The question
would then be, what tools could I use to put such
a "package" back on a GPT disk ? I don't know the
answer to that.

It's even possible the 1 megabyte sized partition table
entry is still present, and all it needs is to be
"switched back on". But, I've never seen any documentation
for working at that level. I mean, I would try writing
my own code if there was documentation. I've written
one piece of C code for doing some partition
management before (that takes a few days...).

*******

And I can't say "Do a Repair Install", because that
will fail exactly the same way as your Upgrade Install
is failing. That's why I didn't mention or suggest it.

Paul

On Sun, 02 Aug 2020 20:48:59 -0400, Paul
wrote:

TestDisk can recover a partition, and it's free.

But it also has a "low batting average" and can
just as easily trash a disk as fix it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TestDisk

Windows and Linux versions.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

The problem there is, you the operator know (roughly) what
a correct partition table looks like. If you had three
partitions and one deleted partition, then you want
the scanner to find *four* partitions, not five or
six partitions. It just doesn't find four partitions
all that often.

I could adopt a more hopeful tone, if the partitioning
was legacy MSDOS, because with legacy MSDOS, I could
use TestDisk plus PTEDIT32 to fix it. But without a
PTEDIT32 available for GPT disks, my hands are tied.

Hopefully, with TestDisk I would get the "dimensions"
of the partition. I could "dd" that amount of materials
off the disk and store them somewhere. The question
would then be, what tools could I use to put such
a "package" back on a GPT disk ? I don't know the
answer to that.

It's even possible the 1 megabyte sized partition table
entry is still present, and all it needs is to be
"switched back on". But, I've never seen any documentation
for working at that level. I mean, I would try writing
my own code if there was documentation. I've written
one piece of C code for doing some partition
management before (that takes a few days...).

*******

And I can't say "Do a Repair Install", because that
will fail exactly the same way as your Upgrade Install
is failing. That's why I didn't mention or suggest it.

Paul

Hi Paul.
Thank you for your patience and for coming up with new suggestions all
the time.
I had a look at TestDisk and had a quick run with it. It actually
finds the deleted Recovery partition and offers to restore it. Before
I unleash it on my disk I will do some preparation: Back up the disk,
run MiniToolPartition Wizard to see what details that finds about the
Recovery and other partition, and study TestDisk documentation some
more. TestDisk finds 3 partitions, including the deleted.
TestDisk finds 1. Recovery, 2. EFI System, 3. MS Data.
TestDisk calls 1. "MS Data" [Recovery], starts at sector 2048, ends at
1085439.
TestDisk calls 2. "EFI System Partition", starts at sector 1085440,
ends at 1288191.
Testdisk calls 3 "MS Data [WIN10], starts at sector 1320960, ends at
1952201359.

Windows Disk Handling shows 1. the deleted partition as 530 MB unused,
2. a 99 MB OK (EFI systempartition), 3. 930 GB NTFS, Startup - Primary
partition.

Macrium Reflect shows 4 "chunks": 1. 530 MB greyed out (the deleted
recovery partition?), 2. NO NAME (none) FAT32 (LBA) 26.3 MB 99.0 MB, 3
(none) 16.0 MB 16.0 MB, 4. WIN10 (C 139.84 GB 930.88 GB.
I will check if the MiniTool Partition Wizard finds start and stop at
the same sectors.

--
Jesper Kaas -

Jesper Kaas wrote:
On Sun, 02 Aug 2020 20:48:59 -0400, Paul
wrote:

TestDisk can recover a partition, and it's free.

But it also has a "low batting average" and can
just as easily trash a disk as fix it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TestDisk

Windows and Linux versions.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

The problem there is, you the operator know (roughly) what
a correct partition table looks like. If you had three
partitions and one deleted partition, then you want
the scanner to find *four* partitions, not five or
six partitions. It just doesn't find four partitions
all that often.

I could adopt a more hopeful tone, if the partitioning
was legacy MSDOS, because with legacy MSDOS, I could
use TestDisk plus PTEDIT32 to fix it. But without a
PTEDIT32 available for GPT disks, my hands are tied.

Hopefully, with TestDisk I would get the "dimensions"
of the partition. I could "dd" that amount of materials
off the disk and store them somewhere. The question
would then be, what tools could I use to put such
a "package" back on a GPT disk ? I don't know the
answer to that.

It's even possible the 1 megabyte sized partition table
entry is still present, and all it needs is to be
"switched back on". But, I've never seen any documentation
for working at that level. I mean, I would try writing
my own code if there was documentation. I've written
one piece of C code for doing some partition
management before (that takes a few days...).

*******

And I can't say "Do a Repair Install", because that
will fail exactly the same way as your Upgrade Install
is failing. That's why I didn't mention or suggest it.

Paul

Hi Paul.
Thank you for your patience and for coming up with new suggestions all
the time.
I had a look at TestDisk and had a quick run with it. It actually
finds the deleted Recovery partition and offers to restore it. Before
I unleash it on my disk I will do some preparation: Back up the disk,
run MiniToolPartition Wizard to see what details that finds about the
Recovery and other partition, and study TestDisk documentation some
more. TestDisk finds 3 partitions, including the deleted.
TestDisk finds 1. Recovery, 2. EFI System, 3. MS Data.
TestDisk calls 1. "MS Data" [Recovery], starts at sector 2048, ends at
1085439.
TestDisk calls 2. "EFI System Partition", starts at sector 1085440,
ends at 1288191.
Testdisk calls 3 "MS Data [WIN10], starts at sector 1320960, ends at
1952201359.

Windows Disk Handling shows 1. the deleted partition as 530 MB unused,
2. a 99 MB OK (EFI systempartition), 3. 930 GB NTFS, Startup - Primary
partition.

Macrium Reflect shows 4 "chunks": 1. 530 MB greyed out (the deleted
recovery partition?), 2. NO NAME (none) FAT32 (LBA) 26.3 MB 99.0 MB, 3
(none) 16.0 MB 16.0 MB, 4. WIN10 (C 139.84 GB 930.88 GB.
I will check if the MiniTool Partition Wizard finds start and stop at
the same sectors.


Right away, you can see a "minor problem" with the conceptual approach.

The Microsoft 16.0MB partition has no file system. Win10 stores
some sort of information in there as "binary blobs".

TestDisk assumes that *every* partition has a partition type
and a file system. If TestDisk "sniffs" the 16MB area, it will
not be able to conclude "this is partition 4" and then no partition
is allocated, and the partition to the right of it becomes
partition 4.

This is not the fault of TestDisk, rather this is a "Microsoft" issue,
because they're storing data on the drive with no file system present.
And that's a bad thing. They could use FAT32 for example, as a means
to store data. Or even FAT12. There's no excuse for writing binary
blobs like that.

On the other hand, unallocated areas on disk drives, are assigned
a partition number. We'll just have to wait and see how
your experiment turns out, to see whether TestDisk handles
this well or not. it could be, that before TestDisk runs,
the partition is "Allocated,16MB" and after TestDisk runs,
the partition is "Unallocated,16MB".

I just deleted my Recovery partition about five minutes ago,
and I'm still playing around with a test setup. I took a nap
earlier on, and while I was asleep, Microsoft rebooted my
Win10 machine and ruined my experiment :-/ It's taken a bit
of time to get things set up the way I wanted again
(close to six hours work, because I did a "verify" to
see that my restore worked).

Paul

On Mon, 03 Aug 2020 10:46:39 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Right away, you can see a "minor problem" with the conceptual approach.

The Microsoft 16.0MB partition has no file system. Win10 stores
some sort of information in there as "binary blobs".

TestDisk assumes that *every* partition has a partition type
and a file system. If TestDisk "sniffs" the 16MB area, it will
not be able to conclude "this is partition 4" and then no partition
is allocated, and the partition to the right of it becomes
partition 4.

This is not the fault of TestDisk, rather this is a "Microsoft" issue,
because they're storing data on the drive with no file system present.
And that's a bad thing. They could use FAT32 for example, as a means
to store data. Or even FAT12. There's no excuse for writing binary
blobs like that.

On the other hand, unallocated areas on disk drives, are assigned
a partition number. We'll just have to wait and see how
your experiment turns out, to see whether TestDisk handles
this well or not. it could be, that before TestDisk runs,
the partition is "Allocated,16MB" and after TestDisk runs,
the partition is "Unallocated,16MB".

I just deleted my Recovery partition about five minutes ago,
and I'm still playing around with a test setup. I took a nap
earlier on, and while I was asleep, Microsoft rebooted my
Win10 machine and ruined my experiment :-/ It's taken a bit
of time to get things set up the way I wanted again
(close to six hours work, because I did a "verify" to
see that my restore worked).

Paul
Hi Paul.

Now I have used TestDisk to recover the recovery partition. The result
is as you expected. PLease see this picture of the partitions in
Macrium after a boot:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rleanju8hd...cover.PNG?dl=0
The recovery partition is now active, but the partition with no
formatting is now marked grey, as just an empty area. Any way: The PC
boots, but I have to change the default boot device in BIOS. Now it
works if it boots from "Windows Boot Manager (P1 Samsung SSD860...)".
Before it was P0, not P1. Maybe there was "UEFI" in front; do nt
remember. The PC had a spontaneous reboot as I was writing this. This
has happened before but very seldom.
Now I have started the 2004 update from Windows update. We will se in
some hours how that wil end.

But what about that 16 MB partition with no allocation. Should I
worry? I have the backup from an hour ago, so it is easy to put that
back.
--
Jesper Kaas -

On Mon, 03 Aug 2020 18:28:32 +0200, Jesper Kaas
wrote:

But what about that 16 MB partition with no allocation. Should I
worry? I have the backup from an hour ago, so it is easy to put that
back.
Now I have restored it from my bakckup of earlier today.
--
Jesper Kaas -

Jesper Kaas wrote:
On Mon, 03 Aug 2020 18:28:32 +0200, Jesper Kaas
wrote:

But what about that 16 MB partition with no allocation. Should I
worry? I have the backup from an hour ago, so it is easy to put that
back.
Now I have restored it from my bakckup of earlier today.

Yes, that's a good idea. As I don't know how
critical the materials on there are.

OK, here's an article describing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micros...rved_Partition

"No meaningful data is stored within the MSR;
chunks may be taken for the creation of new partitions
"

Paul