[SOLVED] ddrescue partition to new disk

[glennd]

I need help, my google-fu has failed me. I have a ddrescue image of the C: partition from a failing hdd. I don't know how to restore that on to a new disk and be bootable. i can't just dump it on to a clean disk, there's no boot manager or partition table. how do i set up a new disk so I can restore the c: partition to be bootable? the partition is windows 10.

 

[NJW]

I'm not sure that it's possible to (easily) manually construct a Windows 10 disk, in these days of UEFI.

I'd try taking a donor disk with a working Win10 installation and overwriting the relevant partition, but I don't know if that would jump the UEFI hurdle. Can you do a clean install on a new disk on the original machine? That might improve your chances.

I guess there's software that you can't reinstall, otherwise why do you need to do this?

 

[phaZed]

Run a Win 10 install to the point where it makes the initial partitions, then stop it as it starts to copy files over.
Then you can ddrescue the partition to the newly created, new drive partition with boot partitions, etc.

 

[glennd]

I'm not sure that it's possible to (easily) manually construct a Windows 10 disk, in these days of UEFI.

I'd try taking a donor disk with a working Win10 installation and overwriting the relevant partition, but I don't know if that would jump the UEFI hurdle. Can you do a clean install on a new disk on the original machine? That might improve your chances.

I guess there's software that you can't reinstall, otherwise why do you need to do this?

That's exactly it...

I think I might have got away with it...

 

[glennd]

Run a Win 10 install to the point where it makes the initial partitions, then stop it as it starts to copy files over.
Then you can ddrescue the partition to the newly created, new drive partition with boot partitions, etc.

Great idea.

I did a clean install of win 10 on the new 1TB disk all the way up to the desktop, I didn't want to pull the rug out for fear of ending up with a half baked corrupted mess. Then i booted into linux and restored the C: partition image over the top of the brand new C: partition on the hard disk. Booted again and I was utterly astonished to see the customer's windows system booting up and landing on the desktop. It all seems to be intact. The only anomaly is disk manager thinks the partition is the full 930GB (or whatever) from the clean install, while File Explorer says the drive is the customer's 478GB from the partition image.

I think tomorrow's task is to see if something can shrink the partition back to the size of the data and then grow it again to get the full terabyte available.

 

[HCHTech]

I was utterly astonished to see the customer's windows system booting up and landing on the desktop.

Wow, I can't believe that worked -haha. Good job.

 

[NJW]

Good job! One to note in the tips & tricks book.

The only anomaly is disk manager thinks the partition is the full 930GB (or whatever) from the clean install, while File Explorer says the drive is the customer's 478GB from the partition image.

I presume (!) that the partition is 930 GB and the filesystem is 478GB? Just grow the filesystem to fill the partition. In theory (!!) you should be able to do it with gparted by checking the partition. Make sure that Windows is fully shut down (Shift-Shutdown or Fast Boot off), or gparted will complain.

 

[glennd]

I presume (!) that the partition is 930 GB and the filesystem is 478GB?

Yes, I think that's what it's telling me.

Just grow the filesystem to fill the partition. In theory (!!) you should be able to do it with gparted by checking the partition. Make sure that Windows is fully shut down (Shift-Shutdown or Fast Boot off), or gparted will complain.

I didn't know about that one. I'll give it a shot today.

 

[phaZed]

Ya, a round of checking the partition with g-parted and chkdsk will clear it up. It's simply the partition header that contains the incorrect size.

Sometimes I have found that I have to run a chkdsk first, then go to gparted.. then chkdsk one last time(optional). gparted doesn't like unclean NTFS FS's and will often ask you to run MS chkdsk.

 

[glennd]

i ran the gparted Check and it told me there are bad sectors marked and to run chkdsk /f/r . So I'm doing that. It's been running now for about 50 minutes.

 

[glennd]

back to Check, it said there are still bad sectors that need to be addressed first. Chkdsk has a switch "/B" which is 're-evaluate bad sectors' so I did that. Another 80 minutes. This time Check was happy to proceed and..... success!!! I now have the full 930GB on the C: file system. That goes in my manual of things I'm going to need to remember how to do one day.

In amongst all of this is a mercy dash of about 3 hours to buy a new fridge.

 

[LordIntruder]

Just one question because I don't understand why are doing that thing that complex: why didn't you just ddrescue the whole disk? It would be that easier because the clone will have the complete structure and will be bootable without having to install a Windows in front of any other action.

 

[glennd]

Just one question because I don't understand why are doing that thing that complex: why didn't you just ddrescue the whole disk? It would be that easier because the clone will have the complete structure and will be bootable without having to install a Windows in front of any other action.

you are right of course, that is the correct approach. unfortunately circumstances conspired against me that day...

 

[phaZed]

Just one question because I don't understand why are doing that thing that complex: why didn't you just ddrescue the whole disk? It would be that easier because the clone will have the complete structure and will be bootable without having to install a Windows in front of any other action.

A legit use of this method is when you have multiple partitions that are otherwise pooched. If the EFI partition or partition table are damaged you may wish to do this trick for two reasons:

1. Obviously, skip the bad parts of the drive (assuming that was the issue)
2. Avoid reading parts of the drive unnecessarily, increasing chances of recovery.


When I get a drive in for recovery... if it has a bunch of factory recovery partitions or if there is a "OS" and a "DATA" partition, for example, I will focus on grabbing the partition that is most valuable. Remember, you can always recover the rest later, after securing the booty. ARg.