How to backup then restore a GPT boot disk?
Can someone tell me the exact procedure to backup and then restore a Win10 boot GPT disk? (e.g. for moving from a small SSD to a larger one). After I format the new disk as a single GPT volume and restore the backup of the single volume (C:) previous SSD (also GPT) to it, I keep getting MBR error on boot!
Only cloning has worked but it has made the new disk MBR and instead I need to be sure of the backup/recover procedure otherwise I cant make useable scheduled backups. (BTW, win10 recovery boot cannot repair and TM recovery boot cannot activate the F11 function. Diskpart has not helped either)
Please give me the exact procedure for the restore.
Thanks
JD


- Log in to post comments

Yes, and I found that my previous GPT partition layout that I was trying to restore had some problems. So I've done a drive clean with diskpart, set BIOS to only UEF, and a fresh Win10 install to the GPT initialized drive. Now, TM sees the following partitions on my boot disk (the overprovisioning area of the ssd is not shown)
Recovery (NTFS), Unnamed (FAT32 100MB), and C: (NTFS)
Should I back up all 3 together in disk mode, or switch to partition mode and back them up together or individually?
Thanks
JD
- Log in to post comments

Also, would enabling F11 recovery manager have any advantage, other than not having to bother with a usb/flash drive when recovering?
- Log in to post comments

JD asked: Should I back up all 3 together in disk mode, or switch to partition mode and back them up together or individually?
I would recommend doing a Disk & Partitions backup of the whole drive, keeping all your partitions together and in sync with each other. This makes recovery both simpler and safer should you have a need to do so.
Also, would enabling F11 recovery manager have any advantage, other than not having to bother with a usb/flash drive when recovering?
The F11 prompt comes from the Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM) feature, which in turn is a Linux kernel OS environment used to boot into a standalone ATI application. I would recommend creating the Linux version of the Acronis Rescue Media and testing that your computer will boot correctly from this and that you can see / access all disk drives that you would use in a Backup / Recovery scenario. If all looks good then enabling ASRM would also work for you.
Personally, I do not use ASRM - I am quite happy to boot from my USB Rescue Media when the need arises, where I use the WinPE version of this media. The key disadvantage of ASRM is that any fatal disk error will render it unusable as it is stored as part of the disk drive with a modification to the MBR to provide the F11 prompt and launch the Linux OS.
- Log in to post comments

Confirmed as working - full GPT Win10 disk backed up and then successfully restored all 3 partitions of the OS using USB flash recovery boot media. And this is with TM 2013!
Did not need to activate the F11 ASRM option.
Thanks
- Log in to post comments

Glad all went well with your backup and restore, thanks for giving feedback.
- Log in to post comments