Hidden drive letter in Windows not showing in bootable WinPE
Hello,
When building a machine I always hide the backup recovery (images) partition in Windows so my clients only see a system and a data partition, typically C and D, hence more professional. I use EasyBCD to create a boot menu at start up (Windows and Acronis) so my clients don't need a USB key to recover when having major issues. They simply call me, I guide them and they're back on track in 3 minutes. I never had issues doing this using the Linux based Acronis media.
Nowadays with the NVME drives, I find myself force to use WinPE because I must inject the correct storage drivers. Everything works well as EasyBCD has the ability to use the WinPE option with WIM file. However, when I finish building a system and hide my backup recovery partition in Windows, the WinPE created Acronis environment won't see the volume. If I go back in Windows and assign a drive letter, WinPE acronis sees it no problem.
Can Acronis make it so the WinPE environment can see the volumes instead of Windows Drive letters, like Linux does? This really puts a hole in my professional approach.
Thank you kindly
Hi Steve, thanks for replying. I can see how that would be a solution but I failed to bring in the command prompt window from within the Acronis PE environment. The one already there won't allow me to type in, CTRL-C does nothing. If I hit Shift-F10 like I often do under other circumstances, it also does nothing. I see no option within Acronis to bring it up, how did you get it?
Even if that works, I have 2 major concerns...
1. I don't see myself explaining this to a non tech savvy client over the phone, 500 miles away.
2. If I run this command, will it not bring that drive with its new drive letter once back in Windows?
The funny thing is, upon further examination I see that Acronis does see the partition in question when I select the "Back Up My disks" option...or even "Recover My Disks". It's only once I get to browse for the image that it doesn't see the drive anymore. (pictures attached). It should see it because if I assign a letter to that drive in Windows, I can backup or recover images no problem. In fact, that 32.11GB of used space on it is from several different image stages I already created. I'm also using ATI 2021.
Paolo,
Your partitions to backup screenshot show all volumes on physical Disk 1 whereas your Target backup archive screenshot does not because the Hidden attribute in effect uses a "NoDefaultDrive Letter" attribute.
The solution is to use the command prompt and diskpart to assign a drive letter to the 32 GB volume as Steve suggests except that letter would need to be assigned to the "volume" rather than the "disk" itself by using these steps:
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Open a command prompt
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Type in diskpart
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Type list disk to see a list of disks
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Type select disk # (where # is the disk you want)
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Type detail disk to see partitions
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Type select volume # (where # is the volume you want)
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Type assign letter=x (where x is the drive letter)
In order to use the command prompt to do this you would need to close the Acronis application to reveal the command prompt and make it active for use. Once the letter assignment is made you then relaunch the Acronis application using the command prompts Acronis start command.
Paolo,
Here is a description (with screenshots) of how to use diskpart to assign a drive letter to a volume... a bit more direct than what is shown above.
https://stackhowto.com/how-to-assign-letter-to-drive-in-cmd/
With a little creative work, one could write a script to automate this.
I can see how that would be a solution but I failed to bring in the command prompt window from within the Acronis PE environment. The one already there won't allow me to type in, CTRL-C does nothing. If I hit Shift-F10 like I often do under other circumstances, it also does nothing. I see no option within Acronis to bring it up, how did you get it?
Paolo, I would recommend taking a look at the new MvP Assistant tool for creating rescue media (including as a .WIM file use with EasyBCD). The tool includes a number of extra applications including a command prompt option and file manager.