Disk Recovery not Working
Hardware: HP Pavilion a6152n Desktop
8GB Memory
Disk 0 400GB
Disk 1 2TB
How I got here:
A few weeks ago I migrated this PC from Windows XP to Windows 8.1. I did a full wipe and not an upgrade. Here is the rub, I wasn't paying full attention to the install. Windows created a 350MB Reserved Partition on Disk 0 and I am assuming through my own stupidity I installed Windows 8.1 on Disk 1. This is not what I wanted and I did not find this mistake until a few days ago after installing all the MS patches and other software.
Current Situation:
I did a full backup of the Reserve Partition and the Windows 8.1 Partition. I have tried several times to restore the Windows 8.1 Partition to the 350+GB partition on Disk 0. I have tried restoring the Reserve Partition and the Windows 8.1 Partition at the same time, I also tried restoring the MBRs too. The last attempt was done just restoring the Windows 8.1 partition. Nothing has work. On my last attempt I can get to a black screen with a working cursor. I even installed 8.1 the way I wanted it and still can't get the backup version to overlay that version correctly. It should not be this hard! I restored other systems using other backup software and never had this trouble. I would appreciate any advice. I am just happy this is not an critical PC and I have the time to determine what's wrong.


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Thanks for your response. I took half of your advice. I remembered reading that the System Reserved Partition is only needed if your system's firmware is UEFI, which mine is not. I removed both partitions on Drive 0 and created a new MBR. I then restored the Windows 8.1 Partition. On boot up I did need to use the Windows install disk to repair the boot area, but after that the PC was completely restored.
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