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Disk Restore to Same Disk, Same PC Does Not Work in WinPE 4.0

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Hi,

I use True Image 2013 to perform a DISK backup of my PC's OS disk. The backup completes successfully, no errors. It is a DISK backup, so all 4 volumes/partitions are contained the backup. My hard disk is an EFI GPT hard disk.

When I attempt to do a DISK restore, if I use the WinPE 4.0 recovery environment, the restore completes successfully, without any errors, but then my PC won't boot (no OS is detected, so it gets stuck at power-on).

However, if I use the Linux recovery environment instead, then the restore also completes successfully, still no errors AND my PC boots! A true and complete restore that works!

Why?!

I'd much prefer to use the WinPE 4.0 recovery environment, so do you know why there is a difference between the two environments and what, if any, could be done to make the WinPE 4.0 environment truly successfully restore like its Linux counterpart?

Note that regarding the Disk Signature restore option, I leave it as "Set Automatically".

Please let me know if you have any ideas. Thanks!

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It might be that the WinPE 4 version doesn't set the active flag on the disk, which would cause the UEFI firmware to report no OS.

If you still have a system with WinPe 3 on it, make a disk from that and see if the same problem remains.

Another thing to check if possible is to see if the disk partition layout is the same between the two restore media.

Are you running a 32 or 64 bit OS?

Hi Colin,

I'm running 64-bit Windows 8 on a Surface Pro.

Yes, one of the first tests I did was the compare the partition layout and they were the same.

I no longer have a WinPE 3 environment to test it, though.

Thanks.

It would be worth checking the active flag possibility. If you don't have a disk utility, download the Acronis Disk director trial, burn a recovery CD and see. Unfortunately the trial version won't be able to set the active flag if it is not set, but at least we will know what the problem is and where to got to from there.

It is also possible that being a Microsoft product the Surf may have some other form of protection mechanism embedded in it that causes problems for any other image recovery program than Microsofts'. Hard to tell as I don't have access to a Surf.