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Invalid partition table on special Recover

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A little background first. I have a DELL Insprion 14-7000. It has two internal drives. Drive C is an SSD and drive D is a legacy HDD. So I use Acronis to backup both drives together and Restore the same way but to a different computer. 

I'm trying to move the drive images from a computer A (with both drives within the same computer) computer B (with one internal drive and one USB drive). Note that the Recover works if recovering to only A.

My problem could be that the partition table references partitions on the HDD of A and since both are ATA then the BIOS finds the rest referenced partitions on the HDD. But I'll bet the BIOS does not enable the USB and relies on the OS to do that hence it thinks the partition table is invalid. it is almost 2 AM here so tomorrow morning I'll delete the HDD from A and if that works it is the BIOS's fault. Since I used to be the BIOS manager at AMI I'll call some of my old friends at AMI and tell them to "fix" that ... like they really will :)

I had to take screenshots with my phone so I'll get you screen shots tomorrow if you need them but I think the analysis may not need them.

Note: This also fails if booting to A.

If anyone has any other suggestions then I'll really appreciate that. But I need this by end of day because I have to give up using A.

 

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Eddy, what purpose does each of your source drives on computer A have?

Is the SSD the main OS C: drive with all installed applications?

Is the HDD D: drive just used to store data?

If so, focus on getting your SSD migrated to the second computer and leave the HDD out of the mix at this time.

Once you have migrated the SSD OS and have it working, then look to migrate the data from the HDD which may be easier to do by connecting that drive externally to the new computer and copying the contents across.

What you suggest is exactly what I have tried.

The drive is the boot drive (C).

Yes, the SSD is the drive C.

Yes, the HDD is just for storing data.

Below when I say "then" it means the previous caused "invalid partition table"

I first tried to use ATI to backup and restore C and D to an external drives. Then I tried restoring to the other computer on the internal HDD and an external HDD. When the restore didn't work I tried to just restore C from the .tib. Then I tried to backup only C. Then I cloned C to an external drive. Then I figured maybe there I a way with UEFI that they can point entries in the drive C's partition table at a different drive (making the partition table at C and D) so I went into Disk Manager and deleted drive D (figuring Windows would make the partition table only within the SSSD) and then cloned C to what was D. None of those things worked. I have not tried putting the cloned C into the computer because I would have to remove the SSD chip and then I don't know what I'm getting into (and I have to return this computer to DELL today).

I'm away from my home for half day. When I get back home I can look at the partition table with WinHEX and maybe I can figure out what is going on. I wrote plenty of boot BIOS at AMI but that was about 20 years ago.

Eddy, there should be absolutely no need to start editing partition tables or going into BIOS etc here!

ATI is intended for use by the average home user who doesn't have a background in computer engineering or programming.

If you make a full disk backup of your working C: OS SSD drive then take that backup to a different system, then all references to partitions from that SSD are managed by Acronis during the restore process to the new drive.

The key issues that you need to understand in doing such a migration are:
How Windows boots on the source SSD, i.e. UEFI or Legacy?
Can the target computer support the same boot mode for the restored OS?
That you perform the restore using the same boot mode for the Acronis rescue media unless you are migrating from Legacy to UEFI, in which case the restore is done in UEFI boot mode and Acronis will migrate from Legacy to UEFI.
Finally, the disk controller mode used on both computers - i.e. are both using SATA drives, or are you also migrating to a different type of disk controller and SATA mode such as RAID as used for NVMe drives?  If the latter, then additional device drivers may be needed and you may need to use Acronis Universal Restore in order to install those device drivers, even with Windows 10.

Eddy,

01.) What is the OS of the original Drive (Win 7, 8, 8.1 or 10)?  Is it 32 or 64 bit?  Is it home or Pro?

02.) What is the OS install type on the original system (legacy or UEFI)

03.) We know that the original system is a DELL Insprion 14-7000, but what is the new system?

04.) We know that the original system is using a SATA SSD for the OS (C: drive), but what is the main hard drive of the new system?  

05.) What is the existing OS of the new system if any (Win 7, 8, 8.1 or 10)?  Is it 32 or 64 bit?  Is it home or Pro?

06.) What is the OS install type on the new system (legacy or UEFI) if any?

For now, I would take a full disk backup of just the main hard drive in the old system - do a full disk backup of just the disk that has the C: drive parition (OS).  It is a lot easier if you deal with one disk at a time.  Data drives can easily just be copy/pasted, or replicated with robocopy or xcopy after the fact if nothing else (assuming you can't just migrate the entire hard disk over via a different internal slot, or some type of external USB adapter).

1) Windows 10. 64 bit. Pro.

2) UEFI

3) A DELL e6440

4) Seagate 1TB FireCuda

5) If the restore worked the new system would be the same as (1) above.

6) If the restore worked it would be the same as (1) above.

Note: I just ran a test ... I restored Drive C to the original computer (the DELL I14-7000 and it restored just fine.

Now I'm wondering if the e6440 BIOS (which is 4 years old) can handle UEFI. Does anyone know if there is some software that can convert UEFI to Legacy? If so I could convert the old system to Legacy then do the backup and restore to the new system.

I'm certain the UEFI is not supported by the e6440 BIOS. I have found a youtube where the guy says how to convert UEFI to Legacy and now I'm going to try that.

EddyQ,

The E6440 is fine with UEFI (have one on my desk and about to retire it).  Have you checked for an updated bios?  

https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/latitude-e6440-laptop/drivers

A23 is dated 31 Oct 2018 and is not that old.

After you update the bios, reboot it and go back into the bios and make sure:

01.  secure boot is disabled - save and exit

https://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/comment_attachments/2016/07/378318-132037.jpg

02. bios is set to UEFI and the disk has first boot priority - save and exit

https://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/comment_attachments/2016/07/378318-132055.jpg

03. does the SATA mode match the original (is it supposed to be AHCI or RAID on?).  If needing to change, save and exit.

https://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/comment_attachments/2016/07/378318-132028.jpg

When doing the restore, make sure to use your rescue media and use the Dell F12 one time boot menu to ensure the USB drive is being booted in UEFI mode too.

https://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/comment_attachments/2016/07/378318-132040.jpg

Unfortunately, no, I do not know of any tools that allow you to convert UEFI to Legacy (and remain bootable).  Acronis and other products can do this going from Legacy to UEFI, but not the other way around.  Other tools (like partitioning programs can easily convert GPT to MBR and vice-versa but will break bootability)

FYI... seeing as how you can successfully restore the image to the original machine, have you just tried removing the original drive and plopping it in the E6440?  The Dell line is pretty backward compatible in many instances and Windows 10 driver support "out of the box" is also really good.  What might be getting you are the bios settings or the boot order and could still be an issue if they are not similarly matched. If they are aligned though, you might find that you can just swap the drive in and see if it boots.  If it does, Windows 10 will make driver adjustments and once you're done, then image it again and now you have an old image for the old system and a new image for the new system.

 

Hmm, I'm running A18. What a bummer because DELL replaced my motherboard about 4 months ago and they must have "downgraded" me. I'll update and I'll bet that will fix the problem.

I just called DELL. I gave them a piece of my mind. Even though my service contract is out of date they will "fix" my computer. I used to work for DELL on their first cluster project and wrote BIOS at AMI where we sold to DELL. Then I worked for Adaptec where I wrote embedded firmware for a DELL project. I told the guy that I was very disappointed because in my experience DELL really checked out our products/code but now their maintenance has put the screws to me.

OK, well, hopefully the bios update will work some magic, but make sure to check the other settings and try to match them with the original inspiron before you do the restore to the latitude. Hopefully, that will get things working.

And, you could still try swapping the inspiron drive (backup first if you haven't already, but sounds like you did and can recover to the same system just fine) and pop it into the latitude once the bios settings are verified to be similar with the items listed above.

FYI - screenshots are from a 5510 i posted awhile backup to clarify UEFI vs legacy rescue media booting and settings.  The settings are nearly exact on the the 6440. Just wanted to point that out as the pics cleary show a 5510.  I'm too lazy to cellshot my 6440 and repost similar pics again.

Thanks, the source computer is EUFI but the target is MBR. And my BIOS was way out of date. This fixed my problem ... thanks.

Excellent - glad it all worked out!!