3 Recovery Partitons? - Windows 8 General

So I just bought a new Lenovo Lynx and I noticed that even though it has a 64GB drive, the C drive is only 48GB. Upon my investigation, I found that there are 3 partitions labeled as "Recovery". The total space adds up to about 9GB. See attachement.
My question is: Can I remove them and if so, what's the best way to do so?

The largest recovery partition has the actual .WIM factory install image. Windows has a separate recovery partition for its own recovery use (when you select advanced boot options). I forget what the 3rd one is for.
You can remove them, but you will have to create your own recovery routine beforehand, because both the Lenovo and Windows recovery routines will fail w/o the partitions present.
Suggest leaving them in place for the first month of use, as if an issue arises that require support, the main troubleshooting step would be to reset to factory install. If that's not available, support will be problematic.
Suggest installing Acronis True Image 2014 free trial, and make a bootable USB from it (the boot image isn't affected by the trialware). Reset your system to factory install. To keep it "virgin," don't start up Windows after the reset.
Use TrueImage USB to back up the restored partition to external USB storage. To verify, restore from the just-made backup copy, and start up Windows. If the backup is good, the restore should be good, and your system should start up properly. (If the restore fails, then do another factory reset using the Lenovo method.) You now have your own factory install backup.
To claim the space, simplest is to delete the two recovery partitions after the main partition, then expand the main partition using Win's Disk Manager. To reclaim the 1GB partition would require a wipe and repartition of the drive.
PS: The 64GB drive is actually 59.6GB (64 / 1.024^3).

So just to be sure, I can install Windows 8.1 Pro from a USB just like any other PC but I have to make sure not to touch the EFI partition?

Don't have to download and install stuffs that you'll only use once. You can just use windows search and look for a way to create a recovery disk. It'll even ask if you want to delete the existing recovery partition at the end.
Sent from my U9200

bountygiver said:
Don't have to download and install stuffs that you'll only use once. You can just use windows search and look for a way to create a recovery disk. It'll even ask if you want to delete the existing recovery partition at the end.
Sent from my U9200
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! That made the space usable by creating a new drive from the old recovery partition. When I try to use a partition tool to merge the 2 partitions, they tell me it can't be done. Is the best way to go about this just reinstalling windows and editing the partitions during the installation?

The point of "installing stuff" is not just to extract the recovery image, but also to have your own backup solution. There is a reason the Win8.x image backup is hard to find--because it's deprecated. It's also very limited. Having your own solution avoids the vagaries of Windows quirks. Some OEM recovery also depends on a particular partitioning scheme, and would fail if that scheme has been altered.
Then again, I understand that people don't take data integrity seriously, until after a crash. It's pretty stupid to nuke the recovery partition when prompted, BEFORE VERIFYING that the USB recovery key works. That's why you see the laments of some peeps here, begging for factory images that they FUBAR'ed.

Well, something nasty happened and I couldn't get the tablet to boot. Here are the steps I tried:
Startup Repair
Command Prompt > sfc
PC Refresh
PC Reset
And finally... Created a bootable USB with Windows 8.1 Pro and reinstalled Windows.
I now have only 2 partitions... 1 recovery and one primary.
Thanks everybody for your help.

Related

Is it possible to backup the hidden vista partition onto dvd?

Shift is not shipped with any cd/dvd for system recovery
In case of hard drive crash, how are we gonna restore the system?
Is it possible to make system recovery disks by ourselves, just like what sony has been asking their nb buyers to do (to burn recovery disks by themselves)?
I think you could backup the restore partition to a DVD using something like Acronis Trueimage and then use Partition Magic or similar to delete the partition and extend the primary partition into this space increasing its size.
To be honest you may be as well do a full image onto another harddisk as a backup and have a suitable Acronis or similar bootdisk to allow a full image restore if the worst happens.
Recovery Partition
I have used BartPE to boot off an external USB DVD Writer.
From within BartPE you can then use Ghost to capture the ENTIRE drive.
The ***Hidden*** restore partition cannot be see by anything, not ghost, not partition magic, not acronis, it simply is not there.
My belief is that this is due to a BIOS restriction and the FN+F3 boot that does allow the restore is either.....
1. A special mode where the bios can see the hidden partition
2. The actual recovery image is on a separate flash area that we can't see.
Either way having the ghost will recover the hard drive.
I have installed both XP and Linux on the Shift and still been able to reboot, press FN+F3 and do a vista re-installation.
This makes me believe the image is on a separate flash device that only the BIOS section can see.
Hope this helps.
Blitz

[Q] no boot: used TouchEraser.zip get message can't mount /cache/recovery/

Dear Members!
I did the stupid thing of using a tool, not completly knowing what it does.
After using TouchEraser.zip I installed Alpha-FormatTouch-2.zip using clockwork.
I tried to boot the device, no luck...
Clockwork says:
can't mount /cache/recovery/log/log
can't open /cache/recovery/log/log
can't mount /cache/recovery/log/last_log
can't open /cache/recovery/log/last_log
Please help!
Stupidly enough I don't have the devices own factory image.
What to do now?
ok , first boot with noogie image and lets see what partion u got , if u have got rom partions so take a copy all files from it and take backup from the whole nook and do this steps in this post
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=30722156&postcount=2
but u must try to recovery ur nook partition rom especially cuz very important ..... before do anything above .... i will keep continue active in this thread
good luck
only one partition on on gParted...
Do You think theres any way to fix it? how?
If CWR came up that far then the /rom partition must be ok.
All we know is that the /cache partition has a problem.
That's a disposable partition, you can format the /cache partition.
Be careful, don't make anything worse.
auerg said:
Do You think theres any way to fix it? how?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as Renate say ..... dont make anything more worth .... so can u type fdisk for ur nook to see all ur partition table info???
Pretty screwed...
speedman2202 said:
as Renate say ..... dont make anything more worth .... so can u type fdisk for ur nook to see all ur partition table info???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did but what it listed is ONLY ONE 1,8 gb partition. Toucheraser probably wiped the whole table (
I'd need a tool to restore the original filesystem or a factory image ( I don't have my own...).
I found one for glowlight, but probably I shouldn't write that to my mormal NST.
Alpha-FormatTouch-2.zip using clockwork.didn't work.
I'm pretty screwed...
Get Clockwork Recovery working on an SD card.
Get ADB setup and connected to CWR.
Run nookpart.sh from a shell (download the script from my signature).
This will recreate the partitioning without formatting or writing any of them.
You can then see if/what you can mount.
Use either the mount options in CWR or the mount command in ADB.
U kidding with me. Did u format the whole partition.? I suggest u try again and boot ur nook with noogie image and the all sevsen partition will show to U?
Tru agan man. Good luck
Sent from my NOOK using xda app-developers app
resurect nook
Renate NST said:
Get Clockwork Recovery working on an SD card.
Get ADB setup and connected to CWR.
Run nookpart.sh from a shell (download the script from my signature).
This will recreate the partitioning without formatting or writing any of them.
You can then see if/what you can mount.
Use either the mount options in CWR or the mount command in ADB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I even can`t do that!,"my" nook simple are "dead" after, i delette all the memorie intern with MINI TOOL PARTITION WIZARD, without make backup or copy room, very nervius then, with CLOCKWORK RECOVERY in a sd card y instal a program call ALPHA FORMAT TOUCH2, after that my nook are iresponsive .no sd card function
any more no usb conection just charge, ¿can is posible resurrect it by some way?
dummy56 said:
...
i delette all the memorie intern with MINI TOOL PARTITION WIZARD, without make backup or copy room,
...
¿can is posible resurrect it by some way?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only way I can think of to quasi-resurrect your Nook is if you can obtain a full image backup of another Nook (e.g., boot it up with noogie and read/save its entire drive as an image file) then write the backup image file back to your Nook (after booting it up with noogie) -- but then the two Nook devices will have identical device-specific data (e.g., encryption keys, WiFi MAC address, etc.), which can cause Internet access/communication problems of various sorts.
The batery are charged but it won't power on , after i install ALPHA FORMAT TOUCH2
maybe i kill him.
Wow, this is an old thread!
The Nook Simple Touch was/is a simple device.
With its SD card it's almost completely unbrickable.
Add in the stuff we've learned in the last few years about booting over USB and it's almost unsinkable.
First, whenever somebody says "dead", it's never clear what the state is.
Until you get to the point where the screen is initialized you don't know what's going on.
If you have Windows where it goes "bong" when you plug in a USB device, see if it "bongs" when you connect/power up/power down.
As said above, you'll probably need to find a full NST image somewhere.
similar to this http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2322762
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the batery are charged the machine have no image and whent i plug in a usb, no screen are inicialized just windowsXP said "OMAP3630 - No driver found". :silly:
Dear Renate, may I kindly ask you to provide the command prompt syntax here for dummies like me: "Run nookpart.sh from a shell (download the script from my signature)"? I know how to use adb, but with a ready syntax only.
And I have a spare completely bricked NSTGL, it was brought to me bricked already, managed to write an image from my current NSTGL using MiniTool Partition Wizard, and was able to open it in Windows Explorer, could see all files and folders, could add, copy and delete anything, but never succeeded in seeing any sign of life at the Nook's screen (nothing at all, never), and tried everything with a battery - disconnected it, pressed the switch button at the mainboard for some time, charged fully etc., then one unhappy day I have tried to overwrite it with a new image, but forgot to delete all partitions first and it crashed during the writing process in MiniTool Partition Wizard and now it is recognized by Windows (bang) and shown as a (some) drive but I cannot open it. Obviously I have damaged the partition table, and since then was unable to restore it, and now came across your messages here. Although, I am afraid restoring the partition table will do me no good, as it already showed no sign of life with a healthy image onboard. And I would appreciate it if you provide here a syntax for adbsync too
Mnurlan said:
Dear Renate, may I kindly ask you to provide the command prompt syntax here for dummies like me: "Run nookpart.sh from a shell (download the script from my signature)"? I know how to use adb, but with a ready syntax only.
...
And I would appreciate it if you provide here a syntax for adbsync too
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think a simpler, more expedient alternative to any adb-based method would be:
Use a disk-imaging tool (such as win32diskimager) and write to SD-card the image Noogie.img
Boot your live NSTGL off the Noogie SD-card and connect it to your PC via USB
Use the disk-imaging tool to read/save the NSTGL drive image to a file on your PC
Disconnect your live NSTGL from your PC
Boot your bad NSTGL off the Noogie SD-card and connect it to your PC via USB
Use the disk-imaging tool to write the file containing previously saved image of the live NSTGL drive to the bad NSTGL drive.
When writing out a disk image, make sure that you select the correct target drive (in particular don't select by mistake your PC "C:" drive).
Afterward you will have to figure out how to resolve the issue of the two Nook devices having identical device-specific data (e.g., encryption keys, WiFi MAC address, etc.), which can cause Internet access/communication problems of various sorts.
@Mnurlan I think @digixmax has it about right.
Just copying a whole image over is probably the easiest way.
If you have a raw image of the whole disk then the partitioning comes over just like all the other data.
@dummy56 if your device is IDing as OMAP3630 then what you have there is the bootloader.
The easiest thing to try would be just like above, with noogie and a full 2GB image from a friend.
Depending on what got overwritten, you might be able to fix things with just a recovery and ADB.
2 digixmax and 2 Renate
This is exactly what I did, remember I said that I received the "bad" NSTGL bricked already, so of course I took an image of my healthy (live) NSTGL FW1.2.0 to overwrite (re-write) whatever was left on "bad-dead" NSTGL, and I know in details how to write-read-save an image with win32diskimager, just during the second attempt I forgot to delete all partitions first and that resulted in damaged partitions - that is my educated guess. I would like to point out that my first attempt was successful (I have copied a healthy image of my live NSTGL to a bad one) and I was able to read-see-delete-add anything to NSTGL in Windows Explorer whenever I connect that dead NSTGL to PC directly, without a Noogie.
I am afraid, the screen has been damaged somehow (although it looks visibly intact), as it never showed any sign of life, no matter whatever I've tried.
And now the problem is that no Nook's partition appears in the MiniTool Partition Wizard window, only SD-card with Noogie, so I have nowhere to write an image. This is why I thought the culprit is - a damaged partition table. I have tried to use the GParted Live CD, but my notebook failed to boot on it, so I just postponed it for a while, as I had to leave for my rotation. Currently I am away from home and I left that "bad" NSTGL at home, and won't be able to do anything about it until I am back on Feb. 18.
And having two Nook devices having identical device-specific data is the least of my problems as I am pretty sure that I can easily do without W-Fi functionality of that Nook should I manage to revive it somehow, which I doubt.
Mnurlan said:
This is exactly what I did, remember I said that I received the "bad" NSTGL bricked already, so of course I took an image of my healthy (live) NSTGL FW1.2.0 to overwrite (re-write) whatever was left on "bad-dead" NSTGL, and I know in details how to write-read-save an image with win32diskimager, just during the second attempt I forgot to delete all partitions first and that resulted in damaged partitions - that is my educated guess.
...
And now the problem is that no Nook's partition appears in the MiniTool Partition Wizard window, only SD-card with Noogie, so I have nowhere to write an image. This is why I thought the culprit is - a damaged partition table.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since Wiin32DiskImager can read/write from/to a raw physical device, there is no need to clear/fix the partition table of the bad NSTGL using MiniTool or GParted before re-imaging it.
As long as your bad NSTGL when booted on Noogie appears as a raw physical drive in Win32DiskImager's drive-selection menu, you can re-image the bad NSTGL using the raw drive image of the good NSTGL.
NSTGL in question appears as (some) drive in Windows Explorer window, but does not appear in the Wiin32DiskImager's drive selection window, and I run it As Administrator

[Q] Nook Simple Touch (1.1.2) Not Working After Failed Backup Restore

My Nook Simple Touch (1.1.2) is now not working because I wiped ALL the partitions before attempting to restore a backup (which I didnt know was bad at the time)
Notes
1. I have two backups:
a) the first is 239mb which contains my ebooks and pdfs
b) the second is the boot partition (77mb) - I backed up again when when noogie was on micro SD
2. So basically (both backups) I backed up the NST without selecting the whole physical drive.
3. After a failed root, I tried to restore the backup (and seeing it fail), I decided to wipe the whole partition before attempting to restore again :crying:
4. Are there any restorable backup images that can be downloaded online? Or anything which can restore the partition table including the ROM partition with the serial address etc.
5. Please help me restore the Nook back to factory or any working state. Cos AFAIK i've bricked the device.
p.s. I have tried touchnooter and installed touchformatv2 but all I get now is a Read Forever load screen. N2Tsecurity doesnt work without the ROM partition.
Please Please Help Me Im so sad (I know this is down to carelessness on my part but I really need help)
Did you really wipe all the partitions (like write zeroes over the entire physical drive)?
Or did you just try to repartition it?
The question is whether you truly wiped out the /rom and /factory partitions.
Sometimes partitioning them correctly you can rediscover the file system.
The /rom partition is necessary, even ClockworkMod needs to be able to see it.
The /rom info is replicated in /factory/rombackup.zip
Renate's solution may work.
Also, there is a tool called testdisk available for linux that I've used to recover data and partition layouts before; I would expect that it may work a champ for situations like yours.
To use it, you would need a linux box or find a windows port and boot the NSTG or NST from the noogie disk.
Testdisk can recover deleted partitions automatically, including the all-important /rom partition.
That one's important because it contains device-specific info for your NST. It'll do it automatically, but you do need to read up on what commands to give it. You can also rebuild the table manually using fdisk (and I've done so successfully before.)
A windows file recovery utility might let you recover /rom as well (or the files from it.)
You most need the contents of /devconf, and there are lots of files there. I am not sure which ones are absolutely required.

[Q] cloning or recovery to new SSD

I know there is good software out there to clone/image my hard drive and restore it to a new SSD drive.
I'm just wondering though, since my laptop is brand new, I made a full recovery to a USB drive and included the OEM recovery partition.
Couldn't I just swap out the old HDD with the new SSD and boot with the recovery stick and do a full recovery back to the new SSD?
Also, however I do this, recover or image backup/restore, do I need to do some type of SSD alignment? I can't find a clear answer on that.
You can directly image the HDD partitions onto the SSD using a tool such as "dd" on Linux (if you can book off of a bootable Linux image/liveCD, that's probably easiest; just be sure to set a large-ish block size that is a multiple of the SSD block size or the copy will take forever). However, I would tend to recommend doing a clean install of the OS and then restoring your files into it. Using the recovery image would probably work fine, although I prefer clean install media where possible.

Help restoring system image

Hello, I recently had to send in my laptop to get a speaker fixed and was told to make a backup, as the laptop would be reset, I made a system image tested it before I sent it in, it restored fine, but now that I got it back I was no longer able to restore it, it gave me the message "To restore this computer. Windows needs to format the drive that the Windows recovery Environment is currently running on. To continue with the restore, shut down this computer and boot it from a windows installation disk or a system repair disc and then try to restore again." Now the problem is I have tried this, I got hp to send me a recovery disk, but there is no option to restore the system image, it goes straight to resetting the computer it does not have the advance startup options. I have made my own recovery disk using the windows 8 tool and tried, that has the advanced startup options but gives me the same message when in try to restore it. I also have a system image of when i first got the laptop back from them, but i could not restore that either. I have tired near everything ( I just don't want to type out everything I did) any help would be appreciated, If you need anymore details just ask.
Is there at least some way to make a better recovery media, or a windows 8 installation usb? Theres gotta be a way because I know when I tested my image it restored before i sent it in perfectly
What device did you put the recovery image on?
By the way, it's very common and easy to put the recovery tools on a bootable flashdrive; it's included on the install media, so just follow the steps for making a bootable install image on a flashdrive.
GoodDayToDie said:
What device did you put the recovery image on?
By the way, it's very common and easy to put the recovery tools on a bootable flashdrive; it's included on the install media, so just follow the steps for making a bootable install image on a flashdrive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its on one partition of an external hard drive I have, and is what you are talking about above available for win 8.1? Lately I've tried looking for a windows 8.1 iso to make a bootable drive from but cant seem to find one that works. Also thank you for your help
... Huh. If it's on an external drive, then the error you're getting doesn't make a lot of sense anyhow. (But then, I guess you knew that.)
Creating a bootable flash drive is easy. You can either use one of a handful of tools, or just do it manually using diskpart on the command line. Wipe the drive, make sure it's using MBR, create one partition, mark that partition Active, format it FAT32. Then just copy (literally, you can use Explorer for this step if you want) the entire contents of the boot media, such as the DVD, onto your flashdrive. If you don't have a DVD drive to boot from for this part, you can mount the ISO or use 7-Zip to extract the contents of the .ISO file system.
If you *do* have a DVD drive or other bootable media, it should certainly be possible to enter the recovery environment for your OS. The actual steps to restore your backup from there, though, are less clear to me; I've never used the Win8 recovery tools.
I can't find a working iso for windows 8.1, but I noticed that the recovery media I have has the bootx64.efi set up in a weird way which is probably why its not booting into the options I need to restore the image. I tried to make one on a separate USB combining the two I have with the factores image but the boot and efi folders from the other that gives me the options but that would not show up at all to boot into
Thanks for your help, should I mark this as solved

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