HELP! - My laptop is now a Paper Weight

FreeBooter said:

If you have not resolved the boot problem, what makes you think imaging will help booting problem, as a disk image is a snapshot of a storage device's content – typically stored in a file on another storage device.

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The computer currently has windows 11. it boots up fine. However, my problem was it wasn't letting me recover my system image (picture below). I have a funny feeling It now might let me recover my system image, since I've switched from RAID to AHCI, but I figure I'll still do a complete fresh install of Windows 11.

Reginald_Turnip said:

but I figure I'll still do a complete fresh install of Windows 11.

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Does Windows Setup still display the message: "Windows 11 can't be installed on disk 0 partition 3. (Show details)"?

If it does, click “Show details” and let us know what message appears in the window that opens.

Reginald_Turnip said:

I just ran the thorough advanced Dell preboot diagnostics. NO ERRORS :) "All tests past successfully"

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Please post images or share links so that the tests performed / not performed can be viewed.

Reginald_Turnip said:

The computer currently has windows 11. it boots up fine.

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Please run > post share links:




a) Tuneup plus:






b) Diskparinfo:






c) V2 log collector:

IMO this is being made unnecessarily difficult for a newbie trying to install windows.

Regarding the system image... First of all, I do not recognize what imaging app you are attempted to use to restore its image.
Secondly, from the message in that screenshot (post 21), it is telling me your system disk is not recognized which indicates to me it is related to your storage controller driver. I am assuming you made that image while the system was running RAID. That be so, to restore that image, the system must currently be set to RAID. You can not restore a RAID image to an AHCI drive. You have to clean install.

You say you changed from RAID to AHCI. Exactly how did you do that? While the system was running OR just before attempting a clean install?

As you have been told, while bios is set to AHCI, disconnect your second drive (disk 1), boot from a Windows install drive.
You do not have to do anything in diskpart. The install process will do it all for you.
Delete ALL partitions on disk 0 at step 10 of the tutorial.
Don't worry about your drivers. Windows update will install the bulk of them.. Any that are missing can be manually installed after the installation completes.
Just follow the streps in the tutorial. I suggest you print it and check off each step as you go. If you get stuck at any given step, report back here..
If one wants to use a Microsoft account, the install process is straight-forward.
The only thing about the tutorial that is confusing to some people is the method to use if one wants to create a local account. It is step 15. Do it exactly as written.

glasskuter said:

Regarding the system image... First of all, I do not recognize what imaging app you are attempted to use to restore its image.


You say you changed from RAID to AHCI. Exactly how did you do that? While the system was running OR just before attempting a clean install?

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I used the Windows Backup and recovery (Windows 7) To create the system image. I attempted recover it Using a Windows 11 recovery USB

I changed RAID to AHCI While system was running, by booting into the BIOS menu, and changing it in there. Applying the changes and then restarting computer.

You only have the one ssd drive is that right? Disk 0. Disk 1 seems to be a usb drive that's plugged in.

What I would do next, personally, is - on another computer (if you can access one). Download parted magic and burn it to a usb stick. I think it costs £14, but then you keep that usb stick as a "tool" you can use indefinitely. Boot from that. Select to erase the nvme drive. This erases everything on the drive and removes all partitions. Then it will seem as if it's a brand new drive and you can then just clean install Windows and it will set up new partitions and use the full 2TB drive.

When you install Windows, only disk 0 should be showing. I am not sure if you could just restore your image now, rather than a clean install because the image was made with possible existing issues (and when it was set to RAID rather than AHCI - but I'm not sure if that would affect the image or not as I'm not up on that side of things ).

But the quickest, easiest thing to do now, IMO is erase the drive, clean install Windows 11. It's a pain having to reinstall all programs and re-do all the windows settings - restoring your files shouldn't take too long, if they are backed up somewhere else.

You could "try" reinstalling the image after erasing the drive. That error you saw when trying to restore the image is sometimes when windows sees the recovery usb you're restoring from, as part of the system (eg if you had it plugged in when you also had a Windows 11 usb stick plugged in). So when you go to restore the image, make sure no other usb stick is plugged in. What you can do is a) plug in the usb with windows 11 on to reach the recovery menu then when you get to the point where it says restore from system image, unplug that usb and plug in the usb with the image on.

Erasing the drive is something I find helps with most things- it will automatically get repartitioned when you install windows or restore an image

@Reginald_Turnip

Did you click "Show Details" to find out why ?

if that 14.2gb disk 0 part 5 is an oem recovery part it is unusual

Reginald_Turnip said:

I used the Windows Backup and recovery (Windows 7) To create the system image. I attempted recover it Using a Windows 11 recovery USB

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Bad choice, Even Microsoft advises to not use that in Windows 11 and says to use 3rd party imaging apps.
This thread has veered into many unnecessary directions. You could have done a clean install several times over by now. I hope you find your solution.

It's not the preferred choice, but people do still use it and it does still restore, but there can be errors when trying to restore (which can usually be resolved). I can understand why people use it, because it's there, built in, and simple to use.

SO FAR SO GOOD! Fingers crossed. Was successful in doing a fresh install of Windows 11, now it seems to be successfully recovering the system image (had to find my Bitlocker key (command prompt )

We'll see!

Good. Lucky you had made the system image.

What a collosal pain in the ***

So I THINK I'm successful, not sure yet. When system image was finally done and computer restarted, I got the following screen (which did NOT restart automatically)




So I decided to experiment, and went into bios, and changed back to RAID mode, and now it works lol. I don't even want to know why I had to change from RAID to AHCI in order to access the system image and recover from it, but then had to switch back to RAID. Is that a DELL-specific thing?

Please assess the following (disk management readout). Tell me if it looks normal or not. I also just ran sfc /scannow and it found no integrity violations. THANKS EVERYONE for all the input, suggestions.
I'll never play around with "safe mode" boot ever again lol.

Reginald_Turnip said:

Please assess the following (disk management readout). Tell me if it looks normal or not.

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There is an extra recovery partition.



Please run > post a share link

had to change from RAID to AHCI in order to access the system image

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the winpe you ran the recovery from does not have the vmd drivers

They can be loaded on the fly. I recommend installing them or load using something like startnet.cmd

Obviously need to put the pedrivers in the wim like this:

If you want to integrate them into winre.wim

One way is mount winre.wim into an empty folder
e.g. create an empty folder on L called mount

at admin cmd prompt
reagentc /mountre /path L:\mount

Either install the drivers with dism.

Dism /Image:L:\mount /Add-Driver /Driver:<path-to-pedrivers_folder> /Recurse

*********************************************************************************************************
OR put the pedrivers folder on the root of the mounted image, adjust winpeshl.ini to call startnet.cmd and add a pnputil line to startnet.cmd.

I haven't tried it because I always use pecmd but I expect this will work though you will see the cmd prompt window

winpeshl.ini


startnet.cmd

******************************************************************************



then unmount commit
reagentc /unmountre /path L:\mount /commit


I think it easier to add stuff to a wim image by dragging any files/folders in with 7-zip.

Quick and easy with 7-zip






Drag the pedrivers folder onto the 7-zip window with the mouse






7-zip packs it into the wim in a couple of seconds and
like magic

Click down to \windows\system32

and drag in the other 2 files winpeshl.ini and startnet.cmd



job done in a few seconds

NOTE: If you are using the microsoft supplied boot.wim there are two images

click 2 because that is the bootable image

ms boot.wim looks like this






click on 2 and it will display image2

you can see where you are from the breadcrumb at the top



winpeshl.ini for ms boot.wim would be better like this
[LaunchApps]
startnet.cmd
X:\setup.exe

unless you prefer the previous version version of setup.exe
[LaunchApps]
startnet.cmd
X:\sources\setup.exe

SIW2 said:

the winpe you ran the recovery from does not have the vmd drivers

They can be loaded on the fly. I recommend installing them or load using something like startnet.cmd


I do it using pecmd in my simple winpe builds

pecmd.ini

Code:

IFEX %systemdrive%\pedrivers,
{
EXEC !PNPUTIL /add-driver "%systemdrive%\pedrivers\*.inf" /subdirs /install
}

Obviously need to put the pedrivers in the wim like this:

View attachment 155104

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Would it make a difference if he booted from a recovery drive made on the machine, rather than a windows install usb? I've wondered if the recovery drive contains more from Win PE?