MR: Restore OS drive image to new disk?

Thinking about replacing my current OS disk with a new, faster one of the same size. If I switch the physical drives and then boot from my MR rescue USB flash, and the new disk is not yet "initialized," will the MR rescue app let me restore an OS disk image made just moments before, with all the drivers and necessities? Will MR recognize the new uninitialized drive?

If that sounds like a poor plan for getting the image of the current drive onto the new drive, what's a better plan?

Hi,
Usually the winpe recovery has a nvm-e driver already.

So if I use my PE rescue disk, this plan should work?

Hi,
Yeah should be fine.

On a off chance winpe doesn't see the m.2, really do doubt it
If you have windows installation flash drive you can use it to get to cmd with shift+f10 and diskpart and use list disk or list vol short for volume
I'd use listdisk first.

It did for me. I didn't have to initialize the disk since MR did it all. I did, however, expand the C: partition during the restore to use the additional space.. It's much easier to do it within Macrium than having to do it manually before or after restoring an image to a larger drive.

Remember... the Macrium bootable rescue media... has a command prompt...

Wisewiz said:

Thinking about replacing my current OS disk with a new, faster one of the same size. If I switch the physical drives and then boot from my MR rescue USB flash, and the new disk is not yet "initialized," will the MR rescue app let me restore an OS disk image made just moments before, with all the drivers and necessities? Will MR recognize the new uninitialized drive?

If that sounds like a poor plan for getting the image of the current drive onto the new drive, what's a better plan?

Click to expand...

MR often does not see new NVNE drive despite others (inaccurately) claiming it will (e.g. I have 2 pcs where that will not boot).

Manually copy the NVME driver onto the usb Rescue drive (see guides by Macrium Reflect) and then it should work.

Another solution is to inject the driver into boot.wim on usb drive using dism.

The best solution is to temporarily clean install windows on new pc, and create MR usb drive from new pc, and that will boot.

list disk via disk part from install media / command line from macrium and if the disk (nvme) is detected use bcdboot to install the boot loader on the new nvme drive (ensure there's an efi partition on it first) and temporarily disable secure boot if disk is initially not recognised via your boot media.

latest versions of Windows install media / winpe should see the nvme disk -- to get latest version of W11 choose one from uupdump. download the zip file, extract and run the cmd file which will create an iso for your selected edition(s).

I replaced the 256GB nvme (ssd type) in an old HP laptop with a new faster 2 TB nvme (also SSD type) -- no problems cloning windows from old to new device. I cloned the old windows first to the new nvme device in external usb adapter (realtek thing) -

ID 0bda:9210 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL9210 M.2 NVME Adapter

then replaced the nvme device with the new one and it booted first time. If you do it that way clone first to external device otherwise you might end up with unbootable system if it goes wrong and you have to replace the old device and it doesn't work for some reason or another.

cheers
jimbo

So if I use my PE rescue disk, this plan should work?

Click to expand...

Q370 and 9gen. Shouldnt be fine with win10/11 based pe.

SIW2 said:

Q370 and 9gen. Shouldnt be fine with win10/11 based pe.

Click to expand...

confused -- do you mean should be fine or should not be fine.

It worked on my 6gen cpu so should work on much later hardware !!!

cheers
jimbo

I repeat - windows 11 winpe does not see all nvme drives. Why do people keep saying it does when it is not true in all cases!!!

Ghot said:

Remember... the Macrium bootable rescue media... has a command prompt...


View attachment 84184

Click to expand...

Hi,
Forgot about that

cereberus said:

I repeat - windows 11 winpe does not see all nvme drives. Why do people keep saying it does when it is not true in all cases!!!

Click to expand...

Both systems the op has already use m.2's so the MR winpe already has the driver needed to see the new m.2.
That's why dude lol

glasskuter said:

It did for me. I didn't have to initialize the disk since MR did it all. I did, however, expand the C: partition during the restore to use the additional space.. It's much easier to do it within Macrium than having to do it manually before or after restoring an image to a larger drive.

Restore Partitions with Resize and Reorder

Click to expand...

Okay, @glasskuter, you're saying you installed a new drive after removing the boot (OS) drive, then booted from the MR rescue disk, and MR saw the uninitialized drive so that you could then restore an image from another internal disk to the new disk, and you had a new disk with a bootable OS with C: drive on it at the end?

That's what I want to do, and if you've done it, I know I can do it, too. (Sigh of relief here)

Please confirm or tell me what I've missed. Many, many thanks, my friend.

Wisewiz said:

Okay, @glasskuter, you're saying you installed a new drive after removing the boot (OS) drive, then booted from the MR rescue disk, and MR saw the uninitialized drive so that you could then restore an image from another internal disk to the new disk, and you had a new disk with a bootable OS with C: drive on it at the end?

That's what I want to do, and if you've done it, I know I can do it, too. (Sigh of relief here)

Please confirm or tell me what I've missed. Many, many thanks, my friend.

Click to expand...

Only item you missed is posting about the system you're doing this process on
I'm assuming you're doing this on either system 1 or 2 in your spec's
If so you're good to go the existing winpe has at the least MS m.2 driver and that is all the PE needs.

ThrashZone said:

Only item you missed is posting about the system you're doing this process on
I'm assuming you're doing this on either system 1 or 2 in your spec's
If so you're good to go the existing winpe has at the least MS m.2 driver and that is all the PE needs.

Click to expand...

Yep, System1 in my specs. Sorry. Thought I'd posted that info. Thank you very much for your encouragement.

cereberus said:

windows 11 winpe does not see all nvme drives.

Click to expand...

I have my IRST controller driver injected into my recovery media but one can just as easily load the correct storage controller driver if no drives are detected. It's the same principal that applies if no drives are detected during a clean install of windows.

glasskuter said:

I have my IRST controller driver injected into my recovery media but one can just as easily load the correct storage controller driver if no drives are detected. It's the same principal that applies if no drives are detected during a clean install of windows.

Techie Tuesday: Updating rescue media to include additional hardware drivers

Macrium Software - the creators of Macrium Reflect backup, imaging and cloning software.

blog.macrium.com

Click to expand...

Sure - key point is you need to have the driver available i.e. not just assume it will be available.

I too use dism injection (into boot.wim) if I cannot create usb rescue drive from pc with nvme drive in first instance.

By and large, as my usb drive contains the nvme drivers, it works on all pcs pretty much now.

Wis, it sounds to me like what you're saying is that you want to CLONE an older HD to a new HD.
I've been doing that almost weekly, since 1997, with "Ghost". So forgive me, if I don't see the problem.

Have you never Cloned a HD before?

What is so ridiculously simple with Ghost, might be more complicated with other software. Obviously, that's true.
But I guess I'll never know for sure, because I will NOT use any other software than Ghost 11.5., for my HD backups, or cloning.
It's been working for me for 27 years.

Good Luck,
TM