Unexpected WinRE location behaviour


cereberus

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Windows 11 Pro + Win11 Canary VM.
I like to have WinRE.wim in the c:\windows\system32\recovery folder in my virtual machines rather than as a separate partition, as it helps with compacting the vhd (a vhd function).

When vhd is running inside Hyper-V, reagentc show the winre is enabled, at its location is in partition 3 c:\windows\system32\recovery as expected.

However, when I attached vhd as a native host boot drive, I checked reagentc again, and I was surprised, it had changed to partition 4 and I was puzzled, as there is no partition 4 in VHD (EFI, MSR, C Drive).

I looked closer and I was surprised - it was pointing to the WinRE partition on drive 0 (my native host OS).

I disabled it and renabled it, and it then pointed to winre in C drive partition (in vhd).

EDIT - arggggh. By disabling it, it removed the WinRe.wim file from drive 0 partition (brain not in gear as this was bound to happen LOL). Fortunately good old Reflect to the rescue to restore partition from backup. Even then, fist time it would not reenable sayin it could not find it.

Rebooted PC, and renabled it.

Booted into vhd, and it was still pointing to correct winre.wim

Got there in the end, but what a palaver LOL.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro + Win11 Canary VM.
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS Zenbook 14
    CPU
    I9 13th gen i9-13900H 2.60 GHZ
    Motherboard
    Yep, Laptop has one.
    Memory
    16 GB soldered
    Graphics Card(s)
    Integrated Intel Iris XE
    Sound Card
    Realtek built in
    Monitor(s) Displays
    laptop OLED screen
    Screen Resolution
    2880x1800 touchscreen
    Hard Drives
    1 TB NVME SSD (only weakness is only one slot)
    PSU
    Internal + 65W thunderbolt USB4 charger
    Case
    Yep, got one
    Cooling
    Stella Artois (UK pint cans - 568 ml) - extra cost.
    Keyboard
    Built in UK keybd
    Mouse
    Bluetooth , wireless dongled, wired
    Internet Speed
    900 mbs (ethernet), wifi 6 typical 350-450 mb/s both up and down
    Browser
    Edge
    Antivirus
    Defender
    Other Info
    TPM 2.0, 2xUSB4 thunderbolt, 1xUsb3 (usb a), 1xUsb-c, hdmi out, 3.5 mm audio out/in combo, ASUS backlit trackpad (inc. switchable number pad)

    Macrium Reflect Home V8
    Office 365 Family (6 users each 1TB onedrive space)
    Hyper-V (a vm runs almost as fast as my older laptop)
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