Hello,
I'm having some issues with partitions and recovery image creation after Windows 8.1 clean installation ( from USB pen drive). Disk situation is in the attachments. First thing I noticed is that there is a new partition between C: and Recovery Partition. The problem is that windows doesn't recognize recovery partition and when I try to
backup it on usb drive the option "Copy the recovery pertition from PC to recovey unit" is gray (unclickable). I tried to copy it with EaseUs Partition Manager but the unit doesn't boot. What can I do in order to rescue Recovery Image?
Tnx a lot
>What can I do in order to rescue Recovery Image?
The rec partition is non-functional once you did the clean install. You can delete all partitions and reclaim the space, and have the partition tool recreate the ESP (EFI Service Partition, required for EFI toys). If using GPT format, also recreate the MSR (Microsoft Reserved Partition, required for GPT disks). Alternatively, you can switch to MBR and skip the MSR.
Then, ESP (100MB space) is the first partition, MSR (128MB) is second, and the rest can be allotted to the main partition. Make sure partition tool is current, else it may not handle EFI stuff. I use freebie Partition Wizard.
More info here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn640535(v=vs.85).aspx
For recovery, simply use an image backup tool to back up the main partition once you're done installing and setting up 8.1. There are lots of tools to do this, and you can save the image into a dedicated partition like the MS rec partition, or offline it to USB and save the space for regular use. There is no need to stick with the convoluted MS method.
Abstracts foreyro
e.mote said:
>What can I do in order to rescue Recovery Image?
The rec partition is non-functional once you did the clean install. You can delete all partitions and reclaim the space, and have the partition tool recreate the ESP (EFI Service Partition, required for EFI toys). If using GPT format, also recreate the MSR (Microsoft Reserved Partition, required for GPT disks). Alternatively, you can switch to MBR and skip the MSR.
Then, ESP (100MB space) is the first partition, MSR (128MB) is second, and the rest can be allotted to the main partition. Make sure partition tool is current, else it may not handle EFI stuff. I use freebie Partition Wizard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for reply,
I suspected there were no chance. I virtually undestand what you suggest but I'm not sure how to do exactly. Should I create a bootable partition
tool? Isn't possible to delete and join partitions during win8.1 installation( when it ask to select the partition for installation)?
>Should I create a bootable partition tool?
Yes. Many partitioning tools come in ISO form. To image the ISO onto a bootable USB stick, the simplest tool to use is Rufus http://rufus.akeo.ie . Rufus can also image the Windows ISO to boot USB, so no need for the dedicated MS tool. More complicated, but also more capable, are multiboot tools that allow booting from multiple ISOs, eg Easy2Boot http://easy2boot.com .
>Isn't possible to delete and join partitions during win8.1 installation
I doubt it is capable as a regular partitioning tool, eg create specific partitions like ESP/MSR, or move them. You do want to delete everything, then recreate the ones you need, to avoid non-contiguous space. If you want to stick with MS stuff, the tool to use is fdisk, but that harks back to the stone age in terms of user-friendliness.
thank you again. I tried first the easier way and deleted partitions during Win installation. The result is in the attachment. Please, tell me your opinion.
Attachments:
Looks like Win install is self-sufficient and can create the needed partitions. As a rule, I do my own partitioning, since Win install will create the Win RE (Recovery Environment) partition, which is useless when I'm handling my own backup/recovery. I also disable UEFI on my boxes and use MBR, which then obviates the need for ESP & MSR, so everything can be allocated to data. GPT is irrelevant for small drives, and EFI is basically a headache. But if you're happy, then it's all good.
Edit for my above post: I meant diskpart, not fdisk.
Related
Hi,
At first - if this is wrong category, please move it into correct one.
I have Dell XPS10 - RT based device. It was used by some company - then they wiped all data. All, including partitions. Device is booting into recovery from USB pendrive, but cannot recover it because "required partition is missing".
After digging in recovery command prompt, I found that there's no partitions on internal drive. Created some, upacked wim image - everything's was copying and creating ok, so there's no problem with flash memory.
But I'm still looking how to recreate original partition table, and UEFI bootloader - as I have no experience with uefi at all. On one of youtube vids I found this partition table (it's print from diskpart)
Partition, Type, Size, Offfset
Partition 1 Recovery 500MB 1024KB
Partition 2 System 100MB 501MB
Partition 3 Reserved 128MB 601MB
Partition 4 Primary 53GB 729MB
Partition 5 Recovery 4100MB 53GB
So from what I'm guessing - first 1MB is GPT, then there's not needed partition. 2nd is 100MB system, so it's efi bootloader one? 3rd seems to be usual "System reserved" for Win bootloader and 4 is main one. 5th is not needed again.
After unpacking wim into partition 4, device is still not booting, so I assume that I need somehow install bootloader into partitions 2 and 3. Any clues how to achieve that?
Found this script: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825686.aspx, will try to apply it tomorrow.
[e]
So, this link helped me - device has usual EFI/GPT partition table - recreated it with help of this technet link, unpacked wim and repaired boot record. Now I'm happy owner of XPS10 64GB
Ok so I went ahead and created the USB flash restore disk for my Surface Pro 64 and all that, I have a new partition now of about 7.81 GB. Now the issue I face is I don't want this extra partition, I want to add it to the current 50GB C partition, and in any normal windows computer it's allowed, why is it not so in the Surface Pro? Is it the location of the partitions? Is there any sure way to delete every single partition except the C partition in order to get this done?
If you don't know what I'm talking about these are the steps to do this:
http://www.petri.co.il/increase-storage-surface-pro-recovery-usb.htm
Now if anyone has a 3rd party program that can do this for free that would be great, the built in Disk Management application doesn't allow you to do so.
Thanks,
Mike
I don't have a Surface Pro, but the *usual* arrangement is that, after the boot partition, the system drive is then followed by the backup partition. To use that, you should just be able to delete the backup partition (don't create a new one; just delete it entirely) and then Extend the system volume into that space. This does, however, require that the system volume be placed immediately in front of (before) the recovery partition that you're deleting. If there are any other partitions in between, you'll need to delete them too. If the recovery partition was located before the system volume, you can't do this at all while Windows is booted. My approach at that point would involve an external hard disk (to have room to store the backup image of the system volume, although a sufficiently large flashdrive or microSD would work too), a portable Linux installation or live image (may need to disable Secure Boot), and either moving or re-building the system volume to start at the beginning of the space you just freed up.
Yea, I know exactly how to do it, it just in fact will not let me do it. I have attached some images as proof. If you try to delete any of the 3 small partitions the only right click option shown to you is "Help" and the C & D partitions can only shrink, no Extend. I've deleted D before and C still couldn't extend because of the one partition in between that I can't delete. Maybe there's a program that can override this limitation.
Thanks.
DISKPART from an elevated command prompt?
I used it on a flash drive but I didn't see an option for individual partitions.
Hmm http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=ws.10).aspx
Diskpart.exe has an interactive mode with excellent help information. Typing "help" into it, optionally followed by a command, will give you information about the commands (or the specific command and its sub-commands).
The general procedure, including abbreviations you can use instead of the full commands:
diskpart
lis dis (List disks)
sel dis 0 (Select Disk 0; modify if needed)
lis par (list partitions of the selected disk)
sel par 4 (again, adjust as needed)
del par override (the "override" part should let you delete any partition type, so long as it isn't critical to system operation)
From this point on, you can use diskmgmt.msc if you want to.
Sorry to bring back a solved thread, but is this partitioning normal? I had the same thing and was concerned my tablet was returned after someone installed osx. Did you do anything like that to end with that partitioning? Did you upgrade to 8.1 before seeing this partition table?
Thanks for the help. Im trying to figure out if i need to return it to BestBuy.
As I know, in your case, you can have two ways to go on:
1). Back up everything important well, shrink other partition with free space and click “Extend” option by right clicking C drive in Disk Management.
2). Apply a tool to help you. If the firstly way cannot work for your computer, you also can learn to extend your partition by using some partition resizing tool like GParted, IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free, Active Partition Master and more.
No matter which one you choose to use, you’d better make data backups well in advance in case of data loss.
Sorry to necro bump, but this happened to me on a brand new surface pro I bought (300$ on ebay couldn't say no)
I removed the recovery to get the 8 gigs back after upgrading to 8.1 and had to use diskpart to remove partition 5 which was a 450mb recovery between my C and my New Volume. once removed, I deleted the new volume and all 8.x gbs of space was added back to my C drive.
happy happy happy
Got a 128gb sd card, changed the libraries to pool from the D: drive and alls good here
Sorry to necro bump, but this happened to me on a brand new surface pro I bought (300$ on ebay couldn't say no)
I removed the recovery to get the 8 gigs back after upgrading to 8.1 and had to use diskpart to remove partition 5 which was a 450mb recovery between my C and my New Volume. once removed, I deleted the new volume and all 8.x gbs of space was added back to my C drive.
happy happy happy
Got a 128gb sd card, changed the libraries to pool from the D: drive and alls good here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What is the command line in diskpart to remove partition 5?
Sent from my SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app
Run command as admin
Disk part
List disk
Select active disk
List partition
Note the 450mb recovery part
Delete partition x (probably 4 but double check)
If it fails (probably) read the error there will be an override command: delete partition x noerr override
This will prevent the system from rejecting the delete.
You can then delete the 8 GB partition as well using the same command and you should have a bunch of free space. You can use diskpart or disk manager to add that to your C
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Sorry to bring up an old thread. I was wondering what the 4th partizione, the one between the main partition and the recovery partition we have now free, contains. Can I delete it with no consequences or not ? Thanks
The other day, I attempted to make a Windows 8 Recovery USB using my external hard drive and the Media Creation tool. I specifically made a new partition for this process, as I had two other partitions on it with data. Making sure that the partition that was empty was selected, I successfully created the media. I couldn't get it to boot, however, and when I looked on the hard drive, its erased and merged my other two partitions, turning them into unallocated space, and the G: partition was the recovery drive.
I don't want to touch the recovery partition, because I don't want to screw anything else up.
Please help, I had a lot of important files on there and I'm not sure what to do.
It seems like the only wat to bypass this Trusted Zone sh.. t and android's security is to look back at the very begining of reading, writing bits on disks, and partitions types and diffrent types of storage.
Maybe that way we can create a full backup of the entire system partitions, it must be a way, it must be there some ancient software that can be able to read, write and backup bit by bit.
Example: R Drive Image for Windows.
The problwm will be in recognizing the hardware storage...
Any ideeas ???
This is just an idea. I tried it on my Nokia 6.1 (2018) (PL2) running Android 10, and it worked; so I thought it might work on other devices too. My device:
Android 10 Q
System-as-root
A/B slots
Released with Project Treble support (and hence has the fstab in the vendor partition)
DM-verity, force-encryption and disk quota disabled with this mod by Zackptg5.
It basically uses a single partition to store the contents of what I call two different userdata "profiles". Normally, you have one userdata partition on a device, and that stores one profile. Here, however, I used a subdirectory on the root of the userdata partition to store the contents of the second profile, and modified the fstab to correctly bind-mount it on /data. Bind-mounting made things simple in my opinion--I didn't have to go about actually repartitioning my storage. The reason this works is that any changes you make to your phone on the lines of installing and updating apps, downloading files, changing settings, etc. are all reflected only on the userdata partition. No other partition on an android phone is ever touched unless the system is updated. Hence, the userdata partition is the only partition you need to mess around with in order to have two profiles.
===================================DISCLAIMER:
I am NOT sharing a solution. I am only sharing an idea for you to try and/or improvise on. It may work, it may not. I will not hold your hand; you will have to use your own knowledge and common sense. I am not responsible for anything that goes wrong on your device.
If you do not understand what is going on in this post, please do not try this.
There is a reason I'm not explaining all the terms I'm using here. I assume that if you, the reader, want to try this out, you a) have some knowledge and experience, and b) have the fire in your belly to research to learn more about what you don't understand.
===================================
Now for the fun:
The first thing I did was to create a new mountpoint the userdata partition. This I made on what is the root filesystem of the device; on a system-as-root device, it would be on the root of the system partition, and on a non-system-as-root device, it would be on the root of the boot ramdisk. I named it userdata/. Accordingly, I edited my fstab.qcom (at etc/fstab.qcom on the vendor partition for my device) to mount the userdata partition on /userdata/ instead of /data/:
Code:
#<device> <mountpoint> <type> <options>
/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/userdata /userdata <whatever whatever whatever> <you'd probably have to disable options like fileencryption, quota, check (verification), etc.>
and to mount the second profile's directory. Note that it is bind-mounted:
Code:
/userdata/userdata/ /data none bind
Now to switch between the two profiles, you'd switch between the original fstab and the one you just modified.
That is (most of) it. Some things I noticed:
The device would refuse to boot initially. What worked was to backup and wipe my data, boot, create the second profile's directory and copy the contents of the just-created userdata profile into the second profile's directory. In other words, I couldn't run a "first boot" on the second data profile--I had to copy an existing profile into the second profile. I really don't know why this happens.
I suspect that disk quota, filesystem encryption and verification will mess with this (or rather, the other way around). I can't be sure, because I have all three disabled.
Having a shared Internal Storage (/data/media/0/) is convenient. For this, I just bind-mounted that too:
Code:
/userdata/media/0/ /data/media/0/ none bind
This can also be used to easily achieve dual booting on an A/B device, as long as you don't use seamless updates. One ROM per slot can be installed, and the fstab.qcom on one of the vendor partitions can be configured to use the second profile. This way, there would be no need for an external SD card or additional partitions.
I'm pretty sure there will be other hurdles with other devices and other android versions. As I said, I'm just here to share an IDEA, and NOT a foolproof, one-size-fits-all solution. I hope this helps other people make their lives simpler. Please do share your notes on this thread if you manage to get it working on your device!
Its easy to have two roms on one device and its simple,just take a nandroid aof your current rum,now flash another rom an set it up,when u need the other rom just restore your nandroid and so on,i have 4 roms,all fine,lol.
But that's kinda inefficient, don't you think? If you just swap a single file instead of the whole data partition, it's much faster--it takes as long as rebooting + a few milliseconds.
But well, whatever suits you
Hey bro can u pls explain the second code line u mentioned???
varunrocks17 said:
Hey bro can u pls explain the second code line u mentioned???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
/userdata/userdata/ /data none bind: (this is the line right?)
This bind-mounts the directory /userdata/userdata on /data. /userdata/userdata (directory /userdata under the userdata partition that we previously mounted) is the directory under which the contents of the alternative userdata partition are stored.
Bind-mounting is a means by which a folder can be treated as a device to mount (as opposed to a normal block device or partition). As the mount(8) documentation states, it is a way to "Remount part of the file hierarchy somewhere else."
By this mechanism, the /userdata/userdata folder is made to look like the entire userdata partition. In other words, when you access anything under /data/, you're in fact accessing /userdata/userdata/.
I did something similar to a Jellybean. That is, quite long time ago. Stock fw didn't support encryption. So I made a hack that used cryptsetup and vold.decrypt triggers. That way only framework had to restart. It probably is not that simple anymore...
Anyways, what I learned that it wasn't worth it, so I didn't release it back then. Back then there was a real space shortage and it wasn't wasted like nowadays....
Thanks for that userdata idea that's what I was messing around and. Creating multiple partitions for each rom ...
Btw one question :
Kernel intially mounts vendor then from vendor/etc/fstab.qcom all others are mounted ..?
Or kernel have the predefined vendor system and userdata partition locations ..??
I am really confused here ..
That's why my multi boot was bit messy..
aryankaran said:
Thanks for that userdata idea that's what I was messing around and. Creating multiple partitions for each rom ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Glad I could help
aryankaran said:
Kernel intially mounts vendor then from vendor/etc/fstab.qcom all others are mounted ..?
Or kernel have the predefined vendor system and userdata partition locations ..??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On my system-as-root device treble-enabled device, the vendor partition is mounted by the kernel. There is a node in the kernel's device tree blob (dtb) that specifies the vendor mount. When the kernel is fully initialized, it has its own /dev filesystem, using which it mounts the vendor partition. I hope that part is clear.... not sure if I explained it nicely...
Once the vendor is mounted, /vendor/etc/fstab.qcom is read and all the other partitions are mounted from there.
Ok it means it's just the same scenario as it was till Android 7.1.2 that boot image mounts all partitions..
Just difference that kernel now mounts vendor and further processed by fstab ..