Editing the Recovery partition. How to copy a hidden partition? Copying the recovery partition

Once I came to visit my friends and they asked me to transfer Windows 8.1, along with hidden partitions, from a laptop hard drive to an SSD solid state drive. But friends had me multiple conditions:

1. After migrating to SSD from indoor partitions with factory settings should remain functional.

2. With Windows 8.1, activation should not fly off.

My friends didn't have Internet, Acronis True Image and Paragon Home Expert weren't expected either. Yes, and I had nothing with me, except for a clean 32 GB flash drive, but in an hour everything was ready.

Hello friends. I have written several articles on transferring Windows 7, 8, 8.1 from a laptop hard drive to an SSD.

Today's article describes the easiest way, you don't even have to download and install any programs on your laptop. In truth, they say that everything ingenious is simple. In the following articles, things will be a little more complicated.

• Note: read the following articles on this topic - .
• If you can’t transfer Windows 7, 8, 8.1, along with hidden partitions, from a laptop hard drive to an SSD solid-state drive, then simply.
• What to do if, after transferring Windows 8.1 from a regular hard drive to an SSD, the factory reset program stopped working on a laptop or
• If you are interested in the article, visit the special section where from one storage medium to another.

In a nutshell about what such a transfer includes, suitable even for a novice user. We will use the built-in laptop manufacturer factory reset program. We will create a recovery flash drive (you will need a blank 16 GB flash drive), or you can create recovery discs (you will need 3 blank DVDs), using a flash drive or disk we will transferWindows 7, 8, 8.1 along with hidden partitions from a laptop hard drive to an SSD solid state drive.

• In simple termsin today's article, we will roll back the laptop to the factory settings, but we will roll back not to the laptop's hard drive, but to the SSD solid state drive. In the end, nand our laptop everything will work as before, but only much faster.

  1. Hidden partitions with factory settings will remain functional.

  2. With Windows 8.1, activation will not even fail.You can return the hard drive from the laptop back at any time, that is, you do not lose anything.

In the following articles, we will use Acronis True Image and Paragon Home Expert for migration.

The whole difficulty of transferring Windows to an SSD solid-state drive (120 GB or 240 GB) is that the SSD is probably less than the laptop hard drive (500 GB or 1 TB), and in addition to running Windows, we need to transfer hidden partitions with factory defaults to the SSD. settings, so that the ability to roll back to the factory settings is not violated. Is it possible to make such a transfer? Yes, it is possible!

What prompted me to write these articles? Of course, your numerous requests to describe the transfer of the entire contents of the laptop hard drive to SSD. At first, I had the idea to go the easy way - to find a detailed article on the web on this topic and post a link to it on my website, but after wandering through various forums, I found only "raw" thoughts on this topic that can lead an inexperienced user into a dead end.

You may ask - And what to do with a simple laptop hard drive?

After transferring to a solid state drive, the Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 operating system will work fine, the laptop factory reset program will also work, in short, everything on your laptop will be the same as before, only instead of a hard drive there will be an SSD solid state drive. Even if your SSD is 120 GB, then this is more than enough for the operating system, but for data storage you can use a laptop hard drive in an external box or a simple portable USB hard drive.

Many attentive users may ask - "What are hidden partitions on a laptop?"

And the question is asked correctly, if you decide on such an operation, then you should know everything about the existing partitions on your laptop's hard drive.

Before starting the transfer, let's find out all the information about the hard drive of my laptop, then go to the "Disk Management" of the operating system and I will explain everything to you.

For example, my laptop has Windows 8.1 installed. The manufacturer of my laptop is Toshiba, in the disk properties you can see the name of the hard drive manufacturer, also Toshiba.

Volumes tab. The hard drive has a standard GPT partition table layout format, you can see this on the Volumes tab. Just below you can see the hard drive capacity of 700 GB.

Disk Management window

If you have a different laptop manufacturer, then there may be a slight difference that does not affect the overall process of moving Windows to an SSD.

1. First hidden section without a letter, 1.00 GB. Healthy (partition of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM)), this is a service partition of the laptop manufacturer with a program to roll back to the factory settings. The laptop manufacturer specifically creates such a partition, in a difficult case, if your operating system does not load due to your careless actions or because of a virus, then you can roll back the laptop to the state it was at the time you bought the laptop.

2. Second hidden section, size 260 MB Healthy (Encrypted (EFI) system partition), it contains Windows 8.1 boot files, as well as Windows 8.1 recovery environment files.

3. The third section has the letter C, volume 344 GB, installed operating system Windows 8. Drive C:, despite its volume of 344 GB, is filled with 80 GB files.

4. The fourth section under the letter (E:), volume 341 GB, with data files: music, movies and so on.

5. Fifth Hidden Section, letterless, 10.75 GB, Healthy (OEM Partition), this partition contains a factory image of the Windows 8 operating system.

Attention: If you have removedfirst hidden sectionwithout a letter, 1.00 GB andfifth hidden section, which does not have a letter, with a volume of 10.75 GB, then transfer it using the simplest method described below Windowson an SSD solid state drive will not work and here's why.

For porting, I want to use the built-inlaptop manufacturer a factory reset program called Recovery Media Creator, which works with hidden sections, returning the laptop to its factory state. And if you have deleted hidden partitions, then the programRecovery Media Creator will not work.

Create a flash drive or recovery discs

All laptop manufacturers bundle their devices with their own factory reset program. Each manufacturer has a different name for it, but they all work almost identically. For example, in Toshiba laptops, such a program is called Recovery Disc Creator or Recovery Media Creator, the manufacturer of Acer laptops has such a utility, for laptops, the program is called Samsung Recovery Solution 5, for laptops, for HP laptops - HP Recovery Manager. All these programs are similar to each other and work on the same principle. So, no matter what laptop you have, you can safely use this instruction for yourself.

We connect the power adapter to the laptop so that when creating a hard disk image, the laptop does not turn off and the process is not interrupted in the middle.

Move the mouse to the lower left corner and click the left button,

right-click on an empty space and click on the "All applications" button

and find our Recovery Media Creator recovery program, run it.

The program invites us to createResuscitator media for system recovery, that is, we can create DVD recovery discs with you, you will need several (3-5) blank DVD discs, the program will ask you to insert three DVD discs one by one into the drive and the entire Windows image will be written to them, by the way , the whole process is described in detail in our article .

We can also create a bootable recovery flash drive, but the flash drive must be large, 16-32 GB in size.

I will choose the Kingston DataTraveler Mini flash drive , I have it in the amount of 32 GB (but 16 GB would be enough).

Be careful, all data on the flash drive will be deleted.

OK. A recovery USB flash drive is being created.

The process of creating a bootable flash drive is completed.

Replacing a laptop hard drive with an SSD

Friends, now you need to replace the hard drive in the laptop with a solid state drive. Replacement should be no problem for you, since the form factor of a laptop hard drive and an SSD solid state drive are the same - 2.5 inches. We also have several articles on this topic.

We will also consider this issue in this article and there are no difficulties here. Usually on the back cover of a laptop there is a special hard drive bay and to remove this hatch, you just need to unscrew two screws.

The hard drive is attached to the laptop with two more screws, we also turn them off, then carefully pull the silicone tab and the hard drive is disconnected.

But on our Toshiba L50 - A - K3K laptop, there is no such compartment, which means you have to completely remove the laptop cover.

Flip the laptop over. First of all, you need to remove the battery from the laptop, but in our case this will not work, since it is also under the cover.

• Important! : The article is given to you for review, if you have never disassembled a laptop, then do it better in a service center. Before disassembling the laptop, remove the battery, if it is not removable, then disconnect it from the laptop motherboard, you need to do this in any case. When you remove the hard drive, do not touch the components located on the laptop motherboard with your hands and a screwdriver, otherwise the motherboard may fail, and it makes up 85-90% of the cost of the laptop.

We unscrew all the screws securing the back cover of the laptop (bottom), in my case 14 screws.

We take out the drive

and carefully remove the laptop cover, despite the fact that all the screws are unscrewed, the laptop cover is removed with a very light effort, since the cover is attached to the laptop case with plastic clips

Included in the latches on the case, neither the latches nor the clips can be broken in any way, because the cover will have to be put back.

And here is our hard drive

it is attached to the laptop case with two screws, unscrew the screws and remember exactly where the laptop hard drive was screwed to the motherboard.

Carefully disconnect the hard drive from the SATA connector.

The laptop hard drive is in a kind of sled, disconnect them.

Well, then we fix the sled on the SSD solid state drive. The form factor of the 2.5 laptop hard drive is the same as the form factor of the SSD and our SSD will fit perfectly in the place of the laptop hard drive.

Our 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K SSD

and connect it to the SATA connector on the laptop motherboard and fasten it with two screws.

We put back the laptop lid and the drive, do it carefully, the clips on the lid should fit into the plastic latches on the case.

We turn on the laptop, press F2 or Del when loading and enter the BIOS, as we see our SSD is perfectly defined in the BIOS, which means you can work with it.

Deploying Windows 8.1 from a recovery flash drive to an SSD

We connect our Kingston DataTraveler Mini 3.0 32GB recovery flash drive and reboot, when loading the laptop, press F2 and enter the BIOS. If you have a UEFI BIOS, then set the Secure Boot option to Disabled.

We do not touch Boot Mode and leave it in the UEFI Boot position,

Then we change the boot priority to a USB flash drive or just press F12, enter the boot menu of the laptop, select our USB flash drive and press Enter, the laptop boots from the recovery flash drive.

The Toshiba Recovery Wizard laptop factory settings window appears, select the first item and click Next.

Select the first item "Restore factory default software" and click Next.

Recovery process starts

We accept the terms of the license

Use default options

If you have a Microsoft account, then enter its details. If you don't have a Microsoft account, then create a simple local account.

That's all

Windows 8.1 boots and runs normally

We enter Disk Management and see ourSSD Kingston HyperX 3K, 120 GB.

Please note that the volume label C: has remained the same, but it does not interfere with us, and if anything, it can be changed.

In the properties of the disk, you can see the name of the hard drive manufacturer

Volumes tab. The hard disk has the GPT partition table format standard.

Hard disk capacity 120 GB.

Conclusion

On our laptop, everything works as before, but noticeably faster.

1. Hidden partitions with factory settings are quite functional.

2. With Windows 8.1, activation did not even fly off.

3. You can return the hard drive from the laptop back at any time, that is, you do not lose anything.

The only negative is that you will have to install all the programs on the laptop, because in fact, in today's article we rolled back the laptop to the factory settings, but rolled back not to the laptop's hard drive, but to the SSD solid state drive.

Question: Transferring Recovery Windows 7 to another hard drive

Hello everyone!
Kindly, tell me, is it possible to move the Recovery partition from one hard drive to another and how to do it?
I am planning to replace the hard drive on my laptop.
If such a topic has been discussed or there is a written manual, please point your finger in the right direction.
Thank you.

The RECOVERY partition can be copied to any folder by simply copying from the root. Further, the most important point is that when creating a section, each section is assigned a unique identifier, which is always different. But in the BCD and the reagent.xml file, the identifiers that were assigned to the RECOVERY section remain, when we create a new one, they will not match, they will not match for all sections, so it’s better to create a BCD from scratch in general than to edit it, the same situation with reagent.xml is configured with the command reagentc /? output help on command.

The meaning is something like this, we create as many partitions as there were on the old disk, since it happens that you need not only the RECOVERY partition, but also WinRE or some other of which winre.wim already loads what is in RECOVERY, depends on the whim of the company whose laptop. In general, we create the same partitions and manually write them in BCD and in reagentc.
The key on which the recovery was called is set as reagentc /bootkey 4300, for example, F9, other keys, if needed, there is a table of keyboard scancodes on the Internet.

Almost all laptops have the same mechanics.

Perhaps there is an easier option, it is to understand on which partition winre is located with the factory system reinstallation program, for example, if only RECOVERY then we create RECOVERY on an empty disk, copy the contents from the recovery on the factory disk there, make it active bootable, then immediately when the laptop starts without pressing the return button will turn on the factory settings system instead of the main system, it will recreate all partitions and recreate the BDC and reagent.xml itself. If I wrote something wrong, I don’t remember exactly how it works, let someone correct me.

Hello, please help me with this problem: I have 3 hard drives on my computer: 1 - C-74 GB. Windows is on it and it is loaded from it, 2-L-232 GB. Empty.Formatted.,3-H-465 GB. For software and downloads. I checked the disks using the HDDScan program. Result: L and H - excellent condition, C-problems: 7 points with yellow triangles with!, redirected sectors 075, temperature +50. During the test: 2-blue, 4-red, 30-orange sectors. In general, from the comments on the Internet, I realized that the disk was dying. Using the Acronis True Image program, WD copied drive C (completely) to drive L. The truth is now in my computer L is displayed with a volume of 100 MB and 62 of them are free. The question is: how to make Windows boot from disk L and it would become the main and bootable one (the letter can be replaced, though it doesn’t work with the letter C), can I use the full its volume (232 GB.), Do I need to split it into subdisks - bootable and for work, or let it remain intact? In the future, I think to clean disk C, format it, try to heal it, and use it for not very important work (if God bless him and stop the information that he takes with him). Are my intentions correct, or is it better to throw it away? Can he, dying, harm the computer? Thanks! I would really appreciate your help!!!

Answer: A backup is a copy of the system. Might come in handy

Question: Windows is not installed on a hard drive that already has an OS

Given: Dell inspiron n5050 laptop, hard drive with OS already installed, removed from Samsung ultrabook
Find: put a new system on this drive
Background: I removed the old disk, installed the disk from Samsung, launched the installation of a new system from the disk through the BIOS, the phrase "installation has begun" hangs on the screen endlessly, the installation does not continue.
Attempts to find a floppy disk in the BIOS and disable it (the first thing that is advised in similar topics) did not lead to anything. for some reason, there is not a word about floppy in my bios on Dell.
What could be the matter and how to solve the problem?

Answer: pmari, no, if the system was "sharpened" as you say, we would most likely see Bsod, in your case I assume incorrect disk preparation for installation, that is, in other words, the old bootloader does not see the system and goes around in circles in search of an OS, it needs to delete. This is a 100Mb hidden partition.

Question: Transferring Windows XP to another hard drive by cloning

The task is to transfer Windows XP from the old HDD to the new one. The disks are identical in size. I copy using Acronis, Disk Cloning.

I get BSOD after the end of copying. I understand it is necessary to remove the HDD driver, how can this be done better? Will something like this work?:
Clear the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices on the cloned OS

Answer: After a lot of hard work, I found a solution. I found an IDE controller in the Windows Device Manager and changed it to a standard one (not Nvidia), rolled up the image and everything went without problems.
Such actions as removing the Mounted Device, universal restore, decoupling from Paragon's hardware did not give any result.

Question: Is it possible to transfer windows from one drive to another without losing data?

Is it possible to move windows from a hard drive partition to another hard drive without erasing files from other hard drive partitions? I tried to copy the volume through Acronis Disk Director, but on reboot it writes an error and does not copy.

Answer: londar, look

Question: I forgot the password on 1 hard drive from Windows 7 but I have access to it from the second hard drive

In short, I changed the password drunk and forgot it xD, I have a question - is it possible to somehow reset it without having a floppy drive, flash drive, but having access to it using another hard drive?

Answer: Rus1an, it would not hurt to specify which password, from the account or from the disk ...
the title of the thread is ambiguous...
but you can remove any password

Question: Make a backup of the system and deploy it on another hard drive

I have a 32 gig flash drive and a laptop with Windows 10 x86 home basic. How can I make a backup in the form of a system image with all installed programs and settings, then upload this image to One Drive, and deploy it to another hard drive, and make that other hard drive bootable?

The goal is to swap disks.

Answer: persen27, and yet, do you know if I installed Acronis 2015, can I somehow make an image of this Windows directly from under it?

Added after 4 minutes
You know, sorry for being meticulous, but I also wanted to ask, on that new hard drive I created 2 partitions today, one for system recovery, the second for files. And on the second section, I threw off a few folders from work.

Do you know if I can somehow restore Windows to the first partition? Without touching the second? So that the second logical partition does not erase all files?

Question: Installing Windows from a hard drive

I can't remember how it's done at least approximately... the installation disk is clean, i.e. I have to boot somehow and format it to NTFS. it is not clear from a flash drive or from a CD which OS should be installed on them. Once downloaded, I have to copy the system image to this formatted drive and run the install...
Somehow everything is vague, where can I read more about this installation option?

Answer: Yes, no Windows is installed starting from 2003 XP, 7, 10, the MSI board comes up and asks for firewood for the CD, maybe the bus is broken from the CD to the mother, maybe something else ... in general, I would like to try (installing from a flash drive is the same trouble ) from hard, so as not to think. In general, I boot from LiveCD, dump the image to drive C:, shutdown, pull out the LiveCD drive, turn off the computer, and then how to start the installation? installation, then with what parameters for XP?

Question: Windows 10 stopped loading after trying to insert an old hard drive into a laptop

Good afternoon, the second day I can’t solve the problem with starting wine 10 on a Samsung RV520 laptop. The fact is that yesterday I tried to insert an old hard drive from another laptop into the laptop. It didn’t work. At startup, the download hung on the window and instead of the download circle, 1 dot appeared and that's it. I waited an hour, nothing has changed.
I tried to reboot, the auto recovery of the system started to load, but again the same point appeared and that's it. I tried to restore the BIOS settings, it did not help. I tried to start the recovery through F4. The message Invalid recovery area appeared. and loads pretty quickly. I tried to make a bootloader for wine 10, and after downloading other versions of the OS, make a bootable USB flash drive to restore wine 10 or at least reinstall the system. It didn’t help. BIOS, the inscription Press any key to boot from CD/DVD appears.

Answer: If it is possible to get to the battery on the motherboard, then you can try disconnecting the battery and pulling the battery out for a few minutes or hours.

If you bought a new hard drive or solid state drive for your computer, it is very likely that you do not have much desire to reinstall Windows, drivers and all programs. In this case, you can clone or, otherwise, transfer Windows to another drive, not only the operating system itself, but also all installed components, programs, and more. A separate instruction for 10 installed on a GPT disk in a UEFI system: .

In fact, Seagate DiscWizard is a complete copy of the previous program, only it needs at least one Seagate hard drive on the computer to work.

All actions that allow you to transfer Windows to another drive and completely clone it are similar to Acronis True Image WD Edition (in fact, this is the same program), the interface is the same.

You can download Seagate DiscWizard from the official website https://www.seagate.com/ru/ru/support/downloads/discwizard/

Samsung Data Migration

Samsung Data Migration is specifically designed to migrate Windows and data to a Samsung branded SSD from any other drive. So, if you are the owner of such a solid state drive, this is what you need.

The migration process is done in the form of a wizard with several steps. At the same time, in the latest versions of the program, not only full disk cloning with operating systems and files is possible, but also selective data transfer, which may be relevant, given that SSD sizes are still smaller than modern hard drives.

The Samsung Data Migration program in Russian is available on the official website https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/

Important: the same utilities for transferring Windows to another disk are available from other manufacturers of SSDs and HDDs. Usually, you can find them by entering a query consisting of the brand and the phrase "Data Migration", so you will find, for example, the Intel Data Migration Tool and similar programs for other brands of drives.

How to transfer Windows from HDD to SSD (or other HDD) in Aomei Partition Assistant Standard Edition

Another free program, also in Russian, which allows you to conveniently transfer the operating system from a hard drive to a solid state drive or to a new HDD - Aomei Partition Assistant Standard Edition.

Note: this method only works for Windows 10, 8 and 7 installed on an MBR disk on computers with BIOS (or UEFI and Legacy boot), when trying to transfer the OS from a GPT disk, the program reports that it cannot do this (possibly , a simple copying of disks in Aomei will work here, but it was not possible to experiment - failures during reboot to complete the operation, despite disabled Secure Boot and checking the digital signature of drivers).

The steps for copying the system to another drive are simple and I think even a novice user will understand:

If everything goes well, then at the end you will receive a copy of the system that you can boot from your new SSD or hard drive.

You can download Aomei Partition Assistant Standard Edition for free from the official website https://www.disk-partition.com/free-partition-manager.html

Transferring Windows 10, 8 and Windows 7 to another drive in Minitool Partition Wizard Bootable

Minitool Partition Wizard Free, along with Aomei Partition Assistant Standard, I would classify as one of the best free programs for working with disks and partitions. One of the advantages of the product from Minitool is the availability of a fully functional bootable ISO image of Partition Wizard on the official website (the free Aomei allows you to create a demo image with important features disabled).

By writing this image to a disk or flash drive (the developers recommend using Rufus for this) and booting your computer from it, you can transfer Windows or another system to another hard drive or SSD, and in this case, we will not be hindered by possible OS restrictions, since it is not running.

Note: I checked the cloning of the system to another disk in Minitool Partition Wizard Free only without EFI boot and only on MBR disks (Windows 10 was transferred), I can’t vouch for its performance in EFI / GPT systems (I could not get the program to work in this mode, despite disabled Secure Boot, but it seems to be a bug of my particular hardware).

The process of transferring the system to another disk consists of the following steps:

When finished, you can close the Minitool Partition Wizard, restart your computer, and set to boot from the new disk that the system was transferred to: in my test (as I mentioned, BIOS + MBR, Windows 10) everything went well and the system booted no matter how than happened with the disconnected source disk.

You can download a free bootable image of Minitool Partition Wizard Free from the official website https://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

Macrium Reflect

The free Macrium Reflect program allows you to clone entire drives (both hard drives and SSDs) or individual partitions, regardless of what brand your drive is. In addition, you can create an image of a separate disk partition (including Windows) and later use it to restore the system. It also supports the creation of bootable recovery discs based on Windows PE.

After starting the program in the main window, you will see a list of connected hard drives and SSDs. Select the disk where the operating system is located and click "Clone this disk" (Clone this disk).

At the next stage, in the “Source” item, the source hard drive will already be selected, and in the “Destination” item, you will need to specify the one to which you want to transfer the data. You can also select only individual partitions on the disk to copy. Everything else happens automatically and is not difficult even for a novice user.

Official download site: https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Additional Information

After you have transferred Windows and files, do not forget to either set the BIOS to boot from the new disk or disconnect the old disk from the computer.