On Sat, 4/12/2025 7:50 PM, bad sector wrote:
Recovering data from my suddenly departed son's computer was a job and a half, but it's mostly done. He had a huge server tower and I think he was amusing himself with RAID (which he didn't need) and encryption (which he didn't need) and so on!
Drives:
#1
500gb ssd with strange partitions for Linux and I think some created for future Linux OSes, could't figure out his /home partition setup, possibly raid.
#2
1tb ssd hosting fat and ext4 data PLUS a w7 and a w10 partition
#3
4tb data
#4,5,6 in a Linux-Raid array, all data
I copied out the #4 data set, cleared those drives, and released the tower to the executors for liquidation. Then I also backed up what ever other data I could find to other drives on hand.
Plugged the # 1,2,3 drives into my own very similar computer; couldn't believe it when everything just booted right up, even the two window installs! This gave me the idea that I can relax and take my time doing the rest of the recovey, filtering and disposal as time permits because I can now just boot my son's systems on my own computer. But it's my OLD computer.
_____And that's how shit hit the fan
I'm moving to a new and inevitably UEFI box, just plugging those 3 drives in doesn't work any more, so...
I copied the #1 drive to a 1tb ssd to have more space, then did a fresh Linux (Tumbleweed) install to get EFI bootabilty. With that new #1 drive and his other drives including the #2 with windows on it also plugged-in I ran Yast to set up the EFI boot. I can now boot either my temporary facilitating Linux install OR my son's Linux (Leap-15.4) on the new EFI-BIOS board.
But I cannot boot his windows, for that I'd have to keep my old Legacy-BIOS box which I don't want to do (I can unload it for a few hundered bills).
Not knowing windows much I think I could do a w7 and a w10 fresh install after having done two 'windows backups' on the legacy box and then try a recovery from those windows-backup files on the new w7 and w10 installs on the EFI box. There's GOTTA be a simpler way ..I hope.
With my Macrium CD, I can boot from the CD and back up any machine.
You would not use the "Windows 7 Backup" that comes with Windows, because
of the rough edges. Commercial backup materials have the rough edges filed off.
*******
Similar to your Tumbleweed facilitator install, you can install a Windows side-by-side
in a sense. Use Macrium to clone over or backup-restore over, the partition from the other box. Then do a Macrium CD boot repair, and the boot repair (similar to
OSprober), it sees the orphan Windows partitions you added, and includes
them in the boot menu.
Similar to third-party "EasyBCD" on Windows, you can use this command
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C:
to add an item to the boot menu (stored in the BCD file, BCD file
format is actually a registry file).
But, there is "much to and fro" involved. For example, somewhere along the way, you will be holding an MSDOS Primary partition in your hand,
some other disk is GPT with GUID partition type declarations.
What commercial tools will agree to bodge those items together
to make a whole part ?
It's going to take trickery at some point.
Perhaps you make a "shell" of a partition (exact sizing important)
on the GPT disk, then "dd" copy the MSDOS partition into the
space set aside for the GPT partition. I have no idea whether
that works. I can tell you, that the equivalent of an rsync
between Windows C: type partitions, would never work, due to
all the fiddly details involved in such things. Microsoft have
gone out of their way, to ensure you can't Robocopy the entire
C: drive into another partition. I *used* to do that in WinXP era,
but those were simpler times and the file systems were a bit more
bend-able back then.
Windows has an MBR2GPT.exe utility, written by some hapless developer.
Any program carrying out composite file system operations (partition,
merge, shrink, done) is basically doomed to fail and fall on its face. Developers normally stick to "primitive" "one step" commands, for safety. Yet, somebody wrote that code... and it has enough smarts to reject
disk configurations it does not like. Leaving only one configuration
it does like. I think you can see coercing such a utility to do more
than it intended to do, is a tall ask. It will not accept any old
arbitrary configuration, and convert it.
So yes, your mission looks like, technically do-able, but just about
all the tools will tell you "I don't like broccoli", "I will sit
here in this corner with this cold broccoli until hell freezes over",
and so on :-) You've seen this before somewhere.
MBR2GTP.exe can help you cross that river, but it won't allow
you to carry a duck and a potato in the boat with you (a reference
to this problem, where the problem was modified for an AI to solve).
How the problem can involve a duck and a potato, I will never know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf,_goat_and_cabbage_problem
Summary: Do-able, but mostly a bar bet, like a steam powered rocket launch :-)
Paul
On 4/12/25 20:40, Paul wrote:
On Sat, 4/12/2025 7:50 PM, bad sector wrote:
Recovering data from my suddenly departed son's computer was a job and a half, but it's mostly done. He had a huge server tower and I think he was amusing himself with RAID (which he didn't need) and encryption (which he didn't need) and so on!
Drives:
#1
500gb ssd with strange partitions for Linux and I think some created for future Linux OSes, could't figure out his /home partition setup, possibly raid.
#2
1tb ssd hosting fat and ext4 data PLUS a w7 and a w10 partition
#3
4tb data
#4,5,6 in a Linux-Raid array, all data
I copied out the #4 data set, cleared those drives, and released the tower to the executors for liquidation. Then I also backed up what ever other data I could find to other drives on hand.
Plugged the # 1,2,3 drives into my own very similar computer; couldn't believe it when everything just booted right up, even the two window installs! This gave me the idea that I can relax and take my time doing the rest of the recovey, filtering and disposal as time permits because I can now just boot my son's systems on my own computer. But it's my OLD computer.
_____And that's how shit hit the fan
I'm moving to a new and inevitably UEFI box, just plugging those 3 drives in doesn't work any more, so...
I copied the #1 drive to a 1tb ssd to have more space, then did a fresh Linux (Tumbleweed) install to get EFI bootabilty. With that new #1 drive and his other drives including the #2 with windows on it also plugged-in I ran Yast to set up the EFI boot. I can now boot either my temporary facilitating Linux install OR my son's Linux (Leap-15.4) on the new EFI-BIOS board.
But I cannot boot his windows, for that I'd have to keep my old Legacy-BIOS box which I don't want to do (I can unload it for a few hundered bills).
Not knowing windows much I think I could do a w7 and a w10 fresh install after having done two 'windows backups' on the legacy box and then try a recovery from those windows-backup files on the new w7 and w10 installs on the EFI box. There's GOTTA be a simpler way ..I hope.
With my Macrium CD, I can boot from the CD and back up any machine.
You would not use the "Windows 7 Backup" that comes with Windows, because
of the rough edges. Commercial backup materials have the rough edges filed off.
*******
Similar to your Tumbleweed facilitator install, you can install a Windows side-by-side
in a sense. Use Macrium to clone over or backup-restore over, the partition >> from the other box. Then do a Macrium CD boot repair, and the boot repair (similar to
OSprober), it sees the orphan Windows partitions you added, and includes
them in the boot menu.
Similar to third-party "EasyBCD" on Windows, you can use this command
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C:
to add an item to the boot menu (stored in the BCD file, BCD file
format is actually a registry file).
But, there is "much to and fro" involved. For example, somewhere along the >> way, you will be holding an MSDOS Primary partition in your hand,
some other disk is GPT with GUID partition type declarations.
What commercial tools will agree to bodge those items together
to make a whole part ?
It's going to take trickery at some point.
Perhaps you make a "shell" of a partition (exact sizing important)
on the GPT disk, then "dd" copy the MSDOS partition into the
space set aside for the GPT partition. I have no idea whether
that works. I can tell you, that the equivalent of an rsync
between Windows C: type partitions, would never work, due to
all the fiddly details involved in such things. Microsoft have
gone out of their way, to ensure you can't Robocopy the entire
C: drive into another partition. I *used* to do that in WinXP era,
but those were simpler times and the file systems were a bit more
bend-able back then.
Windows has an MBR2GPT.exe utility, written by some hapless developer.
Any program carrying out composite file system operations (partition,
merge, shrink, done) is basically doomed to fail and fall on its face.
Developers normally stick to "primitive" "one step" commands, for safety.
Yet, somebody wrote that code... and it has enough smarts to reject
disk configurations it does not like. Leaving only one configuration
it does like. I think you can see coercing such a utility to do more
than it intended to do, is a tall ask. It will not accept any old
arbitrary configuration, and convert it.
So yes, your mission looks like, technically do-able, but just about
all the tools will tell you "I don't like broccoli", "I will sit
here in this corner with this cold broccoli until hell freezes over",
and so on :-) You've seen this before somewhere.
MBR2GTP.exe can help you cross that river, but it won't allow
you to carry a duck and a potato in the boat with you (a reference
to this problem, where the problem was modified for an AI to solve).
How the problem can involve a duck and a potato, I will never know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf,_goat_and_cabbage_problem
Summary: Do-able, but mostly a bar bet, like a steam powered rocket launch :-)
Paul
So far it's been one huge exercise in futility beginning with my own impatiance. I had gone to great lengths to recover what bare data I could onto even duplicate data disks, I even made duplicates of the 3 ssd's that continued to perform *flawlessly* on my own older Crosshair legacy board. BEFORE I first tried the windows DOS disk I should have seen the red flag 'WHY did my son keep that one disk DOS when ALL the othes were GPT'? But in my haste I didn't. I should also have dd'd mirror image FILES of the win-10 partition!
So when I first tried the windows (10) disk in my EFI box maybe I didn't even have it in compatibility mode (or maybe I did, can't remember), it failed to boot and THAT's when I lost the plot completely thinking 'well maybe something's wrong with my clone of the disk' and OTHERWISE unsuspectingly I just swapped it for the (only) original one. In those few seconds win-10 on both got trashed (I suspect by the w10 installer but don't really know).
If I knew what got changed I could maybe try to fix it before beginning all over but as it is I don't even have a working legacy BIOS departure point any more :-(
BTW, having made several w10 freshies, I found the USB installers made with the WoeUSB linux utility fairly good AND persistent. The one made by the MS uti (on my laptop 'for another computer' which is my only windows also box) never worked at all, and the ones made with Ventoy got invariably destroyed for each 2nd attempt (see prompt blowup in image).
https://imgur.com/59mcvHC
On Tue, 4/22/2025 4:40 PM, bad sector wrote:Thanks a meg as usual! It's late here and I'm totaled, will reread all
On 4/12/25 20:40, Paul wrote:
On Sat, 4/12/2025 7:50 PM, bad sector wrote:
Recovering data from my suddenly departed son's computer was a job and a half, but it's mostly done. He had a huge server tower and I think he was amusing himself with RAID (which he didn't need) and encryption (which he didn't need) and so on!
Drives:
#1
500gb ssd with strange partitions for Linux and I think some created for future Linux OSes, could't figure out his /home partition setup, possibly raid.
#2
1tb ssd hosting fat and ext4 data PLUS a w7 and a w10 partition
#3
4tb data
#4,5,6 in a Linux-Raid array, all data
I copied out the #4 data set, cleared those drives, and released the tower to the executors for liquidation. Then I also backed up what ever other data I could find to other drives on hand.
Plugged the # 1,2,3 drives into my own very similar computer; couldn't believe it when everything just booted right up, even the two window installs! This gave me the idea that I can relax and take my time doing the rest of the recovey, filtering and disposal as time permits because I can now just boot my son's systems on my own computer. But it's my OLD computer.
_____And that's how shit hit the fan
I'm moving to a new and inevitably UEFI box, just plugging those 3 drives in doesn't work any more, so...
I copied the #1 drive to a 1tb ssd to have more space, then did a fresh Linux (Tumbleweed) install to get EFI bootabilty. With that new #1 drive and his other drives including the #2 with windows on it also plugged-in I ran Yast to set up the EFI boot. I can now boot either my temporary facilitating Linux install OR my son's Linux (Leap-15.4) on the new EFI-BIOS board.
But I cannot boot his windows, for that I'd have to keep my old Legacy-BIOS box which I don't want to do (I can unload it for a few hundered bills).
Not knowing windows much I think I could do a w7 and a w10 fresh install after having done two 'windows backups' on the legacy box and then try a recovery from those windows-backup files on the new w7 and w10 installs on the EFI box. There's GOTTA be a simpler way ..I hope.
With my Macrium CD, I can boot from the CD and back up any machine.
You would not use the "Windows 7 Backup" that comes with Windows, because >>> of the rough edges. Commercial backup materials have the rough edges filed off.
*******
Similar to your Tumbleweed facilitator install, you can install a Windows side-by-side
in a sense. Use Macrium to clone over or backup-restore over, the partition >>> from the other box. Then do a Macrium CD boot repair, and the boot repair (similar to
OSprober), it sees the orphan Windows partitions you added, and includes >>> them in the boot menu.
Similar to third-party "EasyBCD" on Windows, you can use this command
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C:
to add an item to the boot menu (stored in the BCD file, BCD file
format is actually a registry file).
But, there is "much to and fro" involved. For example, somewhere along the >>> way, you will be holding an MSDOS Primary partition in your hand,
some other disk is GPT with GUID partition type declarations.
What commercial tools will agree to bodge those items together
to make a whole part ?
It's going to take trickery at some point.
Perhaps you make a "shell" of a partition (exact sizing important)
on the GPT disk, then "dd" copy the MSDOS partition into the
space set aside for the GPT partition. I have no idea whether
that works. I can tell you, that the equivalent of an rsync
between Windows C: type partitions, would never work, due to
all the fiddly details involved in such things. Microsoft have
gone out of their way, to ensure you can't Robocopy the entire
C: drive into another partition. I *used* to do that in WinXP era,
but those were simpler times and the file systems were a bit more
bend-able back then.
Windows has an MBR2GPT.exe utility, written by some hapless developer.
Any program carrying out composite file system operations (partition,
merge, shrink, done) is basically doomed to fail and fall on its face.
Developers normally stick to "primitive" "one step" commands, for safety. >>> Yet, somebody wrote that code... and it has enough smarts to reject
disk configurations it does not like. Leaving only one configuration
it does like. I think you can see coercing such a utility to do more
than it intended to do, is a tall ask. It will not accept any old
arbitrary configuration, and convert it.
So yes, your mission looks like, technically do-able, but just about
all the tools will tell you "I don't like broccoli", "I will sit
here in this corner with this cold broccoli until hell freezes over",
and so on :-) You've seen this before somewhere.
MBR2GTP.exe can help you cross that river, but it won't allow
you to carry a duck and a potato in the boat with you (a reference
to this problem, where the problem was modified for an AI to solve).
How the problem can involve a duck and a potato, I will never know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf,_goat_and_cabbage_problem
Summary: Do-able, but mostly a bar bet, like a steam powered rocket launch :-)
Paul
So far it's been one huge exercise in futility beginning with my own impatiance. I had gone to great lengths to recover what bare data I could onto even duplicate data disks, I even made duplicates of the 3 ssd's that continued to perform *flawlessly* on my own older Crosshair legacy board. BEFORE I first tried the windows DOS disk I should have seen the red flag 'WHY did my son keep that one disk DOS when ALL the othes were GPT'? But in my haste I didn't. I should also have dd'd mirror image FILES of the win-10 partition!
So when I first tried the windows (10) disk in my EFI box maybe I didn't even have it in compatibility mode (or maybe I did, can't remember), it failed to boot and THAT's when I lost the plot completely thinking 'well maybe something's wrong with my clone of the disk' and OTHERWISE unsuspectingly I just swapped it for the (only) original one. In those few seconds win-10 on both got trashed (I suspect by the w10 installer but don't really know).
If I knew what got changed I could maybe try to fix it before beginning all over but as it is I don't even have a working legacy BIOS departure point any more :-(
BTW, having made several w10 freshies, I found the USB installers made with the WoeUSB linux utility fairly good AND persistent. The one made by the MS uti (on my laptop 'for another computer' which is my only windows also box) never worked at all, and the ones made with Ventoy got invariably destroyed for each 2nd attempt (see prompt blowup in image).
https://imgur.com/59mcvHC
The boot menu is in a file called "BCD". The internal format is "registry file"
but that never comes up when using tools to work on it. I mention that in case
your hex editor examination shows "binary" and you are wondering why it is binary
inside. They used a registry format, as a storage format for small objects.
It takes somewhere on the order of four specific commands, to make a brand new
BCD file appear before your eyes. But because there are other files that
are typically nearby, we don't usually "start from scratch" all that often.
Instead, we're looking for the directory where that is located, and
doing something to augment the file.
bcdedit # Dump the BCD file that the system booted with (good when OS is working)
bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD # Dump the BCD file from selected location (while using install DVD to do maintenance)
Here are two pictures showing the Legacy and UEFI boot devices I have on the other machine.
I'm showing these pictures, as the partition structure is a bit less noisy.
[Picture]
https://i.postimg.cc/7L4JqvX0/legacy-boot-example.gif
[Picture]
https://i.postimg.cc/zGZVkms6/UEFI-boot-example.gif
As an example of a "thing" you would do with bcdedit while
the OS is running, these kinds of commands set the OS description
in the on-screen boot menu, early in boot. The "identifier",
can be spotted when you use the "bcdedit" command without parameters.
and the "identifier" is context sensitive. It may appear with
a different value when you are booted using a Windows installer DVD
and the Troubleshooting Command Prompt window.
bcdedit /set {current} description "Windows 10"
bcdedit /set {default} description "Windows 10"
If I was booted from the DVD, I would do them similar to this. The boot DVD, X: is the system partition.
Leaving C: available as a letter for this sort of repair activity. Notice when I am using the DVD
like this, I have to "know my stuff" to target the correct BCD file.
bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {current} description "Windows 10"
bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {default} description "Windows 10"
*******
General rules of thumb (you know these already):
1) Since "usually", the dependencies of an OS are on a single disk drive,
it makes the most sense to have boot material for it, right on that same drive.
This allows BIOS steering to the drive, if and when needed, for emergencies.
2) You are certainly allowed to have a boot manager on disk 1, and jump over
to disk 2, using GUIDs or UUID or identifiers of that sort. But you also
want whatever OSes on disk 1, to be bootable from the disk 1 boot materials.
3) This means, the BIOS could point at disk 1 for "machine-wide" boot, or
the BIOS could point to disk 2 for "disk 2 specific boot". There can be
a boot menu on disk 1 and disk 2. The only time this gets confusing,
is when you do "sudo update-grub", and there could be the odd surprise
depending on the configuration.
If I was in the room, the Windows disk with the boot problem, first
we'd have to figure out whether the recommended rules were followed
("only have the disk receiving an install, connected during the install").
If that was the case, then repairing the boot-ability, could again
be performed on the single disk.
You will notice in my picture, I used "diskmgmt.msc" to display the
disk setup in Windows. And the labels hint where key materials have gone.
If "System", "Boot", and optionally "Active" are smeared over the two
disks, this presents some challenges, and you have to decide what
you want to do as a Wizard. You can move some of the materials around.
I've done that a couple times, when something was in an awful mess.
The purpose of moving the items, would be to try to get all those
key identifiers lit up on the one disk.
I can't go much further than that, as with a non-booting system, even if
we cable up the two forensic project disks to a third Windows system disk. the booted Windows will only show its own identifiers and not where everything is smeared on the other two disks. It's going to be
a challenge to figure this out. By dumping the BCD file, there could
be hints where the BCD is pointing. But again, no guarantees. It's all
a bit of a puzzle at times, that's for sure.
*******
Preparing Macrium Reflect "Rescue CD", starts with the installer.
I need some odds and ends to do a demo, so I'll try to post later.
If your maintenance OS was 64-bit, you could use the 64-bit one.
The reason for using the 32-bit one, is when booted from that,
a small number of GUI-oriented win32 programs will run under that environment, which can be useful at forensics time.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Name: reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Size: 115,719,576 bytes (110 MiB)
SHA1: B6724C7B6F5AF146406FAAA78F845A6C281D67D8
There is also a 32-bit one. For 32-bit setups.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x86.exe
Paul
On Tue, 4/22/2025 4:40 PM, bad sector wrote:
On 4/12/25 20:40, Paul wrote:
On Sat, 4/12/2025 7:50 PM, bad sector wrote:
Recovering data from my suddenly departed son's computer was a job and a half, but it's mostly done. He had a huge server tower and I think he was amusing himself with RAID (which he didn't need) and encryption (which he didn't need) and so on!
Drives:
#1
500gb ssd with strange partitions for Linux and I think some created for future Linux OSes, could't figure out his /home partition setup, possibly raid.
#2
1tb ssd hosting fat and ext4 data PLUS a w7 and a w10 partition
#3
4tb data
#4,5,6 in a Linux-Raid array, all data
I copied out the #4 data set, cleared those drives, and released the tower to the executors for liquidation. Then I also backed up what ever other data I could find to other drives on hand.
Plugged the # 1,2,3 drives into my own very similar computer; couldn't believe it when everything just booted right up, even the two window installs! This gave me the idea that I can relax and take my time doing the rest of the recovey, filtering and disposal as time permits because I can now just boot my son's systems on my own computer. But it's my OLD computer.
_____And that's how shit hit the fan
I'm moving to a new and inevitably UEFI box, just plugging those 3 drives in doesn't work any more, so...
I copied the #1 drive to a 1tb ssd to have more space, then did a fresh Linux (Tumbleweed) install to get EFI bootabilty. With that new #1 drive and his other drives including the #2 with windows on it also plugged-in I ran Yast to set up the EFI boot. I can now boot either my temporary facilitating Linux install OR my son's Linux (Leap-15.4) on the new EFI-BIOS board.
But I cannot boot his windows, for that I'd have to keep my old Legacy-BIOS box which I don't want to do (I can unload it for a few hundered bills).
Not knowing windows much I think I could do a w7 and a w10 fresh install after having done two 'windows backups' on the legacy box and then try a recovery from those windows-backup files on the new w7 and w10 installs on the EFI box. There's GOTTA be a simpler way ..I hope.
With my Macrium CD, I can boot from the CD and back up any machine.
You would not use the "Windows 7 Backup" that comes with Windows, because >>> of the rough edges. Commercial backup materials have the rough edges filed off.
*******
Similar to your Tumbleweed facilitator install, you can install a Windows side-by-side
in a sense. Use Macrium to clone over or backup-restore over, the partition >>> from the other box. Then do a Macrium CD boot repair, and the boot repair (similar to
OSprober), it sees the orphan Windows partitions you added, and includes >>> them in the boot menu.
Similar to third-party "EasyBCD" on Windows, you can use this command
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C:
to add an item to the boot menu (stored in the BCD file, BCD file
format is actually a registry file).
But, there is "much to and fro" involved. For example, somewhere along the >>> way, you will be holding an MSDOS Primary partition in your hand,
some other disk is GPT with GUID partition type declarations.
What commercial tools will agree to bodge those items together
to make a whole part ?
It's going to take trickery at some point.
Perhaps you make a "shell" of a partition (exact sizing important)
on the GPT disk, then "dd" copy the MSDOS partition into the
space set aside for the GPT partition. I have no idea whether
that works. I can tell you, that the equivalent of an rsync
between Windows C: type partitions, would never work, due to
all the fiddly details involved in such things. Microsoft have
gone out of their way, to ensure you can't Robocopy the entire
C: drive into another partition. I *used* to do that in WinXP era,
but those were simpler times and the file systems were a bit more
bend-able back then.
Windows has an MBR2GPT.exe utility, written by some hapless developer.
Any program carrying out composite file system operations (partition,
merge, shrink, done) is basically doomed to fail and fall on its face.
Developers normally stick to "primitive" "one step" commands, for safety. >>> Yet, somebody wrote that code... and it has enough smarts to reject
disk configurations it does not like. Leaving only one configuration
it does like. I think you can see coercing such a utility to do more
than it intended to do, is a tall ask. It will not accept any old
arbitrary configuration, and convert it.
So yes, your mission looks like, technically do-able, but just about
all the tools will tell you "I don't like broccoli", "I will sit
here in this corner with this cold broccoli until hell freezes over",
and so on :-) You've seen this before somewhere.
MBR2GTP.exe can help you cross that river, but it won't allow
you to carry a duck and a potato in the boat with you (a reference
to this problem, where the problem was modified for an AI to solve).
How the problem can involve a duck and a potato, I will never know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf,_goat_and_cabbage_problem
Summary: Do-able, but mostly a bar bet, like a steam powered rocket launch :-)
Paul
So far it's been one huge exercise in futility beginning with my own impatiance. I had gone to great lengths to recover what bare data I could onto even duplicate data disks, I even made duplicates of the 3 ssd's that continued to perform *flawlessly* on my own older Crosshair legacy board. BEFORE I first tried the windows DOS disk I should have seen the red flag 'WHY did my son keep that one disk DOS when ALL the othes were GPT'? But in my haste I didn't. I should also have dd'd mirror image FILES of the win-10 partition!
So when I first tried the windows (10) disk in my EFI box maybe I didn't even have it in compatibility mode (or maybe I did, can't remember), it failed to boot and THAT's when I lost the plot completely thinking 'well maybe something's wrong with my clone of the disk' and OTHERWISE unsuspectingly I just swapped it for the (only) original one. In those few seconds win-10 on both got trashed (I suspect by the w10 installer but don't really know).
If I knew what got changed I could maybe try to fix it before beginning all over but as it is I don't even have a working legacy BIOS departure point any more :-(
BTW, having made several w10 freshies, I found the USB installers made with the WoeUSB linux utility fairly good AND persistent. The one made by the MS uti (on my laptop 'for another computer' which is my only windows also box) never worked at all, and the ones made with Ventoy got invariably destroyed for each 2nd attempt (see prompt blowup in image).
https://imgur.com/59mcvHC
The boot menu is in a file called "BCD". The internal format is "registry file"
but that never comes up when using tools to work on it. I mention that in case
your hex editor examination shows "binary" and you are wondering why it is binary
inside. They used a registry format, as a storage format for small objects.
It takes somewhere on the order of four specific commands, to make a brand new
BCD file appear before your eyes. But because there are other files that
are typically nearby, we don't usually "start from scratch" all that often.
Instead, we're looking for the directory where that is located, and
doing something to augment the file.
bcdedit # Dump the BCD file that the system booted with (good when OS is working)
bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD # Dump the BCD file from selected location (while using install DVD to do maintenance)
Here are two pictures showing the Legacy and UEFI boot devices I have on the other machine.
I'm showing these pictures, as the partition structure is a bit less noisy.
[Picture]
https://i.postimg.cc/7L4JqvX0/legacy-boot-example.gif
[Picture]
https://i.postimg.cc/zGZVkms6/UEFI-boot-example.gif
As an example of a "thing" you would do with bcdedit while
the OS is running, these kinds of commands set the OS description
in the on-screen boot menu, early in boot. The "identifier",
can be spotted when you use the "bcdedit" command without parameters.
and the "identifier" is context sensitive. It may appear with
a different value when you are booted using a Windows installer DVD
and the Troubleshooting Command Prompt window.
bcdedit /set {current} description "Windows 10"
bcdedit /set {default} description "Windows 10"
If I was booted from the DVD, I would do them similar to this. The boot DVD, X: is the system partition.
Leaving C: available as a letter for this sort of repair activity. Notice when I am using the DVD
like this, I have to "know my stuff" to target the correct BCD file.
bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {current} description "Windows 10"
bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {default} description "Windows 10"
*******
General rules of thumb (you know these already):
1) Since "usually", the dependencies of an OS are on a single disk drive,
it makes the most sense to have boot material for it, right on that same drive.
This allows BIOS steering to the drive, if and when needed, for emergencies.
2) You are certainly allowed to have a boot manager on disk 1, and jump over
to disk 2, using GUIDs or UUID or identifiers of that sort. But you also
want whatever OSes on disk 1, to be bootable from the disk 1 boot materials.
3) This means, the BIOS could point at disk 1 for "machine-wide" boot, or
the BIOS could point to disk 2 for "disk 2 specific boot". There can be
a boot menu on disk 1 and disk 2. The only time this gets confusing,
is when you do "sudo update-grub", and there could be the odd surprise
depending on the configuration.
If I was in the room, the Windows disk with the boot problem, first
we'd have to figure out whether the recommended rules were followed
("only have the disk receiving an install, connected during the install").
If that was the case, then repairing the boot-ability, could again
be performed on the single disk.
You will notice in my picture, I used "diskmgmt.msc" to display the
disk setup in Windows. And the labels hint where key materials have gone.
If "System", "Boot", and optionally "Active" are smeared over the two
disks, this presents some challenges, and you have to decide what
you want to do as a Wizard. You can move some of the materials around.
I've done that a couple times, when something was in an awful mess.
The purpose of moving the items, would be to try to get all those
key identifiers lit up on the one disk.
I can't go much further than that, as with a non-booting system, even if
we cable up the two forensic project disks to a third Windows system disk. the booted Windows will only show its own identifiers and not where everything is smeared on the other two disks. It's going to be
a challenge to figure this out. By dumping the BCD file, there could
be hints where the BCD is pointing. But again, no guarantees. It's all
a bit of a puzzle at times, that's for sure.
*******
Preparing Macrium Reflect "Rescue CD", starts with the installer.
I need some odds and ends to do a demo, so I'll try to post later.
If your maintenance OS was 64-bit, you could use the 64-bit one.
The reason for using the 32-bit one, is when booted from that,
a small number of GUI-oriented win32 programs will run under that environment, which can be useful at forensics time.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Name: reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Size: 115,719,576 bytes (110 MiB)
SHA1: B6724C7B6F5AF146406FAAA78F845A6C281D67D8
There is also a 32-bit one. For 32-bit setups.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x86.exe
On Tue, 4/22/2025 4:40 PM, bad sector wrote:
On 4/12/25 20:40, Paul wrote:
On Sat, 4/12/2025 7:50 PM, bad sector wrote:
Recovering data from my suddenly departed son's computer was a job and a half, but it's mostly done. He had a huge server tower and I think he was amusing himself with RAID (which he didn't need) and encryption (which he didn't need) and so on!
Drives:
#1
500gb ssd with strange partitions for Linux and I think some created for future Linux OSes, could't figure out his /home partition setup, possibly raid.
#2
1tb ssd hosting fat and ext4 data PLUS a w7 and a w10 partition
#3
4tb data
#4,5,6 in a Linux-Raid array, all data
I copied out the #4 data set, cleared those drives, and released the tower to the executors for liquidation. Then I also backed up what ever other data I could find to other drives on hand.
Plugged the # 1,2,3 drives into my own very similar computer; couldn't believe it when everything just booted right up, even the two window installs! This gave me the idea that I can relax and take my time doing the rest of the recovey, filtering and disposal as time permits because I can now just boot my son's systems on my own computer. But it's my OLD computer.
_____And that's how shit hit the fan
I'm moving to a new and inevitably UEFI box, just plugging those 3 drives in doesn't work any more, so...
I copied the #1 drive to a 1tb ssd to have more space, then did a fresh Linux (Tumbleweed) install to get EFI bootabilty. With that new #1 drive and his other drives including the #2 with windows on it also plugged-in I ran Yast to set up the EFI boot. I can now boot either my temporary facilitating Linux install OR my son's Linux (Leap-15.4) on the new EFI-BIOS board.
But I cannot boot his windows, for that I'd have to keep my old Legacy-BIOS box which I don't want to do (I can unload it for a few hundered bills).
Not knowing windows much I think I could do a w7 and a w10 fresh install after having done two 'windows backups' on the legacy box and then try a recovery from those windows-backup files on the new w7 and w10 installs on the EFI box. There's GOTTA be a simpler way ..I hope.
With my Macrium CD, I can boot from the CD and back up any machine.
You would not use the "Windows 7 Backup" that comes with Windows, because >>> of the rough edges. Commercial backup materials have the rough edges filed off.
*******
Similar to your Tumbleweed facilitator install, you can install a Windows side-by-side
in a sense. Use Macrium to clone over or backup-restore over, the partition >>> from the other box. Then do a Macrium CD boot repair, and the boot repair (similar to
OSprober), it sees the orphan Windows partitions you added, and includes >>> them in the boot menu.
Similar to third-party "EasyBCD" on Windows, you can use this command
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C:
to add an item to the boot menu (stored in the BCD file, BCD file
format is actually a registry file).
But, there is "much to and fro" involved. For example, somewhere along the >>> way, you will be holding an MSDOS Primary partition in your hand,
some other disk is GPT with GUID partition type declarations.
What commercial tools will agree to bodge those items together
to make a whole part ?
It's going to take trickery at some point.
Perhaps you make a "shell" of a partition (exact sizing important)
on the GPT disk, then "dd" copy the MSDOS partition into the
space set aside for the GPT partition. I have no idea whether
that works. I can tell you, that the equivalent of an rsync
between Windows C: type partitions, would never work, due to
all the fiddly details involved in such things. Microsoft have
gone out of their way, to ensure you can't Robocopy the entire
C: drive into another partition. I *used* to do that in WinXP era,
but those were simpler times and the file systems were a bit more
bend-able back then.
Windows has an MBR2GPT.exe utility, written by some hapless developer.
Any program carrying out composite file system operations (partition,
merge, shrink, done) is basically doomed to fail and fall on its face.
Developers normally stick to "primitive" "one step" commands, for safety. >>> Yet, somebody wrote that code... and it has enough smarts to reject
disk configurations it does not like. Leaving only one configuration
it does like. I think you can see coercing such a utility to do more
than it intended to do, is a tall ask. It will not accept any old
arbitrary configuration, and convert it.
So yes, your mission looks like, technically do-able, but just about
all the tools will tell you "I don't like broccoli", "I will sit
here in this corner with this cold broccoli until hell freezes over",
and so on :-) You've seen this before somewhere.
MBR2GTP.exe can help you cross that river, but it won't allow
you to carry a duck and a potato in the boat with you (a reference
to this problem, where the problem was modified for an AI to solve).
How the problem can involve a duck and a potato, I will never know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf,_goat_and_cabbage_problem
Summary: Do-able, but mostly a bar bet, like a steam powered rocket launch :-)
Paul
So far it's been one huge exercise in futility beginning with my own impatiance. I had gone to great lengths to recover what bare data I could onto even duplicate data disks, I even made duplicates of the 3 ssd's that continued to perform *flawlessly* on my own older Crosshair legacy board. BEFORE I first tried the windows DOS disk I should have seen the red flag 'WHY did my son keep that one disk DOS when ALL the othes were GPT'? But in my haste I didn't. I should also have dd'd mirror image FILES of the win-10 partition!
So when I first tried the windows (10) disk in my EFI box maybe I didn't even have it in compatibility mode (or maybe I did, can't remember), it failed to boot and THAT's when I lost the plot completely thinking 'well maybe something's wrong with my clone of the disk' and OTHERWISE unsuspectingly I just swapped it for the (only) original one. In those few seconds win-10 on both got trashed (I suspect by the w10 installer but don't really know).
If I knew what got changed I could maybe try to fix it before beginning all over but as it is I don't even have a working legacy BIOS departure point any more :-(
BTW, having made several w10 freshies, I found the USB installers made with the WoeUSB linux utility fairly good AND persistent. The one made by the MS uti (on my laptop 'for another computer' which is my only windows also box) never worked at all, and the ones made with Ventoy got invariably destroyed for each 2nd attempt (see prompt blowup in image).
https://imgur.com/59mcvHC
The boot menu is in a file called "BCD". The internal format is "registry file"
but that never comes up when using tools to work on it. I mention that in case
your hex editor examination shows "binary" and you are wondering why it is binary
inside. They used a registry format, as a storage format for small objects.
It takes somewhere on the order of four specific commands, to make a brand new
BCD file appear before your eyes. But because there are other files that
are typically nearby, we don't usually "start from scratch" all that often.
Instead, we're looking for the directory where that is located, and
doing something to augment the file.
bcdedit # Dump the BCD file that the system booted with (good when OS is working)
bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD # Dump the BCD file from selected location (while using install DVD to do maintenance)
Here are two pictures showing the Legacy and UEFI boot devices I have on the other machine.
I'm showing these pictures, as the partition structure is a bit less noisy.
[Picture]
https://i.postimg.cc/7L4JqvX0/legacy-boot-example.gif
[Picture]
https://i.postimg.cc/zGZVkms6/UEFI-boot-example.gif
As an example of a "thing" you would do with bcdedit while
the OS is running, these kinds of commands set the OS description
in the on-screen boot menu, early in boot. The "identifier",
can be spotted when you use the "bcdedit" command without parameters.
and the "identifier" is context sensitive. It may appear with
a different value when you are booted using a Windows installer DVD
and the Troubleshooting Command Prompt window.
bcdedit /set {current} description "Windows 10"
bcdedit /set {default} description "Windows 10"
If I was booted from the DVD, I would do them similar to this. The boot DVD, X: is the system partition.
Leaving C: available as a letter for this sort of repair activity. Notice when I am using the DVD
like this, I have to "know my stuff" to target the correct BCD file.
bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {current} description "Windows 10"
bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {default} description "Windows 10"
*******
General rules of thumb (you know these already):
1) Since "usually", the dependencies of an OS are on a single disk drive,
it makes the most sense to have boot material for it, right on that same drive.
This allows BIOS steering to the drive, if and when needed, for emergencies.
2) You are certainly allowed to have a boot manager on disk 1, and jump over
to disk 2, using GUIDs or UUID or identifiers of that sort. But you also
want whatever OSes on disk 1, to be bootable from the disk 1 boot materials.
3) This means, the BIOS could point at disk 1 for "machine-wide" boot, or
the BIOS could point to disk 2 for "disk 2 specific boot". There can be
a boot menu on disk 1 and disk 2. The only time this gets confusing,
is when you do "sudo update-grub", and there could be the odd surprise
depending on the configuration.
If I was in the room, the Windows disk with the boot problem, first
we'd have to figure out whether the recommended rules were followed
("only have the disk receiving an install, connected during the install").
If that was the case, then repairing the boot-ability, could again
be performed on the single disk.
You will notice in my picture, I used "diskmgmt.msc" to display the
disk setup in Windows. And the labels hint where key materials have gone.
If "System", "Boot", and optionally "Active" are smeared over the two
disks, this presents some challenges, and you have to decide what
you want to do as a Wizard. You can move some of the materials around.
I've done that a couple times, when something was in an awful mess.
The purpose of moving the items, would be to try to get all those
key identifiers lit up on the one disk.
I can't go much further than that, as with a non-booting system, even if
we cable up the two forensic project disks to a third Windows system disk. the booted Windows will only show its own identifiers and not where everything is smeared on the other two disks. It's going to be
a challenge to figure this out. By dumping the BCD file, there could
be hints where the BCD is pointing. But again, no guarantees. It's all
a bit of a puzzle at times, that's for sure.
*******
Preparing Macrium Reflect "Rescue CD", starts with the installer.
I need some odds and ends to do a demo, so I'll try to post later.
If your maintenance OS was 64-bit, you could use the 64-bit one.
The reason for using the 32-bit one, is when booted from that,
a small number of GUI-oriented win32 programs will run under that environment, which can be useful at forensics time.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Name: reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Size: 115,719,576 bytes (110 MiB)
SHA1: B6724C7B6F5AF146406FAAA78F845A6C281D67D8
There is also a 32-bit one. For 32-bit setups.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x86.exe
Paul
That thick brown morass just keeps getting deeper and deeper...
Were it not that the circumstances make this chore important to me I would long ago have tossed the whole thing out into the dump bin; that, alas, is not the case.
So I caved in and bought Macrium (all-in-all close to $100cad) ......but can't even install it because the only window that boots is w7 but it doesn't have sha-2 and w10 is the one I want to salvage because it doesn't boot. Anyway, to get sha-2 I had to do another update but then the sha-2 update bombed on reboot and keeps reverting to 'uninstalled'. Still I managed to INITIATE a Macrium install before rebooting but could never complete it. It never ends for crissssake!
Things have changed. This rentalware gets licensed to ONE computer so I think I will re-install a w-10 freshie this evening on my Ryzen box and take it from there beginning with making a rescue-CD.
On Fri, 4/25/2025 8:33 AM, bad sector wrote:
That thick brown morass just keeps getting deeper and deeper...
Were it not that the circumstances make this chore important to me I would long ago have tossed the whole thing out into the dump bin; that, alas, is not the case.
So I caved in and bought Macrium (all-in-all close to $100cad) ......but can't even install it because the only window that boots is w7 but it doesn't have sha-2 and w10 is the one I want to salvage because it doesn't boot. Anyway, to get sha-2 I had to do another update but then the sha-2 update bombed on reboot and keeps reverting to 'uninstalled'. Still I managed to INITIATE a Macrium install before rebooting but could never complete it. It never ends for crissssake!
Things have changed. This rentalware gets licensed to ONE computer so I think I will re-install a w-10 freshie this evening on my Ryzen box and take it from there beginning with making a rescue-CD.
Unless they removed it, the link I gave you was for a free version
of Macrium. You didn't have to buy it. For example, if you had
a Win7 32-bit as your daily driver OS, you could install the
second link here if you wanted. The filename is reflect-setup-FREE...
The three artwork links, correspond to the usage of this software.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Name: reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Size: 115,719,576 bytes (110 MiB)
SHA1: B6724C7B6F5AF146406FAAA78F845A6C281D67D8
There is also a 32-bit one. For 32-bit setups.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x86.exe
Use the three artwork links, for details as to how to fill out the dialogs.
The 64-bit one, and Rufus, should be able to make a UEFI boot
stick. The 32-bit one looks a bit more of an issue that way.
PaulZAeiMD@kL47#QThMu4TBN8&3e?@kNkNiMD.o4f635G4z
On Fri, 4/25/2025 8:33 AM, bad sector wrote:
That thick brown morass just keeps getting deeper and deeper...
Were it not that the circumstances make this chore important to me I would long ago have tossed the whole thing out into the dump bin; that, alas, is not the case.
So I caved in and bought Macrium (all-in-all close to $100cad) ......but can't even install it because the only window that boots is w7 but it doesn't have sha-2 and w10 is the one I want to salvage because it doesn't boot. Anyway, to get sha-2 I had to do another update but then the sha-2 update bombed on reboot and keeps reverting to 'uninstalled'. Still I managed to INITIATE a Macrium install before rebooting but could never complete it. It never ends for crissssake!
Things have changed. This rentalware gets licensed to ONE computer so I think I will re-install a w-10 freshie this evening on my Ryzen box and take it from there beginning with making a rescue-CD.
Unless they removed it, the link I gave you was for a free version
of Macrium. You didn't have to buy it. For example, if you had
a Win7 32-bit as your daily driver OS, you could install the
second link here if you wanted. The filename is reflect-setup-FREE...
The three artwork links, correspond to the usage of this software.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Name: reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Size: 115,719,576 bytes (110 MiB)
SHA1: B6724C7B6F5AF146406FAAA78F845A6C281D67D8
There is also a 32-bit one. For 32-bit setups.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x86.exe
Use the three artwork links, for details as to how to fill out the dialogs.
The 64-bit one, and Rufus, should be able to make a UEFI boot
stick. The 32-bit one looks a bit more of an issue that way.
Paul
On 4/25/25 12:42 PM, Paul wrote:
On Fri, 4/25/2025 8:33 AM, bad sector wrote:
That thick brown morass just keeps getting deeper and deeper...
Were it not that the circumstances make this chore important to me I would long ago have tossed the whole thing out into the dump bin; that, alas, is not the case.
So I caved in and bought Macrium (all-in-all close to $100cad) ......but can't even install it because the only window that boots is w7 but it doesn't have sha-2 and w10 is the one I want to salvage because it doesn't boot. Anyway, to get sha-2 I had to do another update but then the sha-2 update bombed on reboot and keeps reverting to 'uninstalled'. Still I managed to INITIATE a Macrium install before rebooting but could never complete it. It never ends for crissssake!
Things have changed. This rentalware gets licensed to ONE computer so I think I will re-install a w-10 freshie this evening on my Ryzen box and take it from there beginning with making a rescue-CD.
Unless they removed it, the link I gave you was for a free version
of Macrium. You didn't have to buy it. For example, if you had
a Win7 32-bit as your daily driver OS, you could install the
second link here if you wanted. The filename is reflect-setup-FREE...
The three artwork links, correspond to the usage of this software.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Name: reflect_setup_free_x64.exe
Size: 115,719,576 bytes (110 MiB)
SHA1: B6724C7B6F5AF146406FAAA78F845A6C281D67D8
There is also a 32-bit one. For 32-bit setups.
https://download.macrium.com/reflect/v7/v7.3.6284/reflect_setup_free_x86.exe
Use the three artwork links, for details as to how to fill out the dialogs. >>
The 64-bit one, and Rufus, should be able to make a UEFI boot
stick. The 32-bit one looks a bit more of an issue that way.
Paul
It may have seemed like I was ignoring your advice but I was just staging for a 1st attempt with macrium. Ran into all manner of problems like my w7 legacy box not even knowing what wifi is in an environment that offers only 3 possibilities
1 wifi hotspot off my phone
2 usb tether off my phone
3 radio link past my ethernet connected router
ALL of them useless in bad weather but after updating to the Crosshair board's ethernet driver #3 worked for a short while before packing up due to heavy rain. Enough complaining :-)
I had all your posts and images printed and laid out in front of me as I set out to test my luck. Session-1 running on the legacy-BIOS box was *not exactly a waste of time*. After having figured out that the w7 was a 64bit job, I ran the 64bit RESCUE against both w7 and w10 on a copy of disk-2 (the one with the 2 windows on it).
After clearing a few chickenshit items on w7 the run against w10 ended up failing but with some comments. It seems that some OS version mismatch is at fault (see wallpaper on my 1st EFI desktop).
https://imgur.com/WbDgBFZ.png
There's more over-my-head in this than if I were in the Titan but just a wild guess: the legacy-BIOS w10 locked up like a paranoid clam when I tried to boot it on an EFI machine, subsequent repair attempts failed because the installer was another 'version'? And what will MS do if I send them the dump, send my dead son an email in three months to attempt a repair with the builder dvd (no idea where "I" would find either that email with a failed w10 or the dvd)?
| Sysop: | DaiTengu |
|---|---|
| Location: | Appleton, WI |
| Users: | 1,070 |
| Nodes: | 10 (0 / 10) |
| Uptime: | 151:41:19 |
| Calls: | 13,733 |
| Calls today: | 1 |
| Files: | 186,966 |
| D/L today: |
724 files (253M bytes) |
| Messages: | 2,418,444 |
