Rescue drive transfer?

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I’m running 1903 on a Dell XPS PC I bought new last Fall. It’s running fine. At the time, as I was setting it up, I scrupulously followed directions to create a rescue USB including system files. I had only one spare USB at the time and now would sort of like to reclaim it, if possible. My questions are:

• Can I transfer the contents to another USB? Any tricks or settings I need to know first?
• If that is not possible or advisable, what is the difference if I create a new rescue drive, now that I have been using the computer for about four months?
• If there are differences, should I be making new ones periodically? for example, after when the next major version update is (1909? X-Files Plus?)

Thanks.

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A new computer will use UEFI to boot, so the USB rescue should be UEFI too.
To confirm open it in Explorer and look for a BOOT or EFI folder.

To clone a UEFI boot USB, copy everything to a new USB and then test.

cheers, Paul

1 user thanked author for this post.

doriel

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Paul, thanks. I have copied the rescue USB contents to a new USB. I noted that the original showed as “Recovery drive H” after plugging in the new USB (Drive G). I don;t know if that makes any difference in Windows’ ability to recognize the drive as a recovery drive.

You said to test the new one. Will you please point me to a procedure for doing so?

Thanks again.

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Cthru wrote:

I noted that the original showed as “Recovery drive H” after plugging in the new USB (Drive G)

It does not make a difference.

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To test a recovery drive you need to boot from it.

1. Insert the USB.
2. Hold the Shift key down while clicking “Restart”.
3. From the “Choose an option” screen select “Use a device”.
4. Select the EFI USB device. If it’s not shown the USB is not recognised.

To return to the original hard disk, shutdown the PC, remove the USB and fire up the PC.

cheers, Paul

3 users thanked author for this post.

doriel, cmar6, ka0yje

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Thanks, Paul. I tried it but it left me a bit confused. After selecting use a device, the next screen had two choices, which I should have written down but they were something like

Onboard NIC IPV4
Onboard NIC IPV6

The two USB drives I had plugged in were the new flash drive with the rescue files and my USB HDD backup drive. In the Windows task bar, these show with their manufacturers’ model names. Is that what I was seeing? The internal drives in my PC are an SSD C-drive and an HDD data drive. But I suspect that they would not be listed as devices.

I appreciate your help.

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They are recognised by Windows so they should show as bootable devices.
Try only the flash drive and test in different USB ports.

cheers, Paul

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Sorry to be so uninformed. I disconnected the backup drive and tried only the new rescue drive, in two ports. The choices for “use a device” remained the same as before,

Onboard NIC (IPVC4)
Onboard NIC (IPVC6)

which must mean that, whatever they are, they are not the flash drives. Same with the original rescue drive I created, meaning it never would have worked. (I wish I had known about testing it before, but glad I didn’t need it meanwhile.) Both USBs open fine, showing the two folders.

This was a brand new Dell PC XPS when I set it up. Any suggestions on creating a successful rescue drive now?

Thanks.

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Onboard NIC (IPVC4)
Onboard NIC (IPVC6)

These are not USB, these are network installations from images stored in your domain. Which I dont suppose you have. You need the USB. Seems like your system does not recognize them.
And thats the tricky part.. ther is not one way, you must customize your USB to your system. UEFI/BIOS, then MBR/GPT and finally RAID/AHCI/IDE.
Be careful with adjusting settings in BIOS/UEFI. Changing those can prevent your system from booting! dont do anything thee unless you are absolutely sure!
First you must know your system, then you can create rescue media. But there are already lot of voices here in this thread. They will lead you trough the rest of a process I think.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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Your boot order is not setup to boot from USB.  With the USB Rescue drive plugged in (or the copy, doesn’t matter), restart and repeatedly tap F2 to get into the UEFI setup.  There you can set the boot order to boot USB first.

Note that some implementations of UEFI won’t recognize USB as a boot source unless a bootable USB is plugged into a USB port.  The Optical drive can be treated the same way; not recognized a boot device unless it has bootable media in the tray. It all depends on how the OEM implemented UEFI.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Thanks, I’ll give it a try. I am assuming that the boot specification is just a step inadvertently left out by Paul, or one he assumed that I would already know to do.

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I didn’t leave a step out.
USB boot is normally enabled in the BIOS /EFI and under those circumstances those steps work.

An alternative method to get to the EFI is:
Shift restart.
Troubleshoot
Advanced options
UEFI Firmware Settings.

cheers, Paul

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Thank you, Paul; I appreciate the clarification. I’m just out of my league here. Better to ask than plunge ahead, I have learned the hard way a few times. Thus, I was waiting to see if there would be a response to my last post.

Thanks again.

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Back again. I don’t know what to do. USB Boot support  is already enabled,  but I didn’t see any option to make USB an option in the boot priorities list. Here’s what’s on my options screen:

Boot List Option         (UEFI)
File Browser Add Boot Option
File Browser Del Boot Option
Secure Boot (Enabled)

Legacy Option ROMS (Disabled)
Attempt Legacy Boot (Disabled)
Enable USB Boot Support (Enabled)

Boot Option Priorities

1          Windows Boot Manager
2 and 3  are the options I saw before (previous post)

What am I missing, please?

 

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Is the flash drive formatted as FAT32 or exFAT? NTFS probably won’t work.

Does the original rescue USB boot?

cheers, Paul

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Paul would

Secure Boot (Enabled)

be a problem?

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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doriel

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It could. Notice the difference on these two computers with the same USB inserted during boot:

One has secure boot disabled

second PC does not see USB. Secure boot enabled

USB disk is bootable USB from rufus program.
Options = UEFI, GPT, NTFS

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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You should leave secure boot enabled because a Windows rescue USB has the correct boot program.

If it’s a linux boot USB you may need to turn secure boot off

cheers, Paul

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wavy

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Thanks, folks. Both flash drives are FAT 32; I double-checked just now.

Do you think I should just wipe them and start all over again creating a new rescue drive, or is that not advisable? Is there something else to explore before going that route?

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FAT32 cannot contain Windows 10 installation, because *.wim file is lager than 4GB.

May I add, that on my Dell PCs I need to disable Secure Boot to boot from USB? I agree with @wavy
Also I enable Legacy ROM when installing Windows 10 from USB.

But I repeat: all these changes must be done carefully. These are my experiences, but you must be carefull, cause I work with “clean new” computers. If you break your boot, you will regret.
Make a full backup first.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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You only need to turn off secure boot if you create a non-secure boot rescue disk.
You should always create a secure boot rescue disk. All Windows boot disks are secure boot capable.

What boot USB are you using that requires you turn it off?

cheers, Paul

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ISO downloaded from heidoc (Windows ISO downloader 8.02). Then run Rufus (3.4) and create bootable USB. That is my “empiric knowledge”, since it seems to me, that its not working any other way.
Maybe Im not creating rescue disc, but only installation disc. If it makes sense..

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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The boot files (bootmgfw.efi) will be signed by MS.
Your machine should allow you to boot from these files, but the EFI manufacturer may have written it to prevent USB using secure boot.
This is a manufacturer issue, not secure boot issue.

cheers, Paul

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doriel

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I would recreate the rescue disk on the new USB – put the old one away for now.

cheers, Paul

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doriel, cmptrgy

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I guess I’ll have to find tie to contact Dell and see what they have to say.

I tried creating a new one, with the same result. It even occurred to me that maybe I needed to log on with the administrator account, but that made no difference.

Thanks for all your efforts. I’ll post back once I get a solution.

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Is fast startup enabled?  I had a hard time getting to the boot menu until I disabled fast startup.

settings > system > power & sleep > additional power settings > choose what the power buttons do

Win 11 home - 24H2
Attitude is a choice...Choose wisely

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It is enabled, but it’s not the boot screen I’m having trouble getting to.

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It does sound like a machine problem. USB boot is a standard thing.

cheers, Paul

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Paul T wrote:

To test a recovery drive you need to boot from it.

1. Insert the USB.
2. Hold the Shift key down while clicking “Restart”.
3. From the “Choose an option” screen select “Use a device”.
4. Select the EFI USB device. If it’s not shown the USB is not recognised.

To return to the original hard disk, shutdown the PC, remove the USB and fire up the PC.

cheers, Paul

Hi Paul: It is a good that we started talking about system backups. You pointed out that one should be able to use WIN Recovery Disk or the equivalent (if Macrium or the other backup cos. have equivalents). I have tried to access Windows Recovery Disc on 4 systems with bad results so far. (I have successfully created a Win Recovery Disc on USB key drive for 5 system).
On system#1, I could not get into BIOS, having tried F2,F12 and DEL. I will contact mobo mfgr.
On system#2, I got into BIOS, but cannot move USB disc to top of Boot Mgr. Must contact mobo. mfgr.
On system#3, I got into BIOS but USB drive was not seen, though CD drive was seen. So I made a CD Recovery Drive and will see if I can access it.
On system#4, I got into BIOS with Reboot/Shift and then F12 to get Boot manager, which allowed me to select USB drive as primary boot disc. Here I was given opportunity to use Recovery Disc with warning that all files and apps will be wiped out, presumably after reinstalling Win 10.
That was slightly good news, so on one system, I should be able to restore Win10. Naturally, I don’t want to test that option by wiping out all files and apps.

Assuming that works, would I then be able to access my external HD where I have Win10 System Image backed up, and restore everything via a Win 10 System Image?
How does one restore a System image from within Win 10?

Does anyone know if Macrium does a better job on Windows system restore?

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cmar6 wrote:

How does one restore a System image from within Win 10?

If your system is still capable of booting, you can restore using system image without booting up from a rescue disk:

1. Type recovery options in the search box
   
2. Select Advanced startup Restart now
   
3. Select Troubleshoot
4. Advanced Options
5. You should see System Image Recovery. If not, select More Recovery Options

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doriel, cmar6

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[cmar6]

Geekdom: This is really useful. It gives a method, assuming one can boot into Win 10 GUI, of doing a System Restore (assuming one has been making them regularly.)

Even if one cannot get into Windows, then I suppose I can use Paul’s method of using the Recovery disc (USB) to restore a barebones Win10 without files or apps and then use your method.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by cmar6.

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[geekdom]

If you have created a flash drive using Recovery Drive (Microsoft operation: type recovery drive in the search box), you can boot up from the flash drive and access what amounts to Advanced Options. Microsoft built many paths to do boot and restore.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
offline▸ Win10Pro 2004.19041.572 x64 i3-3220 RAM8GB HDD Firefox83.0b3 WindowsDefender
offline▸ Acer TravelMate P215-52 RAM8GB Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1265 x64 i5-10210U SSD Firefox106.0 MicrosoftDefender
online▸ Win11Pro 22H2.22621.1992 x64 i5-9400 RAM16GB HDD Firefox116.0b3 MicrosoftDefender

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by geekdom.

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You should not need to change the boot order in the BIOS to boot from USB. Pressing the appropriate key on startup should allow you to choose which device to boot from as a one off.
Search for your mobo and “boot key”.

You can also do it from within Windows = see #2232628

cheers, Paul

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