Oh, man, I just ride in 'em ... I don't what makes 'em work.
Posted on 01/08/2023 8:56:26 PM PST by Paul R.
#1: I am trying to clone the 64 GB eMMC boot drive in a Win 10 Pro Lenovo N22 to a 256 GB SDATA M.2 drive recently installed in it, using Macrium 8 cloning software. I've used Macrium successfully on several machines in the past, from HDD to SSD, and SSD to SSD, but in this case I keep getting an error message: Clone Failed - - VerifyFileSystem Failed. This occurs after the 1st 2 small volumes successfully clone...:
1- SYSTEM_DRV (None) FAT32 (LBA) Primary
2- (None) Unformatted Primary
but when the cloning process gets to Volume "3 - Windows (C) NTFS Primary I immediately get the error.
Note both drives pass chkdsk /f successfully, and Win 10 Pro "Disk Management" reports both drives as healthy. Initialization of the 256 GB SSD goes smoothly / quickly, the computer finds the new "D" drive and volumes on it with no problem (once intialized*), and I can store typical files such large jpg's, or docx or odt or pdf's and retrieve them later with no problem.**
I have not yet tried running chkdsk /r, nor have I tried running the utility "ExactFile".
**Note that trying to clone the eMMC boot / OS drive to the SATA drive and failing renders the SATA drive unusable until I initialize it again, but it does re-initialize without any problem, and again initialized, again it does not show any errors via chkdsk or Windows.
A discussion of this issue (or at least quite similar) from person (not me) on the Macrium forum abruptly ended without resolution. Initial comments narrowed the problem down to the source data, as that's what is verified at this point in the process.
https://forum.macrium.com/55180/Full-Disk-Image-fails-when-Verify-File-System-is-set-to-Y
Macrium indicated they thought it was a hardware problem, but, also indicated that an older version (Macrium 6) might "stress the hardware less", implying there might be a heating problem. In my case it appears that's not "it": I tried (still using Macrium 8) to run the clone process with the N22 allowed to stabilize in a room at 74 deg. F, and again at 50 deg. F, and detected no difference in the timing / onset of the error.
Macrium also has this page on verification errors, but it appears to be devoted to verification of the backed up files on the destination drive. (I may try cloning to a large flash drive or external SSD as a check, and IIRC I also have another M.2 SATA drive here somewhere... However, again this appears to be a data source error.)
http://reflect.macrium.com/help/v5/restore/troubleshooting_verification_problems.htm
Since the computer seems to function otherwise error free ((I'm just looking for higher speed and more storage space out of the SSD vs the eMMC), I suppose I can try turning the verification off and then see if the machine will boot and operate well off the SSD.
As it is possible(?) the eMMC is developing some problem that ordinary checks do not catch, moving the OS over to the SSD takes on a new importance... :-(
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An interesting parallel issue with the above machine is that there seems to be no hotkey to interrupt a boot and get into BIOS. Reading up on this, apparently there are other ways to set this up in Windows prior to a restart -- this is another "new one to me. Maybe the Lenovo N22 has an unadvertised call-BIOS-during-boot-up hotkey?
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Somewhat related, I read that NAND memory is best refreshed every couple years or so. This seems to me to definitely have critical implications for USB flash memory sticks used for bootable rescue and repair, not to mention long term data storage. The question is, would it be best to use somethig like Macrium Reflect to rotate data amongst similar size flash drives, rather than cloning to a destination drive, and then back, reusing the destination drive many times? I suppose all should be backed up to magnetic media (a HDD) as well -- at least big HDD's are cheap these days. But, for rescue / bootable flash drives, I'm unsure how to proceed. Set up a partition on the HDD for each bootable drive?
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Computers sure are time savers, aren't they...
https://forum.macrium.com/55180/Full-Disk-Image-fails-when-Verify-File-System-is-set-to-Y
http://reflect.macrium.com/help/v5/restore/troubleshooting_verification_problems.htm
If the filesystem is encrypted with a TPM
based key, you might not be able to clone
for a different motherboard.
As someone else says above - it may be encrypted, in which case you’re not going to get anywhere in a useful amount of time. Is the machine still bootable? If so, fire the machine up and find out if the drive has BitLocker or other encryption turned on.
Also, flash drives are *not* to be considered viable long term storage. Archival is best done to high quality optical at this time - but you’d best save a compatible optical drive.
Good Sir, your statement has me a bit befuddled.
(That’s ok, when it comes to delving this far into computers, I am often befuddled.)
I am not cloning to transfer the OS to a different machine, everything is integral to the N22 laptop. The only added factors are the cloning software itself and the recently installed SSD. The SSD works fine as a data drive “D” with the eMMC “C:” drive holding the OS (running a bit lethargic from the eMMC.)
The eMMC “C” drive, right? Would file compression be a problem?
Oh, sure, the machine boots and runs just fine. It’s just a bit slow running off the OS on the eMMC “C” drive. Plus storage is limited, “C” is nearly half of the 64 GB full.
So, check the C drive properties?
Right, except the N22 and in fact most current laptops don’t even have optical drives, tho’ I suppose I could go with an external optical drive.
I’m getting old enough that in 10-15 years I’m prolly not gonna care...
Has DVD degradation with time improved in the last 10 years? I’ve not really followed that... Granted it has not been a big issue — I think — maybe I should be checking all my old CDs?
Yes, and if you have something that compresses the entire file system, yes.
You can check drive properties, but if you don’t see anything there, you need to check to see if BitLocker is on - some Windows installs I’ve seen will automatically turn that on sometimes.
https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-check-bitlocker-status-in-windows-10/
External optical drives are how you’d do it, yes.
Archival quality DVD-Rs are good for 50-100 years when properly stored.
Oh, man, I just ride in 'em ... I don't what makes 'em work.
Confirmed that BitLocker is off, file compression is off. Indexing is on.
Should be fine. SunkenCiv suggested Clonezilla, which is a good option. There’s also EaseUS Todo Backup, which sometimes works when others don’t and vice versa.
How do you have these drives connected?
From the sequence of events, it sounds like your EFI system partition is not being cloned correctly. You might try a different free disk imaging tool from Hiren’s Boot CD PE. You might also compare your partitions using Minitool Partition Wizard free edition.
Even though it is called Hirens Boot CD these days most of the time people make a bootable USB Drive. There are simple instructions and tools for this on the website
It is also possible that you will have to change settings in BIOS for boot order, enable legacy support or possibly change your “secure boot” settings.
Your problem reminds me of when one is trying to make a bootable standalone USB drive with Linux on it. It is very easy to make a “Live” Linux USB Drive that you can run Linux from, but lose whatever changes you have made each time you start it up. If you want to install the system on another USB drive instead of your hard drive... so that you can run Linux standalone with changes being saved... things get much trickier. You have to either do a lot of futzing around with the uefi partition that will not be written correctly after you have completed the process, or you have to temporarily disable the existing uefi boot partition while you are installing the system on your USB drive. This is because the system will not write a new uefi boot partition so that another can become active and be written properly.
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