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Drives missing / not listed for backup including OS drive

deed02392
Level 2

I have already had a good look and investigate other posts made but looks like I need to start my own.

These are all the drives on my system as seen in 'Computer' under Windows Explorer (Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

None of the drives are in RAID and the partition tables are as follows:

Everything except LiveUpdate was installed using the install wizard, to the default directory under 64-bit.

PartInfo.exe generated a partinfo.txt file which claims the following information on the drives that are missing:

System               Part Table LBA   # Boot     BCyl Head Sect FS      ECyl Head Sect       StartSect         NumSects
=========================================================================================================================
C:\
   On Disk Values:                0   0  80         0   32  33  07      1023  254  63            2,048       62,538,997
   Calculated:                                      0   32  33          3892  254  63  

WARNING: Partition above extends beyond the end of disk.

====================================================================================================================
Partition Information for Disk   0:               29.8 GB
Volume Path            PartitionType  Status         Size      Part Table Lba   #     Start Sector    Total Sectors
====================================================================================================================
                       Unallocated    Pri               1 MB             None  --                0            2,048
C:\                    NTFS           Pri,Boot       29.8 GB                0   0            2,048       62,538,997

 

Interestingly, this warning appears for all unlisted drives. Perhaps this is the root cause? However I imagine the methods of fixing this error would come with a recommended backup. A great lesson for the definition of irony but not very helpful for me.

This is the view from within the one time backup wizard.

All I want to do is create a backup image of my system drive so I can virtualise it later and then do a clean install for Windows 7 SP1.

 

Hope someone can help.

Best regards,

George Hafiz

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

deed02392
Level 2

Thank you very much for the prompt response - as we speak a backup is ongoing after I found another article discussing a similar topic (which I found by searching with that suspicious warning message).

In fairness to the software it seems right that it shouldn't attempt to backup partitions with this kind of misinformation but you would be doing a service to your customers to include the reason as to why their drives might be missing, or at least include them when checking the 'show hidden drives box' with a note as to why they weren't usable.

This probably explains why I wasn't able to use Paragon Virtualization Manager either.

 

The method I used to fix the problem was to resize the system partition down by eight (8) MiB using Disk Management under Windows. This was painless as in NT6+ this can be done live. The drive immediately appears under SSR after doing this.

Perhaps for the benefit of others you could list these alternative partition table repair tools regardless? Although I feel my solution presents less of a risk than these, in addition to the fact I have no optical disc drive which no doubt these utilities necessitate by only working before the operating system is loaded.

Best regards,

George Hafiz

View solution in original post

3 REPLIES 3

Andreas_Horlach
Level 6
Employee Accredited

You are correct. The partition table error is why BESR is not seeing the volumes. Before BESR can proceed, the sector mapping must be corrected. There are 3rd party partition table repair tools out there you can use at your own risk.

If you would like to reply to this message and attach the PARTINFO.TXT, I can look at the errors closer. There is a 'File Attachments' link below the message box.

deed02392
Level 2

Thank you very much for the prompt response - as we speak a backup is ongoing after I found another article discussing a similar topic (which I found by searching with that suspicious warning message).

In fairness to the software it seems right that it shouldn't attempt to backup partitions with this kind of misinformation but you would be doing a service to your customers to include the reason as to why their drives might be missing, or at least include them when checking the 'show hidden drives box' with a note as to why they weren't usable.

This probably explains why I wasn't able to use Paragon Virtualization Manager either.

 

The method I used to fix the problem was to resize the system partition down by eight (8) MiB using Disk Management under Windows. This was painless as in NT6+ this can be done live. The drive immediately appears under SSR after doing this.

Perhaps for the benefit of others you could list these alternative partition table repair tools regardless? Although I feel my solution presents less of a risk than these, in addition to the fact I have no optical disc drive which no doubt these utilities necessitate by only working before the operating system is loaded.

Best regards,

George Hafiz

Andreas_Horlach
Level 6
Employee Accredited

George,

That is actually a logical, yet clever way to fix that error. I'll make a note of that. Up until WIndows 2008, that was not an option.

As for the drive not being reported and the user not seeing the reason why, that is a valid request and I have noted that to the product manager to include in the next release of the sfw. Thank you for letting me know this.

We have to be careful about recommending 3rd party sfw to others, legally speaking. We have done that in the past and it came back to haunt us. Doing a Google search for 'Fix partition table errors' or something like that will sufficiently bring up results.

Thank you for your suggestions!