T440s CLEAN WINDOWS W10 REINSTALL MISERY

[PRAGUEGUY]

Pls any advice welcome...I somehow corrupted the windows system, / I wanted to create a backup cloned ssd disc...in the process, the original source disc got damaged.../ and now I am in the process of creating a clean install. I have great difficulty..none of the USB sticks managed to boot. I purchased a USB external CD burner , and othere bootable CD s do boot from there. One instance of installation did progress to the middle and then stopped...I have never seen such an ultrabook, the base cover has to be removed to get to the HDD. can anybody give me some advice. IF I try to boot from bootable USB, nothing happens, when I select f12 function key, boot from USB.
in some instances nothing happens when I attempt to boot from dvd r+ dual layer installation medium, which I have burned for the purpose.
2. specific question about booting , should I set the cd rom as first bootable medium of preference /by the way it is the first one when I load defaults in BIOS/. or should I go to bios setup, and select Ff12 function key, "chose bootable medium" and go from there?
when I create the bootable USB, in Rufus, I get the question if I should select UEFI or MBR..I dont understand the difference despite googling. thanks for advice.

[dr_st]

2. specific question about booting , should I set the cd rom as first bootable medium of preference /by the way it is the first one when I load defaults in BIOS/. or should I go to bios setup, and select Ff12 function key, "chose bootable medium" and go from there?

Shouldn't matter.

when I create the bootable USB, in Rufus, I get the question if I should select UEFI or MBR..I dont understand the difference despite googling. thanks for advice.

Depends on how your BIOS is set up. Try one of them; if it fails to boot, try the other.

[PRAGUEGUY]

QUESTION ABOUT HARD DISC. I READ THE HARWARE MAINTENANCE MANUAL, BUT THIS DETAIL IS NOT THERE. THE HDD IS WRAPPED IN SOME KIND OF FOIL..ANY SPECIAL ADVICE ABOUT HOW TO APPLY IT TO ANOTHER DISC. I DO NOT WANT TO TEAR THIS THING OFF AND DAMAGE SOMETHING THANKSH

[atagunov]

What kind of machine is that? I sort of struggle to figure out what it is you're holding in your hand.. Is it an SSD or HDD in some sort of a caddy? Maybe seeing it from the other side would help.. Did you unscrew 4 screws out of this thingie?

Also a friendly question - what's up with all caps, mate? When I taught myself internet messaging etiquette some 20 years ago I read it was equiv to shouting

[w0qj]

1. Pragueguy, what ThinkPad model are you talking about?
And what was the capacity of your HDD hard disk?

2. For Pragueguy's HDD picture, we did [Save_Image_As] to download image, and expanded image to view it.
By the way, the image file was named "HDD.jpg"
Therefore OP thinks it's a HDD hard disk (which we also think may be correct).

As oriented in the OP's picture:
Think it's a HDD with bracket (caddy) around the top/left/right sides, and possibly secured by screws.
The "silver" covering may be just a "heat sink" layer to help dissipate heat.

We suspect that if you remove the screws from the sides of the HDD bracket (caddy):
a) the HDD bracket (caddy) would come off, and
b) the silver covering would come off the HDD also.
c) this would leave you with the hard drive itself in your hands, without the (a) and with out the (b) above.

[PRAGUEGUY]

attagunov
I SHOUT ON THE WEB AS I HAVE CRAP EYESIGHT..AND IF I FORGET TO CHANGE THE RESOLUTION THEN CAPITALS IS THE ONLY THING THAT GUARANTEES GOOD SIGHT SO I CAN SEE WHAT I WRITE

it was a hdd indeed...and I have successfully changed it

I made a clean reinstall finally. the PC was unable to boot from a bootable USB stick.
can anybody explain why that could have been?
I had to get myself an external USB cd dvd rom drive...
the clone of the system disk made by Macrium did not work

any idea why? when I tested the cloned system disk the pc was unable to boot...any suggestions for other clone tools?

[atagunov]

Hi, so it seems you managed to solve the main issue, right? You've finally installed the OS you wanted. So the rest is perhaps a little academic.. I'm not even convinced it's worth it to expend much effort trying to solve this.. However I understand you have two remaining questions

- why was it that you were unable to boot from a USB stick
- why you were able to boot from some kind of original OS installation disk but not from a clone

It's actually a bit hard to say remotely what exactly might be wrong.. I know that when I make USB installation sticks from under Linux using Bootable Disk Creator (or what is it called?) I normally can boot from that; I trust that tool. How did you create the USB stick? Which OS were you installing? Which computer were you installing it on? How exactly did you try to make the computer boot from your USB stick and from the copied CD?

P.S. Re eyesight, mine is far from stellar as well. However given we're in a browser normally pressing control key and rolling the wheel on my mouse makes Firefox scale pages just fine.. Solves the issue entirely for web pages. Think Ctrl and Plus/Minus keys works as well.

[PRAGUEGUY]

atagunov
I was trying to boot two versions of windows ten from usb stick. I used the microsoft media creator, and then a tool called Rufus.
I have used both in the past with success.


when I tried to boot the T440s machine from usb stick, either setting usb hdd as the first one in the boot order , or pressing F12 function key during boot, and selecting the usb as a boot device, I failed.
simply, nothing happened. Instead of the usual Windows is loading files message, there was a flicker, the show of a hyphen maybe, and then nothing happened.
I tried both usb holes on my laptop
When I created an iso image from the Windows tools, and burned the image to disc, and put the disc into an external usb cd drive, all went well. For some crazy reason the English international version of windows ten failed mid way through the install. The CZech version did go through to install.
To create the clone, I used my paid license of Macrium, https://www.macrium.com . I created a so called rescue medium, a bootable win pe environment. I did this both for usb, which failed, same as the operating system usb stick. Then I created the rescue medium onto a cd, and run it from the external usb drive, and then the rescue environment did boot properly. It did appear to create a clone of my system drive. Howwever, when I tried to test my clone, i e to swap it with the one containging the clean install, the nb failed to boot from it...there were series of "try to repair startup" messages.
I have successfuly used the cloning in the past. Typically, in old times when my thinkpads came with classical hard discs with rotating parts, i used tthe clones to succesfully migrate the system to a new ssd system disc.

[atagunov]

It did appear to create a clone of my system drive

Hi, I won't pretend I have any answers for you.. but just to make your question more clear - where did you clone the system drive to? Have you got two HDD-s/SSD-s connected to T440p? How is the 2nd one connected? Also just out of curiosity are you using HDD-s or SSD-s?

[PRAGUEGUY]

I used both ssds. The source ssd was inside the laptop of course . The second I tried to connect to both available USB ports, using some kind of sata bay or whatever it is called... a circuit board with sata connectors, where I can place any sata hdd. Problem is this is an ultrabook, with shortage of usb ports, only two. I need one port for the rescue medium to boot from, either usb stick. or usb based CD drive. the second I need to connect the destination drive of the cloning process.
I also made an attmept to put both source ssd, and target ssd, into my desktop...via ssd cables.
this was entirely useless. when I put the clone created this way into the laptop, all was screwed.
moreover, during this horrilbe zombie process, I managed to confuse the source ssd, the original ssd drive containing the win installation that came with the laptop... it got screwwed and the laptop could not then boot even from its own original source sssd, let alone the newly created clone.

[PRAGUEGUY]

I used both ssds. The source ssd was inside the laptop of course . The second I tried to connect to both available USB ports, using some kind of sata bay or whatever it is called... a circuit board with sata connectors, where I can place any sata hdd. Problem is this is an ultrabook, with shortage of usb ports, only two. I need one port for the rescue medium to boot from, either usb stick. or usb based CD drive. the second I need to connect the destination drive of the cloning process.
I also made an attmept to put both source ssd, and target ssd, into my desktop...via ssd cables.
this was entirely useless. when I put the clone created this way into the laptop, all was screwed.
moreover, during this horrilbe zombie process, I managed to confuse the source ssd, the original ssd drive containing the win installation that came with the laptop... it got screwwed and the laptop could not then boot even from its own original source sssd, let alone the newly created clone.

[PRAGUEGUY]

to sum up the horror movie, I was careful and tried to create a clone of my system drive, to make sure that I have a system to boot from, if something gets screwed on the original ssd.
But ,during the process, I managed to screw even the original ssd disc of the laptop...so I purchased a brand new Terabyte samsung EVO ssd, and made a clean install.

I have not given up on making a clone.
it is awful if a virus destroys something...the second hand laptop came with a 250 Gig ssd.
I purchased a super Samsung one tera ssd, and made a clean install onto it.

makes perfect sense to use the original 250 ssd as a clone...if something goes bad on the system.

[cadillacmike68]

I have had problems in the past restoring a boot image to a drive attached to the computer via a USB port. I would recommend that you put the target drive in the system.s primary drive bay and the clone source attached via USB - or in the ultrabay. I did a lot of cloning / backup / restore in the past and this method has worked the best.

That's one reason I always got the full sized docks in the past. I would put the bootable backup / restore / clone CD in the ultrabay and the target disk in the primary bay with the source going in a 2nd HDD tray in the ultrabay.

Now, since there no docks with ultrabays for the newer ThinkPads T/W410/510 or higher, the CD should be in a USB connected CD drive, boot from that with the drives as noted above.

[w0qj]

Have you considered using Product Recovery?

We tend to perform a (painful) Product Recovery in such situations.
At least it will bypass the issues/problems you've just mentioned.

And you'll get a fresh install of Windows to boot!
(Just make sure you perform backups your data, and note down your product license keys).

[PRAGUEGUY]

cadillac...now thanks for that. I am going to try just now. I have done the latest updates to my Macrium software, so the recovery medium is the newest...I was thinking maybe some drivers were missing.
I just hope that the precious , current system disk that is going to be cloned will not be corrupted...if it is connected via usb disc bay. these discs do not like to be tampered with..thats how I screwed my original system disc..but now I am really curious so I am going to try.

[PRAGUEGUY]

w0qj
pls what is Product recovery

the cloning failed again..I hate the process I will stop. I will end up damaging something...what is the next best way of somehow conserving the system partition?

[cadillacmike68]

w0qj
pls what is Product recovery

the cloning failed again..I hate the process I will stop. I will end up damaging something...what is the next best way of somehow conserving the system partition?

DO NOT use product recovery, it will overwrite and thereby mess up your original HDD.

I am going to recommend Acronis True Image home - the buy it once version NOT the subscription version. You can get some older ones of ebay, or the latest from acronis, a German / Swiss company.

You will need:
True Image
A CD burner that you can also boot from
A "SPARE" HDD to put the backup files on. This can be a USB connected HDD
a "NEW" HDD that you will restore to.
Your good working original HDD.

When you get acronis MAKE the Bootable CD and BOOT that CD. Back up your original disk - ENTIRE DISK to a directory / folder on a spare disk. Then put your new Target / Destination disk in the PRIMARY HDD bay, your spare disk with the backup file anywhere and boot the CD again. This time Restore to the new disk the ENTIRE DISK and include the Disk Signature (little check box on the restore dialog). When it finished, Shut it OFF, disconnect the spare drive and the CD and try to boot with the new HDD in place.

You mentioned that you did a clean re-install. Is that how you have a good working disk now? What did you re-install from. Do you have the factory recovery discs or was it from a windows 10 ISO CD?

An alternative is to get the product recovery discs from Lenovo. If your system is still under warranty they will send them free. If not, you will have to pay $$. These can be used to put a "factory install" of your system on a new HDD. You could then back that HDD up or clone it.

Acronis also makes a product called Disk Director which can close an HDD, but the backup / restore method leaves you with a permanent backup that you could restore again to another HDD later if you need to. You MIGHT also be able to clone a disk in True Image Home.

[cadillacmike68]

A note on Product Recovery.

You probably cannot use this anyway because unless you used the factory restore discs it isn't there for you to use.

[w0qj]

OK, I stand corrected !
ie: please DO NOT use product recovery.

...DO NOT use product recovery, it will overwrite and thereby mess up your original HDD.

[PRAGUEGUY]

THANKS a lot..I am a bit disappointed as I paid Macrium and I do not like to accumulate utilities...I also have a paid EASEUS partition master license, I wonder if that does not have a cloning function.

I want to clarify one thing. In your post you use the words BACKUP and RESTORE...backup the system disc, and then restore from the backup files to the target cloned system disk.

in the Macrium environment, the Backup/rectore and Clone words are used for two distinct, different functions.

You backupe an image of a disc or partition, restore it to view files.

You clone a hdd so that it becomes a bit for bit copy of the source disc , so that in case of some fatal problem you simply swap the discs, and your clone can immediately serve as a new system dics..in Acronis, this distinction is not kept?

- what about the Windows authentisation. If I start working off of a clone, will Winows not start shouting, that I am on a new hardware, and so do not have a legal copy? thanks

[PRAGUEGUY]

hey guys...Windows 10 has a create system image tool...It is hidden, under a command that says it only applies to win7, but it works so no need to pay 70 usd for Acronis..it can also create a rescue disc.

EDIT..yes there is. The function does not work in Windows...it says not enough space on source disk. It has more than two times the original size space avaliable...omg.

[cadillacmike68]

THANKS a lot..I am a bit disappointed as I paid Macrium and I do not like to accumulate utilities...I also have a paid EASEUS partition master license, I wonder if that does not have a cloning function.

I want to clarify one thing. In your post you use the words BACKUP and RESTORE...backup the system disc, and then restore from the backup files to the target cloned system disk.

in the Macrium environment, the Backup/rectore and Clone words are used for two distinct, different functions.

You backupe an image of a disc or partition, restore it to view files.

You clone a hdd so that it becomes a bit for bit copy of the source disc , so that in case of some fatal problem you simply swap the discs, and your clone can immediately serve as a new system dics..in Acronis, this distinction is not kept?

- what about the Windows authentisation. If I start working off of a clone, will Winows not start shouting, that I am on a new hardware, and so do not have a legal copy? thanks

Let me clarify.

You have it pretty much correct.

Clone takes a disk and in a single operation copies the entire drive over to another drive - wiping out whatever might have been on the target disk.

Backup / restore is two different processes. Backup can tale anywhere from a single group of files to an entire disk and put that image on another disk, adding to what is on the disk. It adds the image file to the backup media disk. You can use backup to do only your data files (I prefer Karen's Replicator) or the ENTIRE DISK including the MBR, etc.

Restore takes the previously made backup image and restores eith a single file, a few files, etc to the target disk without overwriting the target disk, or if you are restoring the Entire Disk, it will completely overwrite the target disk.

I only use backup / restore via acronis for the entire disk and I use it manly to "make" another system like the original. For data files, I use Karen's power tools replicator.

Clone is a one shot deal, you get an exact copy of the original. Backup / Restore can be used many times over. Back up once. Restore as many times as needed.

I have had issues getting a cloned disk to boot windows 7 and have not tried to clone a windows 10 disk. I have had no problems restoring an Entire Disk backup of win7 to another disk and having that disk successfully boot in the same or a different computer.

I DO NOT recommend doing any of these from within windows. Make the bootable CDs and boot from them to do the work.

The stuff built into windows may or may not work for you. I haven't tried it, it can't back up the entire disk.

[PRAGUEGUY]

Cadillac, In Macrium I also have a function called Image disc. Can I make an image that is not called a clone, just make a backup of the system partition , do the same thing as you are suggesting with Acronis? and then try to boot from a disk that contains that backup?

[JBUK]

Not sure if this has been resolved but USB keys can be either mbr or uefi boot and will not boot in the wrong system unless they are created for both types which the windows media tool does now. But in the T5XX set the bios Startup uefi/legacy boot to BOTH and it will boot from either type.

[PRAGUEGUY]

dear Cadillac,
I have purchased the Acronis pertpetual license.
not too cheap
I made the boot medium using the options Simple , creating boot medium for the computer on which you are making the rescue medium
I managed to boot from cd, but, nothing happens.
I see the below screen, unlike other Linux type boot media I see no commands, or user interface...blank screen, the cursor does react to the mouse but there is nothing
to click on...unless I attach something to the display with glue.
what am I doing wrong
there is something on the right bottom corner of the screen..a keyboard selection, and something that looks like a connector.
the same behaviour I saw on another laptop of mine...when I tried the boot cd .
I also tried a usb bootable..that did not get even that far.
I only saw a screen boasting how many patents Acronis has.


zdarma obrazky

[atagunov]

Hello PRAGUEGUY,

it pains me to see you sinking money and not getting what you want.. yet I'm not sure how to help you.. to summarize I think you found one way to install Windows on your T440s and now you would like to have a way to clone your Windows drive.

What disk are you trying to copy it from and copy it to? I'm particularly interested in knowing if the target disk will be large enough.

The software I used in the past with success was Clonezilla. I didn't have to give them any money for the version I used and it worked for me. I think it didn't want to copy disk when the size of partitions on the source disk exceeded the size of the target disk. But if all partitions fitted it worked. Since it doesn't cost money perhaps you can try that..

Also I would urge you to consider if being able to clone a Windows drive is really essential to you. Yes disks die and you can be left with a machine that doesn't boot. It will be a sad turn of events. But wouldn't you be able to just reinstall windows anew then? Yes it would probably take you half a day and then some time to get the machine into working state.. But perhaps this is not such a bad recovery plan? What you want to do now - clone a Windows install.. your 2nd disk after a year or two or three will be missing all Windows updates during this time. Your recovery isn't going to be instantaneous in any case.. And as my experience tells me - after you've done that clone you will end up tweaking your system lots more times and installing lots of new stuff which will be missing from the clone..

As another idea - yes you can't clone but perhaps you can just install twice? License keys via some miraculous turn of events have now become available on ebay for just a few $$. Probably cheaper than the cloning software. Or if you have an expensive more proper license perhaps you can leave one copy of Windows not activated and should the sh-t hit the fan activate it then? Yes M$ software might be unhappy to do that automatically but the last time I was in this situation I was able to give them a call, talk to a robot and have it sorted. How hard can it be then? It should still be doable. Talk to somebody, explain..

The cloning process has turned out to be unexpectedly difficult for you. We here don't seem to be able to help. Perhaps you can consider that under the circumstances it's okay to give up on cloning? I don't clone my disks btw.. But then I have multiple Thinkpads. Should something bad happen I hope to be back online very soon. Actually the thing with most people on this forum is that we somehow end up with multiple Thinkpads anyway.. And here's a good excuse

[PRAGUEGUY]

atagunov Thanks cooool:) for the encouraging words.
this has turned into a self-serving obsession... after Corona I am on unemployment benefits, until September its unlikely to find work so I do these crazy things.
thanks, Alex
this software Acronis has something called the rescue kit..it creates an entire assembly, of backup disc and recovery booting tool...contrary to Cadillacs advice above, it is supposed to work while the system is live, as opposed to doing it when booting from a rescue medium.
however it did not work...

as per your question, the source disc is a terabyte Samsung, the target ssd ., which should house the clone, is the original ssd that came with the second hand laptop, probably the original ssd from the manufacturer, it is 250G. But, the system partition on the Terabyte samsung is only cca 50 G and the rest is unallocated disc space, so size should not be a problem
the problem now is that the acronis rescue medium does not work and the rescue environment is not working
but as the Acronis license is new I can get pro support from Acronis itself

[PRAGUEGUY]

atagunovs frienly comments brought positive karma

I report that the Acrnonis environment works
there were two tricks
I had to replace the fan, ther had been a fan error
I only connected the second hdd AFTER the rescue environment has booted up
My suspicion is that the ultrabook has a very low power supply...so, the power consumed by the usb hdd meant that the cd rom drive could not spin to full force
this does not explain why the usb environment did not work...but now I will see if the image works

[cadillacmike68]

OK, glad to see it is booting up. That puzzled me.

You want to back up the ENTIRE DISK, including track 0 and the MBR. That way if your working HDD ever dies, you can restore a full working image to another disk / SSD.

If you ever have to restore, you want to restore the ENTIRE DISK again including track 0 and MBR Ana click the restore disk signature check box on one of
the restore screens.

The restore interface is not perfect, there are a few areas where it seems to ignore you. You'll have to get through the quirks but it works fine once you get to the final screen to proceed.

[cadillacmike68]

And,

If you ever need to restore, there is an option to "add new disk" to the system, or similar. It will wipe clear the partition table, and the entire MBR to present a fresh disk for a restoration. BE Careful on which disk to "ADD", don't wipe out your disk that has the restore image!