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Problem description: Something weird happened to my netbook, apparently a few months ago, and I didn't notice until now. As indicated in the title, my boot partition got switched somehow. I need a plan to (A) fix it and (B) prevent it from happening again, and while I have thoughts I'd appreciate a sanity check. A while after purchasing the netbook, I added an SSD and moved everything to it. In short, I imaged the Win 10 Home install from the stock eMMC (using Macrium Reflect) - this included all partitions, restored it onto the SSD, then extended the main partition and changed it to boot (using BCDBoot I think). This worked fine and ran off the SSD for over a year, i.e. through multiple windows updates etc. I did NOT delete or even touch the eMMC partitions (there are 3, discussed below). So yeah there was another Windows installation sitting around, and I guess that was my mistake--perhaps I should have nuked it? I thought it was handy to have a backup in the short term, and in the longer term I just forgot about it. Somehow, and I am baffled as to what exactly occurred, things swapped around and the eMMC Windows partition became boot again. And yet, weirdly, most of my applications and files got transferred back to the eMMC, which is why I didn't notice anything. But not everything got transferred back, there were a small number of files starting at a particular date range that exist on the now-non-boot SSD but not on the eMMC. It looks sort of like a slightly out of date backup image of the SSD was restored, but it got restored onto the eMMC instead of the SSD, and in the process the eMMC Windows partition became boot again. It's even possible that I did this myself and don't remember it. However the timeline doesn't quite support this hypothesis, the discrepancies in the "Documents" folders between the two Windows partitions are really weird and don't line up with any images I created. Maybe some strange Windows-related thing happened automatically when an update/upgrade ran into a problem. I dunno, it's only important to the extent I want to keep it from happening again, which I suspect means making sure I have one and only one Windows install. The salient point is, now I've got two out-of-sync Windows installations. I prefer to have everything running off the SSD because it's faster and bigger, and since I've been through various updates and software/driver installs I'd ideally like to take the current eMMC system back over to the SSD. I've tried to copy the orphan data files to the eMMC disk but I understand that I might lose a few things, it's not for work and it's not my main rig so it's not a big deal. I hope. I just want to make sure I'm doing this in a sensible fashion. My current thoughts are along the lines of: (1) image the eMMC (all partitions) using Macrium Reflect (2) format the SSD (? is this necessary?) (3) using Reflect, restore the eMMC image onto the SSD (4) extend the SSD Windows partition to use up the full SSD, just as I did initially (5) make the SSD Windows partition boot using BCDBoot, just as I did initially (6) assuming I am now booting into the SSD, format the eMMC (? again, is this necessary?) (7) resume regular routine of full/differential backup images of SSD Alternatively, I could try to image the eMMC windows partition only (not the other partitions), and restore it onto the SSD windows partition and then extend/make boot. Each disk currently has 3 partitions, an unnamed one (100MB/EFI System Partition), Windows (Primary partition), and Recovery (480MB/OEM Partition). They're in a different order, the SSD has the Windows partition last, I assume I did that so I could extend it. I gather the EFI System partition is somehow involved in booting Windows, what I don't understand is whether I can/should rely on the SSD's existing but old EFI System Partition, or I should create it anew via the imaging process. These seem potentially workable, but I'm wondering if I'm missing something and/or making things more difficult than I need to. Advice appreciated, thanks. -- Operating system: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit System specs: Jumper EZBook 3 Pro (LB10) - Celeron N3450 (quad core), 6GB RAM, 64GB Sandisk eMMC (built in), ADATA SU800 128GB M.2 SATA SSD (expansion slot) Location: USA I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yes
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Jun 10, 2019 01:29
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Manifisto posted:(2) format the SSD (? is this necessary?) Probably not absolutely necessary but it's good practice to. Manifisto posted:(6) assuming I am now booting into the SSD, format the eMMC (? again, is this necessary?) Yes, if you want to be sure this confusion doesn't happen again you'll want to format the eMMC.
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Jun 20, 2019 20:28
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