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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 2:24 am 
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dvair wrote:
When you do the system image, you will be prompted at the end to make a recovery boot drive. You can use a different USB drive to put this on. I got a bunch of 32 gig USB 3 at Walmart for around $6.

Hmmm, I didn't see that option when I looked. All I saw was CD/DVD as destination drives but that was straight through the option to create a recovery, not after an actual backup. I'll have to look again with different USB media plugged in. I have a bit of a doubt about the micro SD I used initially.

Anyway, I was able to make a bootable USB for the Acronis recovery disk after installing Acronis again. It did boot on my Surface but took forever and was just about unusable after loaded. I tried the Linux version of the recovery media as that is what I usually use. I'll have to try different options to see what works best.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 9:29 am 
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I have always used the drive I create with the Windows 10 installation media tool as my recovery drive. It has all the troubleshooting tools on it.


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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 4:08 pm 
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dvair wrote:
I have always used the drive I create with the Windows 10 installation media tool as my recovery drive. It has all the troubleshooting tools on it.

But that does not answer the question of doing Acronis images through boot media when a CD/DVD drive is not available... :(

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 7:12 pm 
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jaylach wrote:
dvair wrote:
I have always used the drive I create with the Windows 10 installation media tool as my recovery drive. It has all the troubleshooting tools on it.

But that does not answer the question of doing Acronis images through boot media when a CD/DVD drive is not available... :(


That's why I have one of these in my laptop case:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08K4HLXN8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 7:22 pm 
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I've been considering getting an external optical drive and may if I can't get an Acronis USB boot media working well. I don't know if I'd go Blu-Ray though. My main and second desktop systems are already Blu-Ray able and my Asus laptop has a DVD drive. If I can't get Acronis working well from a flash drive I will consider an external but would prefer to not do so.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2021 1:59 am 
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I had to make the Windows PE version of Acronis to use when I had by RAID setup running. I broke the RAID and went back to my Intel Data Migration drive which is a lite version of Acronis and I use the Linux version of that. I made both a Win PE and Linux version of the Acronis Boot media and then uninstalled it as I don't need it running all that extra crap in the background.


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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2021 10:33 pm 
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Success!

:skitty:

I have working Acronis boot media on an SD card in a USB adapter for the Surface 3. It boots fine as a USB device and all looks good to the point that I have an image done on an external. Actually I'm a bit impressed that the Surface 3 will boot to the card even if it is in a hub. I've seen much larger systems that have issues with that.

What I had to do was to install Acronis on the Surface 3 and create USB media using the "Simple" option where it sets up the recovery media specifically configured for the machine it is on. I've booted to the SD a few times including doing two images. It all seems good. :)

I think/hope that I also improved the performance of the Surface 3. Through the above I discovered that the Surface came with an encrypted system drive that was set to automatically open... Actually that makes zero sense to me. :dunno: Why encrypt if nothing is needed to see it anyway??? Still the system drive was encrypted and I didn't want it that way as I must figure that the encryption would cause lowered system performance.

Problem is that the danged thing wanted me to finish doing the encryption process before I would have the option to turn it off. Don't exactly know why but that ticked me off a bit. Used a Power Shell solution that seems to have worked.

Will killing encryption help with system performance? I can't give a decisive answer at this time but can't see how it could not.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 3:06 pm 
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jaylach wrote:
I don't think that the Windows included recovery disk can be done to anything but CD/DVD. I plugged in a USB 64 GB card and it still did not show as an option for making a recovery disk.

Jay, this Microsoft article shows how a USB drive (16 GB or greater) can be used for a recovery disk:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-a-recovery-drive-abb4691b-5324-6d4a-8766-73fab304c246

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 3:33 pm 
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Thanks BB. :) I wonder why it takes a 16 GB USB as a recovery disk can fit on a CD. Just from reading the link I have a hunch that it makes a hybrid recovery that also includes a basic image minus any add-on installs, just Windows. I'll have to give it a try. Between flash drives and SD cards I have 5 16 GB units.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 5:09 pm 
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Let me know how that works. I'm still awaiting the USB drives I ordered from Amazon....due to arrive tomorrow.

I assume a recovery disk will then let me install my Windows system image that I create with the Windows 7 backup?

2nd question....is it best to have a Windows rescue disc or repair disk, or both? I guess I don't really understand the difference.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 5:32 pm 
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bbarry wrote:
Let me know how that works. I'm still awaiting the USB drives I ordered from Amazon....due to arrive tomorrow.

I assume a recovery disk will then let me install my Windows system image that I create with the Windows 7 backup?

2nd question....is it best to have a Windows rescue disc or repair disk, or both? I guess I don't really understand the difference.

First off you can restore a Windows image through the Windows install media; repair media isn't really all that necessary but I still like to have.

Can't say that I really understand what is supposed to be different between a rescue and repair disk. In my opinion I think they are basically different names for the same thing but don't quote me on that as I may be wrong. Now a 'restore disk' I DO consider as different as this would commonly be found on a hard drive partition on a system from a big box store. Its purpose is to restore the system as to what it was when purchased. Since Windows 10 has the ability to reset the PC built in I don't really consider this to be as needed as in the past.

Yes, I will let you know the results. Right now I'm on my second attempt to create the USB media. Sigh, I was looking at some other stuff and clicked the wrong 'close X' and canceled the first attempt when it was ~2/3 complete. :( It is a slow process to build the thing. I am also curious as to what it actually boots.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 5:58 pm 
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I just tried to create a system image on a USB drive. First I was told that Windows Backup had not been set up. Then when I clicked on "Set up Backup", it recognized/listed my NTFS-formatted USB drive as the only Backup Destination. But then when I clicked on the listed USB drive, I got the error message "A system image can't be saved on this location".

Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Could it be the fact that my system drive is using 32.4GB and my formatted USB drive only has 28.6GB free space (although it was advertised as a 32GB drive)? I just figured there was some compression taking place when a system image was being created and that a 32GB drive would be sufficient. Could that be my problem?

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 6:58 pm 
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In the Control Panel, see if you have an option called Recovery. You can use this to make a recovery drive too. Make sure USB drives are formatted as FAT32 before creating the the recovery drive. Rescue/repair pretty sure different names for same thing. Like I said in earlier post I use the Installation media for recovery tools.


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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 7:15 pm 
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bbarry wrote:
I just tried to create a system image on a USB drive. First I was told that Windows Backup had not been set up. Then when I clicked on "Set up Backup", it recognized/listed my NTFS-formatted USB drive as the only Backup Destination. But then when I clicked on the listed USB drive, I got the error message "A system image can't be saved on this location".

Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Could it be the fact that my system drive is using 32.4GB and my formatted USB drive only has 28.6GB free space (although it was advertised as a 32GB drive)? I just figured there was some compression taking place when a system image was being created and that a 32GB drive would be sufficient. Could that be my problem?

It sort of irritates me that drive manufacturers got away with rounding down drive size. In reality 1TB is 1024GB but not to the drive makers. Today, and for a long time, 1TB has become 1000GB. So your 32GB drive SHOULD be 1024MB * 32 but is actually 1000MB * 32. Your 28.6GB free is probably totally accurate. To be fair today's way of doing things takes this as normal so your 32GB USB drive should serve as what is needed as a 32GB drive. Sorry, rant over... Just bugs me that drives are advertised as being larger than they actually are. :(

The probable answer is within your own numbers. All the above said, even if you had every bit of the advertised 32GB as a destination, 32GB can't hold 32.4GB. Also the Windows Image Backup often results in the image being larger than the actual drive. I ran into this attempting to do a Windows image of my Surface 3. I manipulated partitions on an external drive to include space for the Surface 3. I don't remember the exact numbers but I made the partition well over the size of the entire 128GB system drive... probably in the area of 200GB. It was too small for the backup.

As a note ignore the stuff about setting up backups unless it is something you actually want to do. If you look in the left column of that window you will see a direct link for creating an image.

dvair wrote:
In the Control Panel, see if you have an option called Recovery. You can use this to make a recovery drive too. Make sure USB drives are formatted as FAT32 before creating the the recovery drive. Rescue/repair pretty sure different names for same thing. Like I said in earlier post I use the Installation media for recovery tools.

I have to admit to never really noticing that applet sub-menu. Thanks David. :)

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 8:22 pm 
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Thanks Jay & David - I do have an option called Recovery, so I will use it to make a USB recovery drive.

As far as creating a system image, I will assume that my problem is that my 32GB drive is too small for my 32.4GB hard drive. So I will go back to Amazon and get a couple of 64GB drives.

And, Jay, I will ignore setting up backups and simply create a system image.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 12:03 am 
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Well the media boots... at least the menu. Two of the options either crashed or were going to take too long to load than I had time to wait. Going to try again with unchecking the saving of system files to see if I get the more common rescue disk.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:02 am 
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I tried without system files and it errors out saying that a file was missing. Went back to the full flash drive with system files but plugged directly to the tablet instead of a hub and it seems to work fine.

So now I have USB boot media for both Acronis and Windows. Mission accomplished. :) Thanks again for the link BB :) I may try again without system files as it only takes a 1 GB drive and I happen to have one.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:29 pm 
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My images through using the built in Windows backup is now also working but I can't say that I understand. Initially I made a partition on an external drive of 199 GB where the system drive is only ~ 42 GB. The image backup would fail due to lack of space on the destination drive due to Shadow Copy. BTW, Shadow Copy is disabled on the system drive. Since I had space to spare on the external destination drive I increased the partition to ~400 GB. Windows image backup now works fine. If it works it works but I still don't understand. After all is said and done the used space on the destination only shows as ~40 GB.

I think that some of the issues I've seen were due to the system drive having been encrypted. My normal procedure would have been to wipe everything and install clean. Don't really know why I didn't in this case but believe that I would have had fewer issues if I had done so. Anyway, it all looks good with everything working.

Seems that nothing has gone as planned with this system. For instance my Bluetooth game pad was supposed to have been delivered today. Didn't happen due to a delivery address error. Never have seen this one. The pad was ordered through New Egg and my shipping address has been on file for YEARS and is automatically used. How can the package have the wrong address? :dunno: I DID check the info under my Newegg account and the stated shipping address for the itrm is correct. :dunno:

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:42 pm 
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Not sure about the size issues, I have always used a smaller drive to put my images to, but it was larger than the amount of data being imaged. Could be due to the encryption, I have never encrypted a drive.


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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:52 pm 
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dvair wrote:
Not sure about the size issues, I have always used a smaller drive to put my images to, but it was larger than the amount of data being imaged. Could be due to the encryption, I have never encrypted a drive.

I don't encrypt either. Since everything now seems fine I probably won't but part of me still wishes I had wiped everything and did a clean install.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:40 am 
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jaylach wrote:

Can't say that I really understand what is supposed to be different between a rescue and repair disk. In my opinion I think they are basically different names for the same thing but don't quote me on that as I may be wrong.

Jay, I found these definitions on the internet:
A system repair disc is something you can set up in Windows 10, 8, and 7. It's a user-created DVD / CD that offers various system repair utilities.

The system repair disc includes the following troubleshooting utilities: Startup Repair, System Restore, System Image Recovery, Windows Memory Diagnostic, and Command Prompt. When users need it, they can boot from their system repair disc to use those tools.

A recovery drive, also known as a recovery disc, is similar, but not quite the same as a repair disc. It provides access to the same repair utilities as system repair disc.

Additionally, the recovery drive includes Windows 10 or 8 system files so you can reinstall the platform with it if needed. So it provides a backup for Windows 10.

Recovery drive can be in the form of a disc or USB.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:03 am 
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jaylach wrote:
For instance my Bluetooth game pad was supposed to have been delivered today. Didn't happen due to a delivery address error. Never have seen this one. The pad was ordered through New Egg and my shipping address has been on file for YEARS and is automatically used. How can the package have the wrong address? :dunno: I DID check the info under my Newegg account and the stated shipping address for the itrm is correct. :dunno:


As a former UPS manager, I hope it wasn't them, but all of the carriers have been having problems meeting delivery commitments. USPS is famous for providing a fake "problem" scan when a delivery was due -- which gives them an excuse for being late. FedEx and UPS are a bit better about not providing fake exception scans, but I'm sure they do it as well. Hope it arrives soon!

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:19 am 
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They called this morning Steve. The woman seemed to not understand the problem as the shipping address was correct...

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:04 pm 
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jaylach wrote:
They called this morning Steve. The woman seemed to not understand the problem as the shipping address was correct...

Apparently the driver didn't feel like delivering to you yesterday.

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 Post subject: Re: Surface 3 2-in-1
 Post Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:11 pm 
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sboots wrote:
jaylach wrote:
They called this morning Steve. The woman seemed to not understand the problem as the shipping address was correct...

Apparently the driver didn't feel like delivering to you yesterday.

Looks that way. Tracking says it is back on the truck for delivery. No really big deal. It's just a game pad.

<edit>
Delivery has been made and the pad seems to work well although the layout is a little different than I'm used to. Connects fine via USB but I haven't gotten it going with Bluetooth yet. Tablet says it's paired but it does nothing and the indicators on the game pad still show attempting to pair. I'll get it. ;)

Going to give yesterday's driver a pass on the failed delivery. While it was easy enough to figure out the entire street address on the shipping label was like one word being all run together without spaces.

Mouse is scheduled to arrive Saturday.

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