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I just bought a new laptop and was trying different things on it. I backed up my system partition with DriveImage XML and made a clean install of Windows to test something new. Later, when I tried to restore the backup, it showed that 'unable to retrieve drive layout'.

I googled a bit and the reason seems to be that my system drive is GPT-based, which DriveImage XML does not recognize.

I found the following thread: Driveimage XML : unable to retrieve drive layout

The answer there seems to be change the system drive from GPT to MBR. However, there does not seem to be a way to do that without losing all the data on that drive.

My primary drive: GPT Disk 2 1. Windows RF Tools, NTFS Primary, 2013MB

  1. SYSTEM, FAT32(LBA) Primary, 360 MB

  2. Unformatted Primary, 128.0MB

  3. Windows (C:), NTFS Primary, 96.97GB

  4. NTFS Primary, 450.0MB

  5. Recovery Image(E:), NTFS Primary, 10.90GB

  6. HP_TOOLS, FAT32(LBA) Primary

My system drive is Windows(C:). I am able to recover the backup XML image to a standalone partition on my portable drive. Can I just copy-paste the files in the partition in my portable drive to Windows(C:) and overwrite the old files? Will the system boot in this way? Or what other options do I have?

At this moment, I see two possible options:

  1. Foramt Disk 2 from GPT to MBR without data loss, which is highly unlikely because I have more than 4 partitions on this disk.

  2. Copy-paste personal folders from the backup to existing Windows(C:). I found a website introducing how to recover files from Windows.old folder. What I am not sure is what to do with boot files in my case.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971760

The final solution for my case is that I gave up trying to restore my system with the XML file. I made a clean install from scratch. That being sad, I am really mad at DriveImage XML. They should put a big warning regarding this issue.

Community
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John
  • 121

2 Answers2

-1

I had the same issue.

I restored my backup partition on an external MBR disk using 'DriveImage XML'. I backed up the restored partition with an other appropriate backup/restore software (ie: not DriveImage XML) and, at last, I restored the latest backuped partition again on my tageted GPT disk with the appropriate backup/restore software.

I hope this could help !

user1039379
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-1

sounds like you could of just left out driveimage xml. I for one agree that the makers of this software should say up front about mbr vs gpt, or rewrite the program to work both ways.

user1280054
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