Trouble Making Image Backup with Acronia True Image 2016 -- apparent misread of space

(1) Yes, that deletes your Partition 5 & recreates it with the same number 5 & in the same sectors. The reason it comes back into the same sectors is likely that those will be the only unallocated sectors after your delete. If there were unallocated sectors that preceded them or if the size of the unallocated sectors were much larger than 800/so MB, we'd have to go fishing for more parameters to put onto the Create command. Or you could Exit DiskPart & create it in Disk Management instead. Then come back into DiskPart for the rest.

Remember to reboot after partition work like that, even though the partition number stays the same.

(2) "I think you’re saying the previous code emptied out part 6 when you moved the one file to part 5."

When I look into the ReagentC.log, it looks like "ReagentC /Disable" either moves or copies WinRE.wim out of the partition & to a "staging area". It seems that might have happened the first time for me -- but the second time (to get things back to the original partition) it did not happen. WinRE.wim was still in both partitions. No matter which happens to you -- we'll just copy it back to partition 6, if it gets deleted. Nothing else in partition 6 should get deleted. But don't you have an image of it anyhow? And didn't Slance310 say you could copy back just that partition (if necessary)?

Here was the /Disable I did the second time which looks much the same as the first...

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] -----Executing command line: ReagentC  /Disable-----

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] ------------------------------------------------------

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] Enter WinReUnInstall

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] Update enhanced config info is enabled.

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] WinRE is installed

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] winreCopyWIMBack moved WIM file from \?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition4\Recovery\WindowsRE\ to \?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition4\Recovery\WindowsRE\ successfully!

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] WinRE uninstall step 1 succeeded: copy WIM file back to its staging location

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] WinRE uninstall step 2 succeeded: update agent config for BCD id, install state, schedule operation.

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] The current Recovery BCD entry points to \Device\HarddiskVolume4[\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim]

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] The WIM file being unregistered is \Device\HarddiskVolume4[\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim]

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] Paths are the same, clearing Recovery BCD

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] Cleared recovery BCD successfully

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] WinRE uninstall step 3 succeeded: unregister winre.wim from recovery BCD.

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] WinRE uninstall step 4 succeeded: remove recovery related sequence from BCD.

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] WinRE uninstall step 5 completed with return value TRUE: remove validation task.

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] Exit WinReUnInstall returns 1 with last error: 0x0

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] ------------------------------------------------------

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] -----Exiting command line: ReagentC  /Disable, Error: 0-----

2020-07-27 00:14:19, Info    [ReAgentc.exe] ------------------------------------------------------

It says the word "move" & it says the word "copy" -- but WinRE.wim was still in the partition & not in the "staging area" which I believe to be "C:\Windows\System32\Recovery". But don't worry, if yours gets moved, we'll move it back. And Partition 5 will remain your new Active Recovery partition.

Edit: Well, sheesh, that "winreCopyWIMBack" line did look different enough last time to account for the different outcome...

2020-07-24 03:34:11, Info  [ReAgentc.exe] winreCopyWIMBack moved WIM file from \?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition5\Recovery\WindowsRE\ to C:\WINDOWS\system32\Recovery\Winre.wim successfully!

So - it looks like yours will be moved out, but we'll simply move it back.

I think way to proceed is to first delete part 5 and then recreate -- and see whether the bad sectors are gone or not. Then decide about anyting else. The final advantage being to not bother imaging the about 15 GB on part 6 any more, just leave it and keep a one-partition backup of it on the external drive. Don't even have to delete it finally, unless some day I need more space, but that day is not going to come, I have way more than I need. The benefit is save a little time on imaging.

1. I’ll use your coding to delete and recreate the partition.
2. OK, will look for the full, new code when its ready.

“And it looks like "ReagentC /Disable" is what emptied my original Recovery partition. That needs to be left out for you since you want them to stay there. “ I think you’re saying the previous code emptied out part 6 when you moved the one file to part 5. I think I was thinking that if something went wrong with part 5 recreation and moving file in, we still have the working part 6. And I haven’t made any final decision about the esd. But if keep it, seems to me we might as well move it to part 5 too, and just delete 6 — unless it has bad sectors to contain. Well, even then, we could merge it into 5. Or why even bother, just leave it as-is.

And that’s another point. At first, let’s simply delete part 5 and recreate, and see if that gets rid of the bad sectors. If not, the rest seems superflous, since I would want to leave those partitions there in order to contain the bad sectors, not let them get to C or any other partition. It would not matter that part 5 were now empty. We would just leave part 6 as-is in that case, why bother moving anything to part 5. So, Part 5 is the test partition for us.

3. Nothing useful from Acer thread yet. Only a couple responses telling me how to hold down the shift key — I know how to do that. :)

I’m wondering, do we get two copies of the files because simply reassigning the partition with this ReAgent thing automatically finds and takes the active file needed for that? So, you don’t have to copy that file over.

Slance, good thought, I’ll double check with Acronis. So I probably need not worry about playing with part 6, and it being properly labeled as Push Button. But I hope we can recreate it as needed and as push button. We would bother only if doing that on part 5 got rid of the bad sectors. Re deleting and then formatting,  unless I were to do a backup from Acronis for also backing up unallocated space, I would need to recreate the partition too.

PCR Just PCE:

I’ll have to take your word for the coding. Please put in a not every time I have to do a restart, soI don’t forget.

BUT first, I will use the coding to delete and recreate part 5 — and see if we get rid of bad sectors. Once we know about that, then we know what to think on about the rest.

I might get to this tomorrow morning.

And to confirm, I think this is all the coding I need in order to delete and recreate part 5 and make it a Recovery partition, although empty -- correct if I'm wrong, I don't want to proceed into a mistake. (And then I will check with Acronis):

DiskPart                                    <<< Enter DiskPart

Select  Disk  0

List  Part                                   <<< Show the partitions

Select  Part  5                           <<< Be sure you get that number right

Delete  Partition  Override       <<< Delete partition 5

Create  Partition  Primary         <<< Creates a new partition 5

List  Part                                    <<< Show partition 5 is back

Format  Quick  FS=NTFS  Label="Recovery Tools"           <<< Format & label it

Assign  Letter=R                                                               <<< Give it letter R

Set  ID="de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac"     <<< Make it a Recovery partition

GPT  Attributes=0x8000000000000001                            <<< Give it those attributes

Select  Part  6                          <<< Select that Push Button Partition

Assign  Letter=X                      <<< Give it letter X

List  Vol                                    <<< Show the new letters

List  Part                                   <<< Show partition 5 is a Recovery partition

Exit                                           <<< Exit DiskPart

OK. Read through it & let us know. I'm back to normal.

Staus update: VERY sorry. I was gpoing to do the part 5 on Saturday morning. But I woke up to find my Internet was out. And the coding was in the forum, I had not copied it to my desktop.

I just now finally got it back. So I will get back on this, see what you have written, etc. But I have a bunch of things to do following up on nw that Im back onloine, so will see if I can read what you wrote later, and maybe tomorrow proceed, or maybe Wed. Of course, depends on yoru newer info. Re part 6 (I saw one line in what you wrote) we can empty it by moving both files to part 5. Can always take the esd out of part 5 later. Oh, mayeb we can't just move it, the partitions woud not be named Push Button. That name got put on there somehow, might be needed, coding could refer to it, or it might mean it is not a typical Recovery partition.

I was going to say no, but it seems one can redirect Windows to use a different Recovery partition w/o first removing the files from the original. I used the same 3 commands as before, & this time WinRE.wim remains in both partitions...

ReagentC  /Disable

ReagentC   /SetREImage  /Path  R:\Recovery\WindowsRE  /Target  C:\Windows

Reagentc   /Enable

R:\ would be the letter of Partition 5 for you. You must XCOPY your files to it first from Partition 6. If Partition 6 loses its WinRE.wim (as it happened to me the first time), we can always copy the files back. But your new Recovery partition will remain 5.

Want to do it? It will mean you can do a system image of Win 10 w/o having to include Win 8.

Final notes:

(a) It was unnecessary for me to do a reboot to Windows before Shift+Restart. The recovery environment worked fine first time in. I guess the problem with that was in not doing one after the partition work last time.

(b) There is no Recycle Bin in my Recovery partition this time around. What appears to create that is doing a /SetREImage before doing a /Disable.