beta feature not working properly?

[Ryoth]

Trying to snatch windows 8 x64 because the only iso i have is the 32 bit version.

As you can see I have an external hdd, which is not detected

[admin]

You need to click the refresh button so that the drop down list recognizes the inserted USB drive.

[Ryoth]

Yeah i did try that..

[SomeGuy1]

I tried and got something similar, then I played a little.

I was using a computer with Win7 with an internal MBR formatted HDD.

On that machine I could not see a USB attached external drive that was formatted as GPT. I could see one that was formatted as MBR. I reformatted the external GPT USB drive as MBR and then it would show up in the list too.

I then tried on a Win8.1 machine with a GPT formatted internal drive. The external USB drive formatted as MBR would not show up. I reformatted the external USB drive as GPT and it would then show up in the list.

So, while there are obviously numerous other variables and permutations, is it that depending on if the computers HDD is formatted as MBR or GPT, the external drive must be the same?


***

So, then I tried to use WinToUSB on the Win8.1 machine. I am attempting to "clone" an existing Win8.1 "with Bing" (OEM) to run from an external drive. I set up two partitions on the external USB drive (formatted as GPT, same as the running internal drive);
266.67M FAT32
Approx 60G NTFS partition
WinToUSB ran, said it completed, but I could not boot from the external drive, getting an error saying no bootable device found.

Any thoughts?

Note; I was using AOMEI to set up the partitions, I intend to try again manually setting them up from command prompt commands. Is it that I need to set EFI when formatting? I will post the results when I have them.

Thought; if WinToUSB needs to have the partitions prepared on the external drive prior to running WinToUSB, it might be helpful to provide instructions for doing so in the "How to use WinToUSB" page.


Thanks!

[admin]

You are right, the external disk and the internal disk must have the same partition scheme and I will improve the how to use guide。

About the "no bootable device found" error. After successfully cloned the windows 8.1 to the GPT formatted external drive, you must boot it in EFI mode.

[Ryoth]

well it is listed!
but is it required that the external hdd be bigger than the internal one?

i do have partitions bigger than the "used" values on the system information screen

[admin]

The destination boot partition must be 20% larger than the used space on source boot partition.

[SomeGuy1]

So, I did this;

(based on instructions from Microsoft technet)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libra...24839.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libra...25686.aspx

Opened an Administrator Command Prompt

Ran Diskpart

Identified my external USB HDD with list disk. (disk 1)

select disk 1
clean
convert gpt
create partition primary size=650 (size selected to match existing HDD I am trying to copy)
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE tools"
create partition efi size=260
(from MS web site: Note: for Advanced Format Generation One drives, change to size=260.)
(this matches the existing HDD I am trying to copy)
format quick fs=fat32 label="System"
create partition msr size=128 (size from MS web site, and matches existing HDD I am trying to copy)
create partition primary
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows"

I then issued command list partition to check what I had.

I discovered that there were 5 partitons. Partiton 1 was a Reserved partition of 128M that is apparently automatically created by default when the "convert gpt" command is issued.

So I removed that partiton by "select partitition 1" and then "delete partition override".

Then did this again;

create partition primary size=650 (size selected to match existing HDD I am trying to copy)
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE tools"
create partition efi size=260
(from MS web site: Note: for Advanced Format Generation One drives, change to size=260.)
(this matches the existing HDD I am trying to copy)
format quick fs=fat32 label="System"
create partition msr size=128 (size from MS web site, and matches existing HDD I am trying to copy)
create partition primary
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows"

I then did "list partition" for both the existing HDD I am trying to copy and my external USB HDD.

Partition 1, 2, and 3 are identical, partion 4 is smaller on my external drive, and the external drive does not have a partition for the OEM recovery files.

I then exited out of diskpart and the administrative command prompt.


**********************************************


I then ran WinToUSB. I tried to copy the existing installed Win8.1 from the internal HDD to the external HDD.

It looked like it ran, but the external HDD would not boot.

I looked at the partitions and the size of the data in the WinToUSB external drive partitions was different than the internal HDD I was using as the source.


**********************************************


So, I reformatted the external HDD, and tried to make a WinToUSB from a Win8.1 CD.

That worked!


**********************************************


So, I can "WinToUSB" this Win8.1 CD onto an external HDD:

1. Using a Win7 machine with an internal HDD formatted as an MBR drive to an external drive configured as MBR with one single partition.

2. Using a Win8.1 machine with an internal HDD formatted as a GPT drive to an external drive configured as GPT with the partitions as described as above.

I can NOT do #2 using the installed version of Win8.1 already installed on the internal hard drive.

**********************************************

Question; Is there a problem with the new beta using an existing installation of Win8.1 on an internal drive as the source?

Question; What is your recommendation for formatting the external HDD?

Any other thoughts on how to get the copy from existing installation to work?

[admin]

Yes, maybe there's a bug in beta verion, but it works perfectly on our test environment. I need to reproduce the issue to fix it. So can you tell me more details about the Problem. The partitions you created is no problem.

[SomeGuy1]

Yes, maybe there's a bug in beta verion, but it works perfectly on our test environment. I need to reproduce the issue to fix it. So can you tell me more details about the Problem. The partitions you created is no problem.

Attempt of the day;

Cleaned, partitioned and formatted the USB disk using the procedure I described previously.

Ran WinToUSB installing Win8.1 from a CD. (Worked!)

Attempted to run WinToUSB to copy/clone the existing Win8.1 installation.

(version 6.3.9600 Build 9600 Win8.1 "with Bing")

Received the Error "Already has a version of Windows installed or the same name file has been existed! Please format the destination partition and retry. (0x000000F200AC0000)"

Ran Diskpart

On partition 2 (the 260M partition):
format quick fs=fat32 label="System"

On partition 4 (the 54G partition):
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows"

Ran WinToUSB again, to copy/clone the existing windows8.1 installation.

When the system re-booted, I got a blue screen and the message "Inaccessible_Boot_Device"


Soooo.... It would seem it is something specific to the cloning/copying process.


I am not sure what else to try...

Is there anything else I can try or look at that would provide you with useful information?

Wild guess/speculation; Could the "Type ID" have anything to do with it?