System can't find new hard drive to put system image on. (And so much more..)

[Generalgr]

Computer specs

OS : Windows 10 home (Upgraded from windows 8)

Mobo : ASrock z77 extreme

Cpu : Intel I7 3770

Hard drives, 3 of them 1 : Seagate Barracuda 1 tb (Old drive)
2 : Seagate Firecuda 2 tb

external drive : Seagate slim backup drive 1tb

gpu : Geforce gtx 970 windforce gigabyte

Ram : corsair 8gb ddr3 vengence series



OKAY. Where the heck do I begin.
So this is a rebuilt/upgraded computer. I upgraded everything except for the cpu and the hard drive. Well, hard drive is running at 100% ( all the time and even at idle when I'm not running any background programs.) and computer is running very slow. Slow at startup, slow at opening internet, slow at surfing the web, slow at opening programs, everything. So I went onto these forums to look up "100% hard drive usage solutions". Nothing helped. So I figured I would get a new hard drive, take a system image of the old drive and transfer the system image over using my 1tb backup drive. HOLY CRAP was I wrong. There I did reformat and partition the new drive by the way. Do I have to label this drive as system drive somehow? Do I have to do something to this drive in the bios? I have played around with the boot order in bios as well, it doesn't seem to help. Here are the main issues I'm having.

Issue 1: When I boot into recovery, the new hard drive is not listed as a point to restore the system image on. Windows instead is telling me that the backup drive needs to be reformatted in order for the system image to be installed on it. Wait...what? I took out the old drive, the new drive is plugged in and on. Why can I not put my system image on it? Why doesn't it show up as an option? If my old hard drive was plugged in as well as the new one the old one would show up, and the new one would still be missing. What is weird is that I reformatted and partitioned this drive. It shows up when the computer is running meaning when I click My PC it is one of the labeled drives. I have it labeled G:.

Issue 2: Windows recovery disc will not work. I created a recovery disc in order to try to get around my system trying to restore my backup drive instead of the new drive. Note I created this disk with the option "Create a recovery drive." I put in the disc I get this error. "Non system disk or disk error." Okay.. So I can't boot from my disk. well maybe it burned incorrectly. So I set up a recovery drive on my backup drive and booted from that. It then asked me to create a recovery disc. I inserted the disc and I got this error. "System repair disc could not be created. The system cannot find the file specified."

Guys I don't know what else to do. All I want to do is put everything from my old, dying hard drive to my brand new one with system image but that seems to be a fluster cluck of crap. Any help would be appreciated! Thank you

 

[Colif]

Is the new drive formatted as GPT? That would be one reason it won't install if drives are formatted as MBR

can you get into windows at all? Does the old drive still boot? Can you show us a screen shot of disk management with the two drives attached so we can see what you dealing with. May not need external drive plugged in as problem is between other two drives.

 

[Generalgr]

Is the new drive formatted as GPT? That would be one reason it won't install if drives are formatted as MBR

can you get into windows at all? Does the old drive still boot? Can you show us a screen shot of disk management with the two drives attached so we can see what you dealing with. May not need external drive plugged in as problem is between other two drives.

I have not tried that! I will format as GPT and see what happens from there. Yes windows still works and everything but it is just incredibly slow. I will get on with the screenshot when I get home.

 

[Generalgr]

Is the new drive formatted as GPT? That would be one reason it won't install if drives are formatted as MBR

can you get into windows at all? Does the old drive still boot? Can you show us a screen shot of disk management with the two drives attached so we can see what you dealing with. May not need external drive plugged in as problem is between other two drives.

No, still nothing. I reformatted and partitioned the drive as GPT yet it still does not show up as a drive to restore the image on. I also still cannot use my repair disc. Thank you for answering though.

 

[Colif]

I wonder if the drive needs to be blank, not even set up as GPT. Its possible image creates the partitions it needs.

I haven't ever done it myself, so I don't know.

I would just start from a fresh install on new HDD, especially if the 100% problem could be windows and not the drive. Did you just move hdd over to new PC or did you reinstall windows after the move?

 

[Generalgr]

I wonder if the drive needs to be blank, not even set up as GPT. Its possible image creates the partitions it needs.

I haven't ever done it myself, so I don't know.

I would just start from a fresh install on new HDD, especially if the 100% problem could be windows and not the drive. Did you just move hdd over to new PC or did you reinstall windows after the move?

No reinstalling has been done. Windows 10 already came on the computer but I don't see why this is just a big failure. This hard drive SHOULD show up to put the image on but it's just not there! It keeps trying to put the image on my old hard drive (they're both plugged in by the way) and there is no drop down menu to select the new one. This is just so frustrating. I tried formatting to GPT and putting the system image on but it's still not an option and does not show up as an option. Anything else?

 

[Colif]

i have tagged it as storage, one of the exports there will help you. I am not sure what I am missing.

 

[Generalgr]

i have tagged it as storage, one of the exports there will help you. I am not sure what I am missing.

Okay thank you for your input!
If any of the storage experts could give me possible solutions that would be great!

 

[Generalgr]

Anyone?

 

[USAFRet]

- Create a whole new Win 10 OS install. DVD or USB. Here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10/
- Boot from that. What options does it give you for installing?

Now...with all new hardware, the licensing/activation might choke.
You should have done this before you changed the hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3164428/windows-build-1607-activation.html

 

[Generalgr]

- Create a whole new Win 10 OS install. DVD or USB. Here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10/
- Boot from that. What options does it give you for installing?

Now...with all new hardware, the licensing/activation might choke.
You should have done this before you changed the hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3164428/windows-build-1607-activation.html

Okay, I've already linked my account before I inserted the new hard drive. So, we are clear there. So just to recap.. I'm currently downloading windows 10 from the link you sent me onto a blank dvd with about 4.5gb of space. I will then before booting, go into the boot menu in my bios and select the dvd drive to boot from as the first option. Then once it boots, you want me to tell you all the options I see. Is this correct? If so, this is what I am currently doing and will get back to you once I am finished in about half an hour.

 

[USAFRet]

Right.
When it asks 'where' to install to, select Custom.
What does it show you?

 

[Generalgr]

Right.
When it asks 'where' to install to, select Custom.
What does it show you?

I unfortunately can't even boot from that.. I downloaded windows from the link you gave me and I receive "reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key."

 

[Generalgr]

Right.
When it asks 'where' to install to, select Custom.
What does it show you?

Forgive me I spoke to soon. For some reason the files didn't burn to the disk. I am burning them now. Will get back to you in a few.

 

[Colif]

you know, i should have thought of a fresh install but I figured you wanted to install the image... I will let you carry on, you in good hands here

 

[Generalgr]

((Thanks Colif)) Okay. I burned the files of the download from the link you sent me onto the DVD. I looked in My PC and it shows that windows 10 is indeed on the dvd. What is really pissing me off is that I continue to get the reboot and select proper device error. Although.. did notice something. When I click on the windows 10 which is in the DVD, I click on properties, I look at what application it opens with and it is unknown. Maybe this is an issue? If the windows 10 doesn't have an application to open with will it work at all to boot with? Maybe I'm missing something? I choose the DVD rom in bios as the ONLY boot option yet still no boot even though the windows 10 is on the dvd. I still get that stupid reboot error. I just don't know. I would rather not have to do a fresh install and frankly, this should not be an issue. I made a system image, I should be able to use it. There is no reason why so many issues would be happening. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Generalgr]

Anything on this "select proper boot device" error guys? If I can get passed this error I can continue with the instructions I've been given. I used a DVD-R disk to burn the windows 10 on. I know it burned correctly because when I go into "My PC" I can see that the windows 10 is on the DVD when I click on it. My computer just won't boot from it. Any ideas why? Any suggestions for a fix? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[USAFRet]

Anything on this "select proper boot device" error guys? If I can get passed this error I can continue with the instructions I've been given. I used a DVD-R disk to burn the windows 10 on. I know it burned correctly because when I go into "My PC" I can see that the windows 10 is on the DVD when I click on it. My computer just won't boot from it. Any ideas why? Any suggestions for a fix? Any help would be appreciated.

How, specifically, did you create that DVD?

 

[Generalgr]

Anything on this "select proper boot device" error guys? If I can get passed this error I can continue with the instructions I've been given. I used a DVD-R disk to burn the windows 10 on. I know it burned correctly because when I go into "My PC" I can see that the windows 10 is on the DVD when I click on it. My computer just won't boot from it. Any ideas why? Any suggestions for a fix? Any help would be appreciated.

How, specifically, did you create that DVD?

Okay. I'll go step by step on what I did to create the DVD.

1. Clicked on link you sent me and downloaded the media creation tool (Windows 10.)
2. Chose to download as an ISO file to put on the DVD.
3. Finished downloading. Inserted DVD. Burned Windows 10 ISO file that was just downloaded onto the DVD by right clicking the file, and choosing the burn option. The file on the DVD is 3.38 gb in size. There is still some space left on the DVD.

That's pretty much it. Did I miss something?
Thanks for the replies.

 

[USAFRet]

Anything on this "select proper boot device" error guys? If I can get passed this error I can continue with the instructions I've been given. I used a DVD-R disk to burn the windows 10 on. I know it burned correctly because when I go into "My PC" I can see that the windows 10 is on the DVD when I click on it. My computer just won't boot from it. Any ideas why? Any suggestions for a fix? Any help would be appreciated.

How, specifically, did you create that DVD?

Okay. I'll go step by step on what I did to create the DVD.

1. Clicked on link you sent me and downloaded the media creation tool (Windows 10.)
2. Finished downloading. Inserted DVD. Burned Windows 10 file that was just downloaded onto the DVD by right clicking the file, and choosing the burn option. The file on the DVD is 3.38 gb in size. There is still some space left on the DVD.

That's pretty much it. Did I miss something?
Thanks for the replies.

OK....that's not it.
You downloaded the Win 10 ISO file right? And then just burned that, as is, to the DVD?
You were 1/2way there...

Burn it again with a new DVD, with:
Rufus
or
Windows USB/DVD Download Tool

 

[Colif]

I did that, great way to waste a DVD

took a few DVD before i got a bootable one...

 

[Generalgr]

Wow! I did not know you needed to use this tool in order to make it bootable.. Thanks guys. I'll get back to you with the results in a few.

 

[Generalgr]

Anything on this "select proper boot device" error guys? If I can get passed this error I can continue with the instructions I've been given. I used a DVD-R disk to burn the windows 10 on. I know it burned correctly because when I go into "My PC" I can see that the windows 10 is on the DVD when I click on it. My computer just won't boot from it. Any ideas why? Any suggestions for a fix? Any help would be appreciated.

How, specifically, did you create that DVD?

Okay. I'll go step by step on what I did to create the DVD.

1. Clicked on link you sent me and downloaded the media creation tool (Windows 10.)
2. Finished downloading. Inserted DVD. Burned Windows 10 file that was just downloaded onto the DVD by right clicking the file, and choosing the burn option. The file on the DVD is 3.38 gb in size. There is still some space left on the DVD.

That's pretty much it. Did I miss something?
Thanks for the replies.

OK....that's not it.
You downloaded the Win 10 ISO file right? And then just burned that, as is, to the DVD?
You were 1/2way there...

Burn it again with a new DVD, with:
Rufus
or
Windows USB/DVD Download Tool

Ok. So we have progress! That worked. I was able to boot from the DVD. Now, here is what I do to get to my system image.

I select the language and it brings me to a screen with multiple options. I choose troubleshoot and hit the system image restore option. It goes to another window and this option was not able to be chosen before. "Exclude disks to be formatted and partitioned" So I went into that option and excluded my current 1tb old hard drive because one, theres not enough space and two, I am trying to put the system image on the new old drive not the old one. So I excluded the old hard drive and kept the new one unchecked. In a message at the bottom, it told me that the drive with the system image (My external backup drive) would automatically be excluded from formatting and partitioning. So okay, I click next and I begin the system image.... FAIL. System image has failed. Here is what came up. (It's a big long error but I'm giving you the whole thing so you know exactly what the error says.)

"Restore failed because a disk which was critical at backup is excluded. To continue you need to either remove the disk from exclusion list or detach it from machine or clean it using DiskPart utility. and then retry restore. If you cannot clean or detach it then change the disk signature using DiskPart command UNIQUEID DISK ID. (0xB0042415)

Okay.. So what should I do now? This is confusing for me and I'm not sure what fixes this here. Should I keep my 1tb from the exclusion list?
Thanks for the help.

 

[USAFRet]

OK...lets take a deep breath.

Does the old (dying) drive still boot up?
Possibly we can completely dispense with the problematic Windows Recovery/system image junk.

 

[Generalgr]

OK...lets take a deep breath.

Does the old (dying) drive still boot up?
Possibly we can completely dispense with the problematic Windows Recovery/system image junk.

I think It may be working! I powered off my PC and disconnected my old hard drive. I kept the new one in. I went through all the steps and it is now restoring the system image on the new hard drive! Now I'm wondering if this will solve the 100% hard drive usage issue as well as the slowness of my PC. Do you think this is will help?