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Restore i5 SP3 image onto i7 SP3

grumpy

Active Member
I have 2 different sandisk brand. I have tried 16GB, and 32GB.
That may be the problem. My Sandisk drive would not boot with the recovery image. Sandisk drives are set to mount as "fixed disks" rather than "removable drives" in order to be compatible with "Windows to Go". There are apparently ways to make the drive bootable, but I just found another drive.
 
OP
L

lcavada

Member
That may be the problem. My Sandisk drive would not boot with the recovery image. Sandisk drives are set to mount as "fixed disks" rather than "removable drives" in order to be compatible with "Windows to Go". There are apparently ways to make the drive bootable, but I just found another drive.
They key though is that once the SP3 makes the recovery disk, everything is written over. So if it was bootable, its no longer.

So somehow the making recovery disk program within windows needs to make the drive bootable.
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Creating a recovery disk isn't a bootable disk per say, it is the actual recovery files for when you perform a reset or refresh.

If you want to boot a fresh install, the easiest way to do it is mount a Windows 8.1 ISO and from an elevated command prompt copy the ISO to the Thumb Drive:

C:>xcopy d:\*.* /e/f/s e:

Assuming D is the mounted drive and E is the thumb drive...
 

Bandito

Active Member
As far as restoring your image from the i5 SP3 to your new i7 SP3, it should work just fine. The only real difference between the machines (that we know of) is the GPU on the CPU and it should be compatible with the i5 drivers, just not optimal. You can then try to update the GPU drivers and you should be good to go.

With all that being said, I still wouldn't restore an image from a different machine for myself. As others have mentioned, we really don't know what else could be different under the hood, so it's safest to keep the machine as delivered and reinstall what you need to on the desktop side. Yeah, it takes a lot longer, but if you run into any issues down the road, it will eliminate wondering whether or not your image restore may be part of the problem that you're experiencing.
 

graye

Member
Thanks.

If one is to make a bootable USB, when using the make recovery disk function in windows, it reformats the USB (FAT32) but its no longer bootable. :-(

Booting from a USB-based device (a flash drive or CDROM drive) is a two step process...
1) Use the "volume up" technique to turn off "secure boot"
2) Use the "volume down" technique to specify the boot device
 

graye

Member
I routinely make "clones" of my main PC to other PCs with different motherboards, processors, graphic cards, etc. Each new version of Windows is actually more tolerant of this type of procedure, and I have been 100% successful since the early Windows 7 days.

For example, I recently did a complete image backup of my existing Win 8.1 system (not a Surface) using Acronis. I then restored that image onto a new VirtualBox VM to make a virtual clone of my system.

Yeah, the first boot is rather lengthy... as it discovers and installs the new devices. But, you just have to be patient and wait for a few reboots.

And yes, it will detect enough changes in the hardware to ask you to re-register the OS. So you might need another registration key if you plan to keep both OS running.
 
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lcavada

Member
Creating a recovery disk isn't a bootable disk per say, it is the actual recovery files for when you perform a reset or refresh.

If you want to boot a fresh install, the easiest way to do it is mount a Windows 8.1 ISO and from an elevated command prompt copy the ISO to the Thumb Drive:

C:>xcopy d:\*.* /e/f/s e:

Assuming D is the mounted drive and E is the thumb drive...
Yes, but the issue is that I dont have a windows 8.1 disk. I installed 8.0 then did the upgrade to 8.1. So I do not have disc for 8.1 :-(
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Yes, but the issue is that I dont have a windows 8.1 disk. I installed 8.0 then did the upgrade to 8.1. So I do not have disc for 8.1 :-(
Very confused.... the SP3 came with Windows 8.1....you installed Windows 8 on your SP3?
 
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