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I had created disk images of my Windows 10 installation using the dd command via a Ubuntu Live CD.

The old hard disk size was of 2TB and I wanted to restore it to a fresh hard disk of the same size with the exact partition sizes.

I know to restore the image file via this command:

sudo dd if=.<name of disk image file> of=<output location>

My question is what is the correct and quick process to restore the full Windows 10 installation with the least troubles which includes:

  1. Windows 10 partition - 199 GB
  2. EFI partition - 100 MB
  3. Reserved partition - 16 MB

(I'm having dumps of the above 3 partitions)

Screenshot of HDD partitions: https://i.sstatic.net/O775h.png

Please guide me on how to avoid the long process of re-installing Windows 10 and the installed apps.

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  • Did you create a dump of the partition table as well?
    – Eugen Rieck
    Commented Sep 14, 2020 at 9:17
  • @EugenRieck: I'm having dumps of the above 3 partitions.
    – Mithun John Jacob
    Commented Sep 14, 2020 at 9:21
  • @KamilMaciorowski: Can you please explain more? I backed up the 3 partitions which was visible via Live CD
    – Mithun John Jacob
    Commented Sep 14, 2020 at 10:00
  • @KamilMaciorowski: It's clear that he didn't.
    – harrymc
    Commented Sep 14, 2020 at 10:25
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    @harrymc Not to blame, I agree. I'm not blaming anyone. I'm only disagreeing with you about whether or not the status was clear. I can see your answer is designed to work without the saved partition table, so it no longer matters. (I'm not upvoting the answer only because I'm not a Windows guy and I really cannot tell if the answer is good. It probably is. Keep up the good work.)
    – Kamil Maciorowski
    Commented Sep 14, 2020 at 10:59

1 Answer 1

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Since you took a backup of the partitions, rather than of the entire disk, and using in addition dd instead of a product better adapted to Windows, the procedure should be as follows:

  • Run a live boot and create one partition over the whole disk, leaving some unallocated space of about one gigabyte
  • dd back the Windows partition
  • Use a Windows boot media to Run a Startup Repair.

In the future, better use a Windows-oriented Drive Cloning Software.

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  • None of the Windows-oriented Drive Cloning Software was detecting the partitions. That's why I used Ubuntu Live CD.
    – Mithun John Jacob
    Commented Sep 14, 2020 at 15:49
  • That's not possible or Windows wouldn't be able to boot.
    – harrymc
    Commented Sep 14, 2020 at 18:01
  • Windows was not booting. Original problem: superuser.com/q/1582383/939111
    – Mithun John Jacob
    Commented Sep 15, 2020 at 2:59
  • Still, many of the Windows-oriented products, such as AOMEI, have boot media. They are also more efficient, as they don't copy unused sectors. Most important, they can take a backup of the entire disk rather than partitions, which includes boot sectors and partition table.
    – harrymc
    Commented Sep 15, 2020 at 6:18
  • Thanks. I had used Windows based apps in the past and it worked well. This hard disk crash was quite unexpected since it was a new HDD. Also, in your answer, you meant to create the partitions at this stage: tinyurl.com/y3kqh45t Right?
    – Mithun John Jacob
    Commented Sep 15, 2020 at 6:38

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