AB4B - current status of partition shrinking deal

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AB4B - current status of partition shrinking deal

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Synology, TrueNAS
Operating system
  1. Linux
  2. Windows
Last edited:
I regularly try the restore function via AB4B on my site No. 3 once a year. I only use VEEAM on other sites. Today I tried a real test with the replacement of the drive in the laptop.

Experiences:
1. The AB4B portal works as I expected, the last backup was available, just as the Backup plan was set.
2. I bought a new Samsung 980 500GB NVMe M.2. as a replacement for the gradually degrading Toshiba THNSN5512GPUK
3. I updated the last available AB4B Recovery agent from Syno Download (W10/64bit). I still have the older version for testing purposes on another USB stick.
4. Through the AB4B Recovery agent, I started the preparation of a new Recover USB stick on my W10Pro.
Troubles:
5. During this process, my entire computer always froze (4 times) in the step where new Partitions were to be prepared on USB for Recovery purposes.
6. In the AB4B Recovery agent "restore-media.log" I discovered the following error as the last one, before each system freeze:
Code:
un script program: 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe', argument: '/c diskpart /s C:/Users/.../Synology Restore Media Creator-2.4.2-1789(2339)/resource/diskpart-install-usb'
7. I looked at the diskpart-install-usb file parameters:
Bash:
list disk
select disk 3
clean
convert gpt noerr
create partition primary size=1024
select partition 1
rescan
rescan
rescan
format quick fs=fat32 label="Syno Media"
remove mount="H:" noerr
assign mount="H:"
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001

8. The target disk was selected correctly.
Clean - Removes any and all partition or volume formatting from the disk with focus.
Convert - is also as expected, incl. the "noerr" parameter = When an error is encountered, DiskPart continues to process commands as if the error did not occur.
Can't imagine why is there a 3x rescan command, but OK.
and finally, GPT attributes are defined ... Specifies that the partition won't receive a drive letter by default when the disk is moved to another computer, or when the disk is seen for the first time by a computer.
nothing that should throw me off balance

9. But I discovered a mystery. After the first freeze and subsequent reboot, the system declared that it saw 3 allocated partitions on the same USB.
Solution 1:
I used the CLI classic that AB4B also uses:
Bash:
diskpart
select the disk, select all partitions one by one and deleted them one by one.
It wasn't enough. AB4B subsequently froze the entire Windows 2 more times. I can't remember the last time I experienced something like this.
Still, the same job was not completed = frozen system.

Solution 2:
gparted via WSL - hard deletion of all partitions and reformatting.
Always the same.

So I switched to the good old classic No. 3:
AB4B Recovery Agent - create ISO - and not directly create USB boot media
Done, no freeze
Rufus formatting utility
Done, no freeze

And then I was able to start the Boot process from the USB in the laptop.
I joined the NAS
All good until moving the partitions from my bare-metal backup source:
My fault, I bought fast and didn't read enough:
  • I knew I wanted a Samsung
  • I knew I wanted a 980, otherwise I would have bought the Pro range, but this laptop only has PCIe 3, so it would be pointless.
  • I knew I wanted to keep the 500GB capacity.
So within a few hours, I was holding a new NVMe in my hand.

Another problem:
I bought the 500GB NVMe as a replacement for the original 512GB NVMe
and I realized that only when AB4B informed me that it could not get single recovery (12GB) partitions from source to target. because only 1GB remained of the allocated capacity.
Because of stupid decimal labels = Syno uses GiB (binary) as GB (decimal) in their AB4B GUI. Every system uses just binary data:
500GB (decimal) = 465.7GiB (binary)
512GB (decimal) = 476.8GiB (binary)
12GB = 11,2GiB
and I still needed a capacity of 12GiB.

Yes, the AB4B tool cannot work with capacity adjustment, even if the system partition contained only 60% of the reserved capacity.
Synology still hasn't removed this "feature" from the Recovery Agent. In doing so, it would be enough to insert a simple function on the shrink partition via DISKPART, which can also do this in the Windows environment:
shrink desired=
I can live without the Recovery partition because I use the Backup policy so I can sleep well.
But one small adjustment in the Boot recovery agent is enough and this problem would be solved.
 

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