beta feature not working properly?

[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.


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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.


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

That worked!


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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.

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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?