Hello, I created bootable rescue media (on a USB stick) using the default / suggested WinRE. When testing this, the recovery environment could not find my backup images because the USB hard drive dock was not recognized. There was no error about missing drivers, etc.

I decided to try Win PE 10 instead, and when I tested that, the USB hard drive dock was recognized.

I am glad I tested things, but can someone give me a little insight into why the dock wasn't recognized in the WinRE rescue media? I make all of my backups on hard drives inserted into this dock, so it has no problems in Windows 10.

What specific release of WinRE is Reflect using on your system? You’ll see it mentioned at the top of the Rescue Media Builder wizard if you choose to build with WinRE, or in the Rescue environment itself in the title bar along the very top of the interface. When you choose WinPE 10, Reflect (currently) builds with WinPE 10 1809. Your system’s WinRE kernel could potentially be older than that, although if the system is running Windows 10 rather than an older release, that seems unlikely because 1809 itself is several releases behind the latest release of Windows 10. The other possibility is that your particular system’s WinRE environment that Reflect is using as its baseline contains some drivers that might be causing some sort of conflict. If you haven’t already, you might try checking whether other USB peripherals work as expected in your WinRE environment. It might be a USB-level issue rather than a hard drive issue. By comparison, when you use WinPE, Reflect uses a known environment that comes from Microsoft and does not get modified on a per-system basis before Reflect gets to it, as can happen with WinRE. So it’s a bit more of a known foundation.

However, the only major advantages to WinRE are that it doesn’t require downloading and storing a WinPE environment and allows you to use WiFi in Rescue. If you can handle storing a 1GB WinPE file set and don’t need to use WiFi in Rescue, then if WinPE 10 works, you may as well just stick with that.

Thanks for your reply. I am using:

Windows 10 Pro 22H2 19045.2364 (Windows Update says fully up to date)
Macrium Reflect Home 8.0.7175
WinRE shows "RE 10 version 2004 (64-Bit)"
WinPE shows "PE 10 version 1709 (64-Bit)"

I downloaded PE 10 only two days ago (when I couldn't get Win RE to recognize the USB dock), so I'm not sure why it says 1709 instead of 1809.

I appreciate your explanation of the major advantages of RE (support for WiFi and no large download).  It makes sense for me to stick with Win PE then.

For me to test other USB devices (I do have hard drive docks from another manufacturer) with RE, I would have to overwrite my rescue media USB stick again (since it now has PE).  I may try that later on for curiosity's sake. If I do, I will report back here.

Sorry, for the confusion, WinPE 10 is supposed to be 1709, not 1809. Macrium chose that release because that was the first release that added support for multi-partition flash drives, and there were use cases for that in certain Rescue Media Builder scenarios. But in terms of other USB devices, I was talking more about even simple devices like USB keyboards and mice (or USB wireless receivers for such peripherals). In fact, the flash drive itself can actually be a legitimate test. Can you see your WinRE flash drive after you’ve booted from it? I realize that might sound like a strange question, but the possibility I’m suggesting can occur because USB booting is initially handled by system firmware before USB control is handed over to the OS, and if the OS doesn’t have the proper drivers, then the OS that booted can end up in the strange position of not being able to see the device it just booted from. That became a real problem for Windows 7 installation media after USB 3.x arrived. Win7 had no native support for USB 3.x, and since Win8 wasn’t well received, it stuck around for a while. Eventually when people tried to install Win7 from flash drives plugged into USB 3.x ports, they ended up in this weird spot where they could boot into Windows Setup but could no longer see the flash drive. The fix there ended up being to inject USB 3.x drivers into the installation media, but that required either jumping through some hoops or finding a vendor that provided a utility to simplify that.

Sorry if that was more than you really wanted to know, and again if you just want something that works and WinPE 10 delivers, then you can definitely stop there. But if you’re curious, there might be more data points to gather even if an actual fix might be tricky because that might involve directly modifying your system’s WinRE environment. WinRE 10 2004 should work fine with USB devices, but this isn’t the first report I’ve seen where somebody’s WinRE build has some problems that get solved by using WinPE to avoid the pre-Reflect individual system customizations that can occur on WinRE. On my own system, WinRE builds are about 500 MB larger because my system’s WinRE includes my touchpad drivers, which include a bunch of high resolution videos to demonstrate various touch gestures. Obviously unnecessary in Rescue, but that’s part of the driver package, so it got added to WinRE and therefore to WinRE-based Rescue builds. That’s partly why I use PE. 

+x

 

jphughan - 4 January 2023 7:34 PM

But in terms of other USB devices, I was talking more about even simple devices like USB keyboards and mice (or USB wireless receivers for such peripherals). In fact, the flash drive itself can actually be a legitimate test. Can you see your WinRE flash drive after you’ve booted from it? 

Yes, I was definitely able to see the USB flash drive (which I booted from) in the Win RE environment. I didn't try a USB keyboard since it is a laptop. However, I use a USB trackball mouse, and that was working as well

I think I will stick with Win PE, since figuring out why the USB dock doesn't work with Win RE would probably require a lot of fiddling / testing.  Thanks again for your thoughtful suggestions / insights!

Hmm, ok. So your USB host controller drivers are good. If you haven’t already, after letting Rescue fully load, try disconnecting and reconnecting the dock, then under the Create Backups > Local Disks tab, click the Refresh link at the top. Does that allow the disk to show up?

Good suggestion. I installed the Macrium recovery boot menu option to boot to the Win RE recovery environment. The USB dock did not show up.  I turned off the dock and turned it back on and also unplugged and replugged the cable. The dock still was not recognized.

However, without rebooting, I then tried switching to a different USB dock, and indeed, it was recognized!

The one that didn't work is an older Utechsmart 2.5"/3.5" USB 3.0 to eSATA Hard Drive Docking Station
The one that did work is a Plugable SKU: USBC-SATA-V

So I guess the issue might be specific to certain USB docks

Wow, how strange. I wouldn’t have expected that to matter, but then I wouldn’t have expected other USB devices to work while your dock continued not to work either, especially if the same dock worked in your full Windows 10 environment that was even running the same kernel version. My only guess at this point is that it might have something to do with different capabilities of the docks. For example, USB 3.x introduced an optional capability called UASP, which is basically a more efficient protocol to use for USB-attached storage devices. It requires support from the USB chipsets on both ends of the connection as well as the driver stack, but again those should be consistent in those two environments. I’m out of ideas at the moment — but I’m definitely a fan of Plugable. I’ve used their drive docks and also have their USB-C voltage and amperage meter, which for me is mostly a tech geekery toy. And their support is great too. They’ve always provided intelligent responses, and with that voltage/amperage meter in particular, one of their reps told me that an improved version (the one that’s out now) was coming out later in the year and said he’d follow up when it was available. I sort of doubted that would actually happen, but when it launched something like 8 months later, that rep emailed me to tell me about it. I didn’t really need the improvements over the original version I already had, but I was so impressed with that follow-through that I bought one anyway!

There seems to be an issue with WinPE/RE 10 v2004 with certain combinations of USB controllers and drive controllers. I encountered something similar today after upgrading the WinPE 10 rescue environment for Reflect Home v8.0.7175 from WinPE 10 v1709 to v2004. After the upgrade my external hard drive was not recognised anymore by the rescue environment. In this case the hard drive enclosure was not recognised when connected to the internal USB 3.0 or 2.0 ports of my Dell Latitude E6430 (Intel 7 Series/C216 series chipset), nor with the StarTech USB 3.0 ExpressCard ECUSB3S11 (NEC Renesas uPD720200 controller), but it was recognised via a CSL USB 3.0 ExpressCard (ASMedia ASM1042 controller). Another laptop (Dell Latitude XT3) has the same problem. When selecting “View unsupported drives” it says “All device drivers have loaded”.

I also tested WinRE 10 v2004 and that too suffers from this issue. WinPE 10 v1709 and WinPE 11 work fine, but WinPE/RE 10 v2004 not.

I was hopeful that I could start using WinPE 10 v2004 on my rescue CD (I always make one CD for all my computers by including all necessary drivers), as v1709 does not recognize Windows Storage Spaces anymore, because of an outdated driver, but apparently the best solution is to use WinPE 11 instead. However, those users that use the default WinRE on Windows 10 still get v2004 and might encounter this issue too.

With regard to UASP, both the StarTech ExpressCard and the USB ports of the Latitude E6430 do support UASP, as well as the drive enclosure (Delock 42492), but the CSL ExpressCard does not. That might have something to do with it, but I have not tested it further.

WinPE 10 2004 and WinRE 10 2004 are not always interchangeable because the latter can be affected by drivers embedded in your own system's WinRE partition.  I've seen a few cases where USB controllers/peripherals did not behave as expected on WinRE builds of various kernels, even though they worked fine when using the WinPE version of the very same kernel.  It wounds like you've tested both from your post, but just fyi.