Windows 8.1 "Dirty Bit" in UEFI

[Wayne Workman]

My FOG Cloud says 4848, I’m on Fedora 21 Server.

I’m booting an Optiplex 9020 with the “Legacy Option ROMs” enabled. The system is otherwise set to UEFI and is installed on the hdd with GPT and Windows 8.1

I’m getting this error:

The other partitions upload fine.
I’ve done some searching, and I am fairly sure this is due to the “dirty bit” being set on that partition. It’s because currently Windows “Fast Startup” is enabled, which basically sets the dirty bit permanently.

When I disable this and after a few reboots, and after deleting the hibernation file, the image uploads normally. I’ve documented the things I’ve found helpful here: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Windows_8_UEFI_Imaging_Tips

I’m wondering if anything can be done to make this process more seamless for 1.3.0 ?

[Wayne Workman]

I just further updated this article: https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Windows_8_UEFI_Imaging_Tips

Confirmed beyond doubt that Fast Startup and Hibernation is what causes this error (what sets the dirty bit to ON)

After clearing those, there is a command in the article that must be run from an elevated command prompt.

[Tom Elliott]

@Wayne-Workman I’m not 100% sure how fog could do this.

[Wayne Workman]

@Tom-Elliott said:

@Wayne-Workman I’m not 100% sure how fog could do this.

Perhaps a pre-upload task via the new client…

[Tom Elliott]

Maybe but ask @jbob at how easy it is to deal with permission raising. While forcing a chkdsk could be easy, turning fast boot off is not as that’s in the bios screen.

[Wayne Workman]

@Tom-Elliott said:

turning fast boot off is not as that’s in the bios screen.

Tom, I think you’re mistaking fast startup for something else. see in this picture:

With that enabled, and when a user clicks “Shutdown” - the computer will say it’s shutting down, but really it’s hibernating. And then when it’s “booting”, it’s actually resuming. And it sets the dirty bit to ON.

[sudburr]

@Wayne-Workman said:

Tom, I think you’re mistaking fast startup for something else. see in this picture:

I have seen this as a BIOS setting as well in Dells, Lenovo or Toshiba. Sorry I can’t be specific. It MUST be turned off or hair is pulled.

[Wayne Workman]

@sudburr said:

@Wayne-Workman said:

Tom, I think you’re mistaking fast startup for something else. see in this picture:

I have seen this as a BIOS setting as well in Dells, Lenovo or Toshiba. Sorry I can’t be specific. It MUST be turned off or hair is pulled.

You must be referring to Fast Post (power on self test)? It’s sometimes called fast startup in PC firmware.

Or are you referring to something else?

[sudburr]

No. It’s a power saving function… wait a minute. It’s bubbling up from the nether world.

Deep Sleep.

No wait. Though that is a bad thing to have enabled.

Now I remember. Okay, smack me up the side of the head with a dead marmot. It’s a Toshiba OEM piece of software for SSD based systems.

I need more caffeine… or I should go to bed early.

[ch3i]

Have you try in debug mode a ntfsfix /dev/your_windows_partition ? It’s an idea, not sure that’s solve the problem…

[Wayne Workman]

@ch3i said:

Have you try in debug mode a ntfsfix /dev/your_windows_partition ? It’s an idea, not sure that’s solve the problem…

I’ll reproduce the problem and try this.

[ch3i]

@Wayne-Workman Hi, did you have time to test ?

[Wayne Workman]

@ch3i Not yet, thank you for reminding me. I’ll try to do it today. I actually need to.

[MRLINUX]

@Wayne-Workman
Thank you for the Article.
A few months ago we bought dell laptops and I was using WDS for deployment and it worked perfect with HP and Win7 computers.
When I deployed win8.1 to these DELL machines I had to stop using WDS 2012 R2.(endless errors) Deleted WDS COMPLETELY OFF the network.
Since then IM leveraging Open source technology on levels of DEVOPS.
My point is now I have an answer for my UEFI deployment issues. Thank you once again

[ch3i]

@Wayne-Workman said:

@ch3i Not yet, thank you for reminding me. I’ll try to do it today. I actually need to.

Hi @Wayne-Workman, I’ve tested it on a Windows 8.1 with “Fast Startup”, it’s functional. Could-you test it to confirm my result ? If it’s OK, it would be interesting to add it to FOG upload process.

[Wayne Workman]

@ch3i Trying it now.

[Wayne Workman]

@ch3i Is it just me, or does the “Fast Startup” checkbox vanish after it’s disabled for others too?

[Wayne Workman]

@Wayne-Workman said:

@ch3i Is it just me, or does the “Fast Startup” checkbox vanish after it’s disabled for others too?

So, you must run powercfg.exe -H on for the “Fast Startup” option to even show up.

[Wayne Workman]

This is with Fast Startup and Hibernation turned on.

[ch3i]

@Wayne-Workman said:

This is with Fast Startup and Hibernation turned on.

I’ll try that : ntfs-3g -o remove_hiberfile /dev/sdaX /tmp/mount_point to remove the hibernate file.