System Image Recovery - Can't find System Image

Anonymous
2010-08-12T02:37:45+00:00

I am trying to restore a backup system image to my repaired PC.  It is wiped clean.  I have the "Repair Disc Windows 7 64 Bit" that I created in Windows 7.  Using Windows 7 Backup I have a system image backup on an external WD Essentiasl 1TB USB Hard Drive.

I insert the Repair Disc and start the system.  Get to System Recoevery Options.  I have the external Hard Disk with the system backup image connected.  Select System Image Recovery option.  Says "Windows cannot find a system image on this computer.  Attach the backup hard disk or insert the final DVD from a bckup set and click retry.  Alternatively, close this dialog for more options.  Retry gives me the same message.  Tried starting with drive attached, not attached, same result.  Click cancel.

Next option selected is "Select a system image."  No system image listed.  Hit refresh, still nothing.  Top of screen says "Click Advanced to add a network location or install a driver for a backup device if it does not show up in the list below."  I click on the Advanced tab.  Option to "Search for a system image on the network" or "Install a driver."  I select install a driver.  Find the right driver for the WD Essential hard drive (disk.sys and partmgr.sys) and when I click on them I get "The specified location does not contain information about your hardware."  Click OK.  Can't find how to load these drivers I am being asked for.

Funny thing is that on the screen where I search for driver I can see the WD Essential Hard Drive connected to the system.  I can also see the system image files but when I click on them I get the same error message, "The specified location does not contain information about your hardware."

Please HELP.  This is very frustrating!!!

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Recovery and backup

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Anonymous
2010-08-12T08:41:31+00:00

While in Repair Mode, you have an option to open a Command Prompt. From there try the following commands:

Mountvol

(This command will show you all available drives, including your external disk)

dir Q:

(Replace Q: with one drive letter at a time from the letters that the mountvol command showed you, e.g.

dir D:

dir E:

etc.

until you see a folder "WindowsImageBackup" on the screen. Let's assume it is F:\WindowsImageBackup.

dir F:\WindowsImageBackup /s

(This command should show you the contents of the image folder, with files totalling more than 10 GBytes)

Now perhaps this image folder is missing, incomplete or inaccessible.

I have to add that I am disappointed with the native imaging facility under Windows 7. It is temperamental and its functionality is extremely limited. I recently bought myself a copy of Acronis TrueImage 10 and its is to the Windows imaging tool like a fully functional motor cycle is to a child's tricycle. Other brand imaging tools are just as functional - just make sure that they are certified for Windows 7.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-05-16T10:20:33+00:00

    Windows cannot find a system image on this computer

    Any of these 5 things will cause this error message, or prevent Images from being found on a USB drive.  If these items aren't the cause of the problem, you can restore your Windows System Image using Acronis, including the free 30 trial of Acronis Home 2012.

    .

    But first, if you get this error message or if some but not all System Images are displayed from the Recovery Boot Disk, check these details.  

    .

    1. Make sure the folder named "WindowsImageBackup" is still in the root of the USB drive where it was originally created. Like g:\WindowsImageBackup

    .

    1. make sure the folder for each computer image is still the system name of the PC, the way it was originally created. If you rename a folder the image (and other images on the same drive) will not be found. So the full path will be like g:\WindowsImageBackup\your-pc

    .

    1. make sure you haven't added any other folders in the "WindowsImageBackup" folder unless they are disk images of other computers. Any other folder (like an empty folder) that is aphabetically ahead of a Windows Image Folder will prevent all alphabetically trailing System Images from being found.

    .

    1. If you have multiple system images on one USB drive and rename the mediaID file on any of the images, then all images alphabetically trailng the one with the renamed mediaID file will not be found.

    .

    1. USB Flash Drive

    For some reason, Flash drives don't seem to work for making or recovering from an image with Windows imaging but you can use Acronis True Image Home 2012 to recover a Windows System Image that has been copied to a Flash Drive.

    .

    If nothing above works, you may have a corrupt mediaId file. Download Acronis which will allow you to recover the Windows System Image 1 partition at a time directly from the .vhd files in your WindowsImageBackup folder. 

    Use Acronis to recover the 100M reserved partition first, then drive c:\ etc. This works well for recovering to the original partitioned hard drive but not to a blank hard drive. The BOOTMGR is missing on startup when I try restoring to a new hard drive. When this happens, the usual tools for fixing the BOOTMGR have not worked for me.

    The recovery boot disk that you can create from the free 30 day free trial version of Acronis Home 2012 works for recovering partitions from a Windows System Image. If you benefit from using Acronis, you should probably buy it for $49.00.

    When using Acronis to recover partitions its confusing because the drive letters for the partitions are not displayed correctly in the Acronis interface. You have to identify the target partitions by knowing their sizes which are displayed. This happens because the 100M reserved is displayed with a drive letter in Acronis, but of course it does not have a drive letter in Windows.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-05-05T01:46:16+00:00

    I had the same problem, " Windows cannot find a system image on this computer". In my case the problem was caused by having an irrelevant folder inside  "WindowsImageBackup". By irrelevant I mean it was not a system image but it contained application files that maybe I had previously dragged into that folder by mistake. I moved that irrelevant folder out of the WindowsImageBackup folder and now Windows recovery can see the system image and the recovery went ahead smoothly.

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-04-12T19:45:03+00:00

    Even if you can't restore from the system image (I'm in the middle of the same problem), then you should be able to mount the virtual hard disk (.vhd) file using the Computer Management Disk Management Tool - I've got stuff back this way - don't delete your system image on your backup drive! Once you've got your machine working again (or on another machine) - do:

    1. Right click on My Computer and select "Manage"
    2. From Computer Management, select "Disk Management"
    3. Once this has loaded (you have to wait a little), right click the Disk Management node and select "Attach VHD" (don't select Readonly)
    4. Browse to your VHD file and select it (this will be somewhere like Q:\WindowsImageBackup{Machine Name}\Backup {date}{Guid}.vhd

    You can now assign a drive letter to the virtual hard disk and browse it as though it were another drive and pull stuff off it. The mapping is lost at reboot, but allows you to recover lost stuff.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-03-24T22:11:07+00:00

    ok guys i found the sollution .. tonight i had the same problem ..

    i found out that the system image file was in a subfolder .. like my image was in usb hard drive and placed in a seperate folder g:/YAHYA-pc folder  and inside this folder the windows image backup and my pc data was placed.. all u have to do is cut the contents and place them on the root folder ..

    hope this helps

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