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
    2018-03-14T13:20:41+00:00

    If booting to re-image console from Backup and Restore in the Control panel or from Recovery disc, you need have following folder structure on your USB connected HDD ( Pendrives might not work at all):

    g:\WindowsImageBackup\Yourcomputersname\

    I.e. folders with the actual backup ( Backup yyyy-mm-dd xxxx, Catalog and SPPMetadataCache) need to be inside g:\WindowsImageBackup\Yourcomputersname\

    If you took backups of multiple computers on the same backup drive make sure :

    1. Your backup is located in WindowsImageBackup folder and
    2. Its name needs to be listed as first one in alphabetical order if there are other computers' backups in that folder.

    e.g.

    If your computer name is "AComputer" and if we have following backups of different computers in a g:\WindowsImageBackup\

    AComputer

    or

    AComputer

    BComputer

    XComputer

    and so on...

    Then it should work fine.

    However if your computer's name was  "BComputer", then it wouldn't work because it is second in an alphabetical order.

    P.S.

    my USB disk was listed under letter g: in the re-image console. ( you can verify this with the "load drivers" dialog) ( in fact you can even copy /paste/rename files and folders using this dialog)

    Hope that makes sense to you guys.( It doesn't make any sense to me however, it works.)

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-12-31T05:49:46+00:00

    Hi Pegasus,

    Previously I had just separately selected the options to create a backup image and a recovery disk as a single clean state backup is all I wanted.  The system created the backup image and the recovery disk fine but then claimed it couldn't see any backup images in the advanced recovery section. 

    This seems to have been solved by setting up a backup schedule. This time I went through the backup wizard to create the system image I deselected all of the folders so it was just including the system image. I had to let it create the image again (4th time in total). After creating the image through the wizard the image was available in the recovery options.

    I would say this is a bug.

    If anyone at MS is reading this, before seeing this problem the system was:

    • Clean (at least as delivered by Dell :D ) Japanese Windows 7 x64 Home Premium.
    • Upgraded to Japanese Windows 7 x64 Ultimate through anytime upgrade.
    • English MUI Language pack applied and default language set to English.
    • All available Windows 7 updates had been applied.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-12-29T02:25:37+00:00

    Hi Pegasus, Thanks for the reply but I know that's not the case in this instance. The IO-DATA external HDD is less than 2 months old. It's been re-formatted as NTFS. I can use it on this machine and 3 other machines with no problems. I can access it from the command prompt in repair mode on this PC.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-08-13T05:21:57+00:00

    I am having the same problem (except that my hard drive was pre-imaged with Windows 7 Home Premium). I have followed all the steps above, and can also browse to the backup files through Windows and while in Repair mode. I have tried every solution I have found in other threads, including creating another backup (which failed) and placing the old backup files in the new "WindowsImageBackup" folder. Maybe I should try to get a successful backup and try again.

    When I learned that Acronis can convert Windows backups to .tib files, I downloaded the trial and tried to convert the .vhd files. Acronis told me that the backup files were "corrupt or not made with" Acronis.

    I "attached" the .vhd in disk management, but kept it as "read only" because I didn't want to alter the backup file. I want to know if there is any way to find out if my system image is corrupt, and if it is, is there any way to repair it? If I attach the .vhd without checking the read only box, can I boot from it? If so, will that alter it and make it unusable?

    Thank you for your help. I have been dealing with this problem for the last three nights, and I'm getting very frustrated!

    Thanks,

    -TLC

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