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
    2014-10-06T00:02:00+00:00

    Windows cannot find a system image on this computer

    Any of these 5things 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.

    Thank you very much!!! This was just perfect! I knew about issues around the folder names, but I didn't know about problems using flash memory (Micro SD)!!!

    I just had an external USB 3.0 BitLocker Locked HDD with a folder with my backup and, once I unlocked the drive, the image showed to me like magic! Your advice is great and very consistent, I really recommend it to anybody facing issues with Windows Image Backups previously saved!

    My case was hard because it was the original Windows 8.1 that came with an Asus Transformer T100 Tablet/Laptop/Notebook that only boots UEFI 32 bit and won't start Acronis True Image at all (I also made a backup with it, useless though)!

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-04-05T05:35:34+00:00

    OK so I had this problem. I had a 60Gb SSD as my C: just for the OS, a 500Gb HDD as D: for programs

    Then a 1.5Tb and 2Tb E: and F: for data and finally a 4Tb HDD G: for backing everything up to.

    I used the windows shadow copy program to make an image backup of the C and D drive, and would make fresh ones as I changes things. So I thought I was always covered.

    Anyway my 60Gb SSD failed and I thought no prob, I had an old 500Gb HDD so I swapped it out, booted off my Windows disc, and went through the process, only to find windows couldn't find my backup.

    Started Command prompt and I found it, just where it should have been, but I could not use it.

    I decided I would go through the rigmarol of installing Win7, upgrading to Win8, then the upgrade to Win8.1, reinstall all my programs etc, and then use Acronis True Image Premium from then on to do the backup of my PC.

    Asnyway, to the fix, Having installed Acronis I opened Disc Management, click on the Action button, then attach VHD, browse to where my windows image backup was, and mounted the C: drive. and the system reserved partition. Then using Acronis I did a backup of these 2 partitions onto my G: drive.

    Once that was done I restarted my PC, and ran Acronis, went to the restore mode and restored the 2 partitions to the new C: drive. it asked me to restart my PC, and Acronis started and did its job.

    Small issue when the system rebooted I got an error and the system could not start. Inserted my windows disc and went to repair my computer, let it search automatically and fix, restarted and voila, my system was back.

    I know this is a bit long winded, and you do have to buy Acronis, but for me it was well worth it as my PC was all back just as it should have been.

    Hope this is of help.

    Dre.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-02-19T22:57:19+00:00

    This built-in Windows image system simply doesn't work.  I have a brand new precision workstation and I have the system setup exactly how I want it.  I have an internal drive (2TB Seagate Sata data drive) I run the utility and the WindowsImageBackup directory is created.  I then create the recovery disk.  Then I shut the machine down, pull out the OS drive and connect the exact model "new" drive (Samsung Evo 840 SSD) into that same connection.  

    When the recovery disk boots me to the select windows image step, Unable to find any image.  

    I feel that this must have worked in the past but since hardware has evolved or Windows update has installed patches, it broke the functionality.

    For fun I decided to attempt running an image backup then try to restore -

    3 different machines, on all of them Windows couldn't "find" any backed up images.  On 2 I used external drives connected via USB 2.0 and on the third I used a USB Key.  

    I am sure it's a problem with onboard controllers or drive compatibility but I would think that Microsoft would load those drivers onto the recovery disk that I created during the image creation.

    And to be clear, I didn't even get to the part of installing the image onto the new drive, that would be a whole new set of incompatibility and drive not being found etc.

    I would be so irate if I had actually needed to restore my system.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-02-18T20:45:24+00:00

    On Tue, 18 Feb 2014 20:06:01 +0000, Steve_Briggs wrote:

    After some head scratching, I discovered that Windows-7 does not play nice with an IDE drive on a USB cable.

    I've done it many times, and never had a problem with it.

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