System Image Recovery - Can't find System Image

Anonymous

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!!!

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Anonymous

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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Anonymous

2011-10-28T04:59:07+00:00

Is there any conclusion to this? I am having what seems to be the same issue with an Acer notebook running Windows 7. I created a Windows backup image (99G) on a Maxtor external hard drive and when I try to restore the backup program vannot see the windowsimage file. Ican see the external disk and ran chkdsk on it and it appears to be ok. I will have lost shedloads of photographs if this doesnt work. Please help.

Hi Rosie. I've seen this problem a couple of times now, The first time I encountered the problem the system was clean as delivered so it wasn't important for me to access the previous backup image. I described how I resolved that in my earlier post.

The second time I saw the issue was on a PC had been in use for some time and there was some very important data backed up. From that experience I would suggest you try:

Set up the backup conditions again with the same settings as you used before. Hopefully you should be able to choose the USB disk when you are setting up the conditions. Just set up the backup conditions, DO NOT RUN the backup. Then reboot the PC and go to Save restore settings again. Hopefully you will now be able to see the previously backed up image. Can't promise, but it worked for me. Johnny
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