Backup and Restore Windows 10 Pro

Well, mine is win 10, 21H1, OS Build 19043.1165 -- & just a week/so ago Backup & Restore (Win 7) worked fine to rescue this computer from an unbootable situation. OK, it was OS Build ...1151 at the time.

(1) Why did you reinstall Windows before attempting to restore the image? Did you want to use the new Recovery partition (Shift+Restart goes there) to do the restore? That might fail when the other partitions in the image (Windows & EFI/System Reserved) are a different size or at a different location than in the image. This is because the restore process will not reformat the drive when the Recovery partition is in use.

The restore process would reformat the HDD itself, if run from a Repair Disc, a USB Recovery drive or Installation media. Then, you would get all the partitions back exactly where they came from -- including the Recovery partition that is in the image, & it will match the version of the rest of the installation too.

(2) Do you have 3 external hard drives or just one with 3 partitions?

(3) And each partition has just a WindowsImageBackup folder in it?

(4) And none of them show up in the image restore window?

(5) Can you read & write other files to the external HDD?

(6) Can you mount any of the images...?...

(a) Open the WindowsImageBackup folder, then the computername folder & finally the "Backup..." folder.

(b) Double-click the largest .vhdx file inside the Backup folder to mount it.

That will be the image of the C: partition. It will get a letter (say, E:) & open in a 2nd instance of File Explorer. You may put it side by side with the 1st instance. Then browse to your files & copy them from E: to C:. (But I wouldn't try the reverse.) When done, right-click E:, & select "Eject".

[But I must add, the first time you double-click a .vhdx, it may give an error message. So, just OK the error, & open Disk Management. The mounted image will have the same name C: had when the image was made, but no letter. Put a letter on it, & it will show up in File Explorer.]

Hi,

I don't think that cloning is an issue.. Normally cloning software has the ability to resize partitions and etc. as needed to fit a smaller drive.. Within reason of course..

WindowsImageBackup requires that the disk receiving the image is the EXACT same size or larger for the process to work.. I have had threads in which a HDD\SSD was maybe only 5mb smaller, or even less, and WindowsImageBackup would refuse to proceed.. It will cut you absolutely no slack on that issue..

It is possible that WindowsImageBackup has issues with a drive of a different manufacturer as well.. It is incredibly picky as to what it will accept.. I will see if I have anything laying around to test that..

I already went through all that about permissions and made sure they were ok and yes, In File Explorer when you try to access the drive where the backup file is located, it will tell you don't have permission to open that location, that it needs Administrators permission, but since my Windows account is that of an Administrator, by hitting "continue", it will open the folder. Yes, both hard discs were the same size, nominally, 1 Tb, but different manufacturers, which means, not exactly to the byte level, but I believe if the one you are cloning to is equal or larger than the cloned one, it will work. The cloning software will tell you if the cloning is feasible. One curious thing is that if you want to copy the image file to another location, that location has to have same or more space than the hard disc size where the image was created from, even if the image size is much smaller.

Hi,

I just tried this again with the same results..

Something I just thought of.. By chance could you have changed Permissions\Ownership of the WindowsImageBackup folder or the entire partition it is on ? I have done that before and the image was not usable..

The Owner should be "System" on the original.. It is "Administrators" on the copy..

Both need Full Permissions..

BTW.. Are the disks you are cloning the same size as the one the image was created for ??

If it even the slightest bit smaller it will not work..

Hi,

I just completed saving an image to a USB HDD and restoring a COPY of the image and everything worked perfectly.. This is with a Repair CD that was created at the time the image was saved..

My machine is running Legacy Bios which may give different results than you experience.. Let me know and I may have a UEFI setup I can try..

I did this with the latest Windows 10 build of 21H1... 19043.1165...

I will try it again from the actual USB HDD and not the copy to a internal HDD as I wait for your reply...