System restore from a USB stick does not work

Kaktussoft said:

So an macrium backup image of C is on E now... great
Get an usb stick. Make it totally clean and create a partition. It can be done in disk management as well

Code:

diskpart
list disk
select  disk  1 (or 0 or 2. Look at the output of previous command!)
clean
create  partition  primary
select partition 1
FORMAT  FS=NTFS  LABEL="MACRIUM"  QUICK
assign letter=P
active
exit

Now your usb disk has 1 primary partition with letter P. Partition is active so it's possible to boot from it.
Extract all files from ISO and put them in root folder of P. Extracting can be done using WINRAR
Now try to boot from usb stick. Post results. Of course don't do the actual restore!! Just check if you can see the main harddisk

Unfortunately my netbook refuses to boot from the USb stick, I suspect it is due to a BIOS issue of the netbook, maybe it can only boot from its own HDD and from an external DVD drive. It lists "boot from external media" as a 3rd alternative on the boot seuqence menu, but it does not show the name etc of the inserted USB stick, so the PC probably just ignores it. Anyway, I post three images of disc mangement etc, so that you can perhaps have an idea if anything is wrong.


[ATTACH]



[/ATTACH]


Image no three is not very good, sorry about that, anyway, the name of the file is "disc image".

I tried to boot from the USB stick on my desktop, the name and type of the USb is shown on the boot sequence. But it will not boot either, I get the following text on the screen:


Attempting boot from USB device

BOOTMGR missing.

Ctrl + Alt + Del for reboot

partition is primary and active...nice.

But don't put the ISO itself on usb device! You have to extract the files from iso. Use WINRAR to open the iso and extract the files to usb stick. remove the iso later if working

So usb as first boot device

atapi is not usb as far as i know (not sure). Try to use another usb port. Are you sure the usb ports are working in normal windows?

Dali362 said:

Unfortunately no boot on any of the three USB ports (sockets). All three of them work normally under Windows though. Anyway, the external HDD is of course connected thru a USB port and of course it works. I have now read a post on the web about my netbook not being able to boot from a bootable LINUX OS USB stick (no answer to that question though) but this may have to do with the fact that my netbook just refuses to boot Linux (am not sure, have ´n t ever tried) but it may also mean that the generic BIOS do not allow boot from a USB.

Assume harddisk has many problems (as you have now). You can't boot from usb, you don't have external ATA. No dvd drive as well. How to restore in that case?

You can't even reinstall windows if you wanted to!
What is on E now?Only the macrium image itself? I know a trick to make to bootable.

But booting from external media is always better of course

I ´m getting somewhere, have just "cracked" the no-boot-from USB drive on my netbook after a few hours of searching info on the web - I have to tap the Esc button right on startup and it shows me a "special" boot menu with only two items - the HD drive and the USB stick - this time the USB stick correctly named and indicated. I wish the manuf. of my netbook had informed about this clearly, what a waste of time!
Anyway, the netbook still does not boot the Macrimum Rescue, I get a black screen saying : Attempting to load a 64-bit application, however, this CPU is not compatible with 64-bit mode. I made the rescue USB stick on my stationary PC ( everything goes much faster) ,which is a 64-bit and this may have made the rescue USB stick also a 64 bit thing. I´ll now try to do again the whole process of downloading( by the way the Skydrive site you recommended for making WINPE did not work, so I used the File Swap -courtesy of Garry Britton link) and making the WINPE on my USB stick on the 32 bit netbook and see what happens, I think it ´ll work now that I have cracked the no-USB-boot issue.

Dali362 said:

I ´m getting somewhere, have just "cracked" the no-boot-from USB drive on my netbook after a few hours of searching info on the web - I have to tap the Esc button right on startup and it shows me a "special" boot menu with only two items - the HD drive and the USB stick - this time the USB stick correctly named and indicated. I wish the manuf. of my netbook had informed about this clearly, what a waste of time!
Anyway, the netbook still does not boot the Macrimum Rescue, I get a black screen saying : Attempting to load a 64-bit application, however, this CPU is not compatible with 64-bit mode. I made the rescue USB stick on my stationary PC ( everything goes much faster) ,which is a 64-bit and this may have made the rescue USB stick also a 64 bit thing. I´ll now try to do again the whole process of downloading( by the way the Skydrive site you recommended for making WINPE did not work, so I used the File Swap -courtesy of Garry Britton link) and making the WINPE on my USB stick on the 32 bit netbook and see what happens, I think it ´ll work now that I have cracked the no-USB-boot issue.

I didn't even think of you have an old 32 bits cpu. I will post the 32bits ISO in a while

The ISO itself has 64 bits code... that's the problem! You made a macrium backup of C and D already on put the image on E. E has enough space to hold future backups? first delete the image and make a new one if it is not large enough to hold 2 backups. Make E not to small. E has only 1 file now? Maybe $RECYCLED (recycle bin) and "system volume information" (for system restore) as well but that's all there is? Empty the recycle bin after deleting something from E. Or press shift-delete to delete a file/folder and bypass sending it to recycle bin.

After I post the good 32bits ISO follow same procdure as for 64bits ISO. Just format the usb stick first. It already is active and primary!

Will post in 30 minutes