Image Backup Dates are Off

spokey · 29 Dec 2013

My image backups show the wrong datetime. I saw a thread where someone else had the same problem. That wasn't answered but that thread is old so I was hoping there was an answer now.

Recently I had to restore due to a bad driver update. The most recent image backups where close to each other as I sandwiched another change between them (i.e. image, system change, image).

I have been renaming the WindowsImageBackup as suggested with a date time stamp of the backup. For example - WindowsImageBackup 2013-12-27 160024. When I went to restore the system I got confused. I found that the date / time of the doesn't match the folder date times. In fact, one backup did not even have the right date.

What I found was that the wrong timezone is being used. I am US east coast (UCT -5) and the backup is using the US west coast timezone (UCT - 8) so my backups are exactly 3 hours off.

My computer has the correct time and indicates the correct timezone (US east / UCT -5).

I guess I will normally be able to pick the right backup, but I'd really like to know the correct date and time to avoid any mistakes. Is there anyway to fix this?

Brink · 29 Dec 2013

Hello Spokey,

Normally, the date and time of the WindowsImageBackup folder name will be what it was when it was created.

What was your time zone or time/date on your PC when the system image was created?

spokey · 30 Dec 2013

attached is the time setting on the computer showing the correct time and time zone (EST).

also attached is an example of what I mean. I have backup starting at 7PM and it includes an image. So this image was made towards 8PM EST. This is a picture I snapped of the backup directory and restore dialog having booted via a System Repair Disk. I did check the date and time from that command prompt in case something funky happened when I created the disk that caused the machine to look like a different time zone when I booted a system repair.

So the directory name and the backup match. 000020 hours - 8 hours = 1600 or 4PM. But it really started running at 7PM local time which is the difference between my eastern time zone (-5) and west coast (-8).

An interesting side note is that these times do not match the time I see after I've booted normally and go to System Restore / Restore Points. The attached jpg shows the backup starting at 7PM and the image backup starting at 7:00:20PM.

Obviously if I'm careful I can handle this but it seems like it would be a lot better if I could fix something to make everything match up.