Windows 7: Image Restore from Network Location

Hello everyone.
Recently my 200GB hard drive died and no longer works at all. I have ordered a new 750GB drive and it should be here in a few days. Luckily I created a backup image of my system about a month ago, so I hopefully won't be losing everything. When I created the image I set it up to be saved on a share on my file server: \\SERVER1\Projects\Ryan\BACKUP. It was the only place I had available with enough free space.



Today I ran the restore CD, just to test if I could select the image and start the restore so when I get my new drive i know exactly what to do. I got to where I had to specify the network location of the share, but no matter what I put in I couldn't get it to find my image. From other machines I can see that the WindowsImageBackup folder is in the BACKUP folder and there is a VHD file inside that, so it does exist.

Is there anything I'm missing? I would really like to be able to just restore from this image. Any help is appreciated. Thanks

WindowsImageBackup must be in the root, not in another folder named Backup or anything else.

This is a problem for many with Windows 7 Backup imaging. You can file away images but have to put them back into the root of the drive to be found. For example, on my external I have seven folders holding files and image backup for each computer here.

When I want to have the booted Windows 7 repair CD or DVD reimage a computer, I have to spill the WindowsImageBackup folder out of the correct external folder into the root of the external to have it discoverable. And it has to be titled exactly WindowsImageBackup.

The network file path is another problem. Sometimes I will spend an hour getting it typed just right to where it will work. Yet the network drivers in the CD/DVD will copy via network even better sometimes than those in Windows 7. Go figure.

I can see now why many have gone back to Acronis which lets you name file as you please and finds it by browsing.

It almost seems like they don't want people to like this feature breakthrough in Windows 7 too much.

Thanks for the reply. You say it must be in the root. Would I be able to just make a new share on the server that has the WindowsImageBackup folder in it, so I wouldn't have to actually move anything? The WindowsImageBackup folder would then be in \\SERVER1\BACKUP. Might this work?

You can try but better to have it in the root in my experience.

I just spill it out of the folder into the root before running DVD to recover.

Ok, so just to clarify, the WindowsImageBackup folder should be in the root of the drive it is stored on and then the drive is shared? Thanks

That is all that has worked for me, so far. Everytime I pointed DVD imaging utility it to a network share folder, it couldn't find backup image. But when I spilled it out into the root, it found it and reimaged.

Let us know if it works differently for you.

I don't do network backups, and don't really even have a network to store it to, but it seems logical if Windows allows you to backup an image to a specific location, it should be able to find it again...

I would love to test if I knew the circumstances.

Edit:
I went ahead and tested a network backup situation. I created the image and restored from the same place. I had to use another computer on my network since I do not have a file server. but:
network path to backup: \\CompName\e\bu images\feb
It found the image backup fine. But I may be misunderstanding the original question.

Nope, still no luck. I even tried copying the backup to a partition on my new drive. I used an Ubuntu live cd, plugged in my external off my server (it is formatted ext3), and copied the WindowsImageBackup folder right into the new partition. Still nothing. I wish there was a simple "browse for image" button. If I do the browse for drivers thing I can easily find the image, but I can't do anything.

I believe the WindowsImageBackup host drive needs to be formatted Primary NTFS to be autodetected.

Ok, that makes sense I guess. But I made the partition on my new drive NTFS and it still isn't picking it up off there. Would copying the image have changed something, or does something need to be changed because I copied it to a new location?