Windows will not recognise my backup image on external hard drive?

Now you have to image that VHD with Macrium. I have made this little video tutorial for you. You have to really turn up your speakers because for some odd reason the sound is very low. Also, in some places the cursor hops around where it should not be. But it is better than nothing. Have a look and if you have a question let me know.

I don't really know what you are doing. I never had this problem and I burnt at least 6 recovery CDs. I suspect your CDs are no good.

No, not DVDs - you need a blank CD.

Any old CD will do. Buy a pack of 10 or so. They are cheap.

No, DVDs do NOT work. It may work with the BartPE version. I am just trying that. But that is long - see below.

Just a word of warning. Up to now I used the 'old' (from Macrium Rel. 4.2) Linux CDs for recovery. And those were easy and straight forward. I just tried out the new Linux version (from this rel.5) and ran into a problem. When I got to the last step which is "Select target drive", it did not give me the option to select the partition from where I had taken my test image. I needed the 5th out of 5 partitions, but it only showed 2 partitions as options - the 2nd and the 3d.

I do not know whether that is particular to my Linux CD or to the fact that I did not image the system, but if you run into the same snag, we will have to use the BartPE CD version. Unfortunately that takes a long time to produce because it needs a 1.7GB file which it has to download from Microsoft.

I would still say you should try with the Linux version because that is quick. But if you run into the same problem as me (which may not be the case because you are restoring the system and not a little rinky dink test partition), then we have to go the long route with the BartPE version.