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

whs said:

To salvage your restore point, you can do the following (on any of your PCs)

1. find the image and find the VHD within all the image files. It is usually the last file with the many bytes.

2. Go to Disk Management, click on the 'Action button' (top left) and then on Attach. Navigate to that VHD in the image and attach it. Now you should see a virtual volume in Disk Management and in My Computer. Remember the drive letter And give it a different name that you can recognize.

3. Download and install free Macrium - some other imaging program may also work for the next steps, but I have done it with Macrium and I know that this works.

4. Start Macrium and burn the recovery CD as a first step.

5. Image the attached VHD - should be easy to find by the drive letter or the name you gave it.

6. With the help of the Macrium recovery CD, restore that image to the partition from where the original image (the VHD) came from. If there is a problem with size, you might have to first shrink the VHD volume before you do steo #5. Make sure you mark the partition as 'active' and also restore the MBR.

7. If that partition (the C: partition) was originally active, your system should now boot. If you originally had the 100MB active system partition, Then you have to first fix your bootmgr. Either run startup repair 3 times with your installation/recovery disc, or use one of the tutorials from the tutorial section.

im kind of scared i might mess up a step in all of this...do you think there is any way you could please teamviewer me and help me out? it would be greatly greatly appreciated!!!

whs said:

Nah, you can do it. There is nothing you can destroy. If it does not work first time, we'll try again. I could help you with Teamviewer which I have. But I prefer you do it yourself. Ask questions along the way when you think you are not certain what to do next.

Fundamentally, does System Image Restore (Win RE) need ANY data off the OS drive (i.e. System Volume Information)?

I know the last successful system image info is in the registry (which is why it shows in System Image screen as well as win RE system image restore screen).

I understand your process above, but wouldn't my solution technically also work?

whs said:

Jim, To tell you the truth - I don't know. Your approach may very well work, but I have never tried that option.

OK. It's almost as if he could also (another option) run my .bat script to take a new image to external (won't lose the original as it's renamed), then when it's done, takeown and delete the subdirectory (recursive) for the new System Image he just created and Win7 has been fooled into thinking the WIB folder contains the matching shadow entry.

Thinking about this more, if you have used an external (or have renamed the COMPUTERname folder node within WindowsImageBackup), when win RE is up, he doesn't try to match of OS Shadow information with any WIB folders as you could have (/procedurally/legal from Win7's point of view) an external in which you are backing up multiple PCs. Win RE should just display the damn things. The only I can think is he didn't click on REFRESH or something to recognize the external drive?

whs said:

Nah, you can do it. There is nothing you can destroy. If it does not work first time, we'll try again. I could help you with Teamviewer which I have. But I prefer you do it yourself. Ask questions along the way when you think you are not certain what to do next.

okay yeah your right, well if you could tell me whenever you're available for teamviewer because there is some terminology i don't know and some points i'm not 100% clear on. I'll def do the work, I'd just like to know if I get stuck on something, that I can turn to you.

whs said:

Don't worry. I am usually around.

Let's start with step 1. When you look at the image, is there 1 VHD or are there 2. If there are 2 (the smaller one would be the 100MB active system partition with the bootmgr) , we could attach both and try to move the bootmgr with EasyBCD. That would make step 7 a lot easier. You could boot right away.

looks like there is only 1