Can't re-image USB SSD.

Danny S · 09 Aug 2024

I made changes to some system folders on a recovered system image and am now finding that was a very bad idea. So now I'm trying to re-recover the image to the same drive as before, but it's not letting me. And I've already made sure it's not checked in the exclusion list. Only the hard drive is checked. Both the image drive and destination drive are recently bought Seagate External SSDs. Do I just need to reformat the drive first? I'm almost certain that's the solution, I just don't want to make things worse by guessing. That's how I got into this mess.

Thank you!

samuria · 09 Aug 2024

What have you used to create the image and whats exact error when you try to reimage

Danny S · 10 Aug 2024

I used the image creation tool that's built into my OS, Windows 7 Prof x64. The error message said,

"The system image restore failed.

No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found."

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When I clicked on details, a long message popped up suggesting some of the possible reasons for the failure. The one that seems most probable to me is "A USB disk may have been assigned as a system disk." Since the drive I'm trying to recover to has an OS on it, I think that's what's causing the problem. So I think if I just reformat it, the problem will be solved. I may try to type, "LIST DISK command in the DISKPART command interpreter," as suggested by that long message to at least see if there's some indication that it's being excluded even though the associated box is unchecked in the "Excluded Disks" window. But I'm not sure what good that will do other than satisfy my curiosity.

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Well, I initiated the recover image process for a third time (without reformatting first), and this time it worked. Once the image was finished being recovered. I had to boot from the hard drive first, so I could rerun a .bat file to get the computer to load USB drivers during the boot process. So, now, the computer will boot from the SSD that I just re-recovered my system image to. Everything seems to be working fine so far. I almost can't believe it.