Solved Unable to load system image to HDD

[Rosco2382]

I am not sure if this is possible, but I created a system image earlier this summer. Well today my SSD seems to have failed on me. My computer froze completely and I had to hard power off. The SSD is not recognized in the BIOS or when I am at the load image screen.

My question is I have my 1TB HDD that I am going to use, is it possible to load the system image I have on my backup drive and use that? I don't have any other backups on external drive unfortunately and this image would be great starting point.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I created a system image earlier this summer. Well today my SSD seems to have failed on me. My computer froze completely and I had to hard power off. The SSD is not recognized in the BIOS or when I am at the load image screen.

My question is I have my 1TB HDD that I am going to use, is it possible to load the system image I have on my backup drive and use that? I don't have any other backups on external drive unfortunately and this image would be great starting point.

What application did you use to create this image?

Images need to be restored to be bootable. Not sure what you mean by "load". If this 1 TB HDD is an ordinary internal drive, it would be a typical choice for the restore.

I'm not sure if you could restore to an external drive and boot from it, but it certainly would not be the standard choice. Your SSD is internal and you'd typically want any Windows boot drive to be internal.

But I wouldn't assume the SSD is dead. That needs further investigation. I'd go ahead and restore to the internal HDD if you want just to get up and running. If nothing else, that would give you a real-life education on how well your recovery strategy works.

 

[Rosco2382]

I used the windows create a system image tool from Windows 7. I saved the image to my external HDD. When I use the load windows from image, I can't seem to use that to load from windows. Is it because I am going from 2 drives to one? I know the SSD is bad, because I moved it to my other PC with a working SSD and it won't load. I added it as a third drive in that as well and I can't see it in the BIOS or in disc management.

 

[SIW2]

When I use the load windows from image, I can't seem to use that to load from windows.

Still not clear what you mean by load? Is your os not in English, perhaps?

Do you mean restore the image? Or do you mean the image is not recgonised? Or something else?

 

[Kaktussoft]

Is the new disk (1TB) larger then old SSD? =>answer: yes.
Has new disk same partition layout as SSD (at time of backup) => answer no. Now disk will be wiped completely and partition layout will be configured as it was on SSD (at time of backup). So all data will be gone! Is that a problem?
You can restore by booting to recovery environment

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/675-system-image-recovery.html

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I saved the image to my external HDD. When I use the load windows from image, I can't seem to use that to load from windows. Is it because I am going from 2 drives to one?

What do you mean by "load windows from image"? Is that the exact name of a menu choice?

Nor do I understand what you mean by "going from 2 drives to one". I'd think you should be going from one drive to another. One external (where the image is stored) to one internal (the drive you used to replace the SSD).

I don't use Windows imaging. I use a third party application.

But the principles are generally the same:

1: when things are going well, you make an image file of one or more partitions and store it on some other drive (external in this instance). The image file is largely useless unless it is restored.

2: when disaster strikes, you restore that image file to an internal drive. As part of that process, you must choose where to restore to---you must choose the internal drive as a destination in some manner.

3: assuming the image was made correctly and the restoration was done correctly, that internal drive you chose in step 2 will then be bootable.

You'll have to provide more details about what exact choices you are making, from what menu, any error messages, etc etc. Maybe someone who uses Windows backup can help.

Regardless, I urge you to figure it out. Imaging is useless if you don't understand it or if it fails when you need it---like right now in this situation.

There are easier to understand applications than Windows to make and restore images, but you are stuck with what you have for now.

 

[Rosco2382]

Ok, I am sorry as I am on a crunch to meet a deadline I might not be explaining well.

My work computer, was setup as the SSD housed the OS which is Windows 7 in this case. It also houses VM's I use for testing our applications. I have a data drive, the 1TB HDD. I create a system image usually once a month, but have failed to do so the past two. Today for whatever reason the computer stopped responding, and I had to hard power down. After I was never able to boot into Windows, the SSD was never recognized in either the work computer or my personal. (Technically they are both, but I keep one as just for work, and other for games and general web surfing)

My issue is that I can't seem to restore from the image i created as a backup to the HDD. The process works fine normally as I have done this with my general PC when I upgraded from a 128GB SSD to a 256GB. Not saying that there isn't a possiblity the image got corrupted, but I am not sure or know how to know. Kaktussoft linked a guide to restore from an image, but when I get to step 12 I receive an error. Unfortunately I didn't screen cap it or photo it. I will once the PC finishes the 166 updates it needs.

If I can clarify anything that I made confusing please just ask. I am sorry for the earlier confusion.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

My issue is that I can't seem to restore from the image i created as a backup to the HDD.


I will once the PC finishes the 166 updates it needs.

If I can clarify anything that I made confusing please just ask. I am sorry for the earlier confusion.

OK; I can't help further, but there is one further point of confusion:

In the first sentence, you say you can't restore.

In the second sentence, you say you are doing 166 updates. That's highly confusing---unless you mean that you are doing 166 updates on some other machine entirely.

 

[Rosco2382]

I did a fresh install of windows on the machine. I was trying to restart and in a rush I accidentally hit shutdown and update. So that is why it has 166 updates to do. Once that is done I will try to restore from the image backup. If it fails I'll makesure to grab the error I get. Hopefully It goes without one.

 

[Rosco2382]

I figured out that my C: and D: drive were on the backup image. I thought it was only the C:, so I just installed an extra 500GB HDD I had and was able to restore from image with no issues.