Can't recovery Windows disk image

[aseaver]

I had a hard drive crash completely but I thought I was lucky with having had a continuous disk image and back up system in place. As a precaution, I always clone a dirve for such emergencies. I installed my clone from two months ago and everything is perfect, except from the clone date to today is not current, including my outlook PST. I tried to recover the current image from two days ago but Windows keeps saying that there is no disk available for recovery, even though it shows two disks in the list. I have tried several different ways to get the recovery to work but it won't let me. Suggestions??

 

[A Guy]

Welcome to Seven Forums aseaver. Was the original drive larger than the new system drive? IE: you had a 320GB drive, and now you are using a 160GB drive? If so, windows is remembering the partition size of the original disk. The drive you are restoring to must equal or exceed the size of the original drive partition. A Guy

 

[aseaver]

The only difference, original "crashed" drive was 250gb SATA, the cloned drive was identical to crashed drive, and I had an IDE (primary slave) drive of the same size. Windows recovery saw the clone drive and the IDE drive but would not recovery the image to either one. When I did try a 160 gb drive, I did get the error msg that drive was not big enough.

 

[SIW2]

You should be able to restore it from the cmd prompt in WinRe.

If you are slightly familiar with cmd.

 

[aseaver]

Familar with CMD

I have used CMD prompt for a lot of things but I am not sure how it applys to WinRE. Little more direction please.

 

[SIW2]

Go to your user CP and enable private messaging - easier that way.

 

[aseaver]

Done!

 

[SIW2]

I can't see it.

 

[aseaver]

It appears I do not have permission yet for PM.

 

[SIW2]

Will post it here then.

Other people may join in you may find it confusing

 

[SIW2]

Boot the 7 dvd /recovery disc to cmd prompt.

Type :

Diskpart

(then press enter )

lis vol

(then press enter )

(make careful note of the volume letters - I am using letter z below - replace z with the drive letter win sys image is stored on - this may be different from the letter you see for it in Windows )

exi

wbadmin get versions -backuptarget:z:

( then press enter )

You should get something like this:

Backup target: Fixed Disk labeled APPS(G
Version identifier: 04/26/2010-17:23
Can recover: Volume(s), File(s)
Snapshot ID: {f18b9ea0-b902-43ae-a1b7-446e66113aaf}

In the command below, replace z as before. Replace c with the drive letter you actually backed up ( this is the Windows drive letter, probably C), replace F with the drive letter you want to restore it to - as seen in lis vol above. Obviously , replace the version with the one returned to you .


WBADMIN START RECOVERY -version:04/26/2010-17:23 -itemType:Volume -items:c: -backuptarget:z: -recoverytarget:f:


Retrieving volume information...
You have chosen to recover volume(s) c:
from the backup created on 4/26/2010 9:23 AM to a different location, f:.
Warning: You have chosen to recover a full volume. This will delete any
existing data on the volume you recover to, even if the operation is canceled
or fails. Before you continue, make sure that this volume does not contain
and data that you might want in the future.

Note: If the recovered volume contains applications, you will need to recover
those applications after you recover the volume.

Do you want to continue?
[Y] Yes [N] No y

Y

 

[aseaver]

I can follow pretty well and skip over the "commentary"

 

[SIW2]

Let us know how you get on.

 

[aseaver]

I can follow pretty well, even with lots of commentary. I tried to attach the vhd of the image but it now looks like the clone drive created a scheduled image and erased the old image. I can't find any files after 4/25/10. Looks like I may have lost everything after that date.

 

[SIW2]

Ah, you had a schedule for sys image.

It is supposed to write only the new and changed data to the .vhd . Old data on the same block is moved out of the VHD and into shadow copy storage.

It doesn't look good.