Solved Get Windows to find my system image

[michael diemer]

I am trying to restore a system image to a blank drive. I have successfully done this in the past, but this time I wiped the drive clean first. Now Windows can't find the image, which is on a Glyph external hard drive. Here is what I have done so far:

I load the W7 disk and get into Repair My Computer. then I search for the image. Windows can't find it. I do a command prompt: dir E:\ and Windows mounts the Glyph drive, which does show the image. This is where I currently am, I don't know what to do next.

Do I need to load drivers? If so, which? the glyph did not come with any. BTW it's connected via Firewire 400.

Thanks in advance,
Michael

 

[JDobbsy1987]

Have you taken a look at this tutorial? - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/675-system-image-recovery.html

Regards,
Jamie

 

[mjf]

Do I need to load drivers? If so, which? the glyph did not come with any. BTW it's connected via Firewire 400.

You may need to. I certainly need to manually add my USB 3 drivers when using a USB 3 external HDD plugged into a USB 3 port. I have the drivers on my restore USB flash drive (.inf, .sys, .cat) and point to the .inf when asked to load the driver.

 

[michael diemer]

I loaded any and all drivers for my Glyph external drive, including 1394, eSata, and MS's own drivers for the Glyph drive. Every time Windows says the files don't contain any info about my drivers. Give me a break, Windows. Looks like another job for Acronis...

 

[mjf]

You could also try (free) Macrium Reflect. You probably will still need to see if the firewire connection presents a problem.
I know we want to use what hardware we've got but I feel firewire and esata for that matter may be in the past.

 

[michael diemer]

Thanks for the tip, mjf. I'm wondering, what if I install the drive in my new computer, which has W7X64 Pro. Would it stand a better chance of restoring the image there? and should I use the W7 Pro disk or the W7 HP disk? that computer recognizes my Glyph external drive via USB 2, but I could also install the eSata card. (The system image is on the Glyph).

 

[michael diemer]

Tried Macrium, but it also doesn't seem to recognize the image as it won't be selected when
I click on it. I'm going to check into whether having more than one system image is the problem. I have one for Vista and also one for W7. I have read where that can confuse Windows, so I will rename them. I have used this image successfully in the past at least twice, so I know it works. I did not delete it, it's still there, it just doesn't get recognized.

 

[michael diemer]

I was able to restore the image with the tutorial on restoring a broken image, where you have Macrium image the VHD file. It worked. thanks to WHS for suggesting this (on another thread). Also thanks to all who helped, couldn't have done it without you.

 

[Dexx]

This is an annoying problem on Windows 7 and 8 (and 8.1) systems. You create a system image on an external drive but when you boot from a Windows recovery disk, it claims no backup exists. Yet you can start a command prompt from the recovery disk and see the external drive is accessible and the image is there. The only solution ive found is to reinstall your OS and, once its booted, then you can restore the system image. This effectively makes Microsoft's recovery disk useless.