I have the image but i cant restore it - LOST EVERY THING :'(

[asmgx]

Hi
it happened that i formated my hard disk completely and removed all partions on it
including the System Recovery Partition

I have an image i made earlier when i first got my computer

the problem now is that i cant restore the image that i have
every time i try to restore i get this error : The disk that is set as active in BIOS is too small to recover the original disk

what i am doing wrong here, or did i lost for good?

appreciate your help ... i have been trying for more than 12 hours now

 

[seavixen32]

I'm assuming you created an image of your hard drive before you formatted the drive.

Now that you've installed Windows 7 it will have created a small 100Mb partition that will be marked as Active and holds the master boot record for your operating system.

I would imagine your image is looking for the recovery partition, which you've deleted and therein lies your problem.

Unless I'm mistaken you'll only be able to restore the image you created if you put your hard drive back to the state it was when you created the image of the drive.

If I'm wrong, I'm sure our experts will point us in the right direction.

 

[asmgx]

oh my god
how would i remember how it was??
there is no way to restore it????
damn it, why did it say it will re-partition and reformat the drive before restoring??
is there any thing i can do???
* i created the image when it was fine few months ago but not i formated it and lost the recovery partition
HELP HELP

 

[SIW2]

What kind of image - do you mean a windows system image ?

Aside from buying a bigger drive - There is a complex workaround.

Have you used the command prompt before?

 

[asmgx]

yes it is windows system image

i am using ths same hard disk so size has not changed

please give me any work around

i know dos command very well

 

[SIW2]

OK - Let's try it.

How many partitions are in your image - and any idea of what they are and the sizes - roughly will do ?

 

[asmgx]

there is the System Recovery drive (15 GB)
and C drive (300 GB)

each hard disk is 500 GB and i have 2 hard disks

 

[SIW2]

I assume your image is on one of those - and not an external drive ?

Go into bios and set the other HD first in bios boot order - that is the opposite way to how they are now.

When you have done that - boot your 7 dvd /repair disc to the command prompt.

type:

diskpart

lis disk

( select the disk number you want to restore TO in the next command and use that number instead of # )

sel disk #

clean

cre par pri

for fs=ntfs

act

ass

lis vol

( make a note of the volumes and letters - particularly the letter your new partition has )

exi

post up exactly what lis vol gave you.


EDIT -don't forget ass - i missed it out just then myself. lol.

Don't worry if you missed it - we can do it later.

 

[SIW2]

The format will take quite a while on a 500gb drive .

Could have done a quick one - but worth making sure all is clean at this stage.

Next step is to make certain you have assigned it a drive letter and it is active ( no harm in running act twice )

diskpart

lis vol

sel vol # ( whatever volume number your newly created big partition is on Target disk )

ass

act

( now make sure there are no active partitions on the drive you are NOT restoring to )

sel vol ( one of the vol numbers on your NOT restore drive )

inact

sel vol ( the next vol number on your NOT restore disk )

inact

( do that on all primary partitions on your NOT restore disk don't worry if you run inact on a logical drive - won't do any harm ).

exi

( to leave diskpart ) .


Next, try running win sys img restore. See if it lets you restore to your Target drive now.

It's easier if it does. If not - we can use commands .

 

[mjf]

By all means follow the above
format fs=ntfs quick will be faster.

If this doesn't work:
-Based on limited info.-
I think your factory recovery partition (if that's what you are referring to) is gone.
If your image is on an external HDD you could try restoring to either your unallocated main HDD or a simple primary unpartitioned ntfs formated (inactive) HDD.
A Windows reimage should reformat and partition according to the old partition structure. Any data or recovery partitions wil be empty.

Alternatively if it is an OEM PC and you have factory restore/recovery disks you could run these first. Then run the Windows reimage. This may rebuild your recovery partition.

 

[SIW2]

If you need to use the commands - probably best to restore only your windows partition (the 300gb ) shouldn't have any trouble with that.


X:\Windows\system32>WBADMIN GET VERSIONS -backuptarget:d:

(Obviously use the drive letter your backup is stored on for the backuptarget instead of d ) It will return something like below - should show two volumes - I only had one in that backup


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

( You want to restore only your windows partition - it was probabaly C when you were in windows - if so, it will be listed as C above. The recovery target is the letter you want to restore TO , so use that instead of f )

X:\Windows\system32>WBADMIN START RECOVERY -version:04/26/2010-17:23 -itemType:V
olume -items:c: -backuptarget:d: -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

Running a recovery operation for volume APPS(C, copied (0%)...
Running a recovery operation for volume APPS(C, copied (99%).
The recovery operation for volume APPS(C successfully completed.


X:\Windows\system32>bcdboot f:\windows /s f:

You should be good to go.

 

[SIW2]

An alternative is to use another operating ( preferably win 7 ) to mount the vhd , shrink the partition(s) and make an image of them with a free 3rd party app.

Restore the 3rd party app. images.

 

[asmgx]

i did that
i got a blue screen after Sarting Windows logo showed then shut down
Thanks

No i totally lost faith in Microsoft products, they tell the image work and find out it simply put u in a situation when u &^#*# up

 

[whs]

Let me make a different suggestion. Mount the VHD of C and image that (e.g. with free Macrium). Then restore that image.

If you originally had a 100MB active partition, you will have to fix the bootmgr before you can boot that image.

 

[SIW2]

Hi asmgx,

Well done - you did all you could to get windows sys img to work.

There are still a couple of thigs you can do:

1. If you have the factory.wim , then perhaps you can apply it, and later mount the vhd file and copy out any data you want..

I just did it a few days ago with the files from a sony recovery partition.

Have you got the factory.wim still ?



Or,

2. as I mentioned earlier - you could mount the vhd - image it with a more reliable app. , then restore that new image.

 

[mjf]

By all means follow the above
format fs=ntfs quick will be faster.

If this doesn't work:
-Based on limited info.-
I think your factory recovery partition (if that's what you are referring to) is gone.
If your image is on an external HDD you could try restoring to either your unallocated main HDD or a simple primary unpartitioned ntfs formated (inactive) HDD.
A Windows reimage should reformat and partition according to the old partition structure. Any data or recovery partitions wil be empty.

Alternatively if it is an OEM PC and you have factory restore/recovery disks you could run these first. Then run the Windows reimage. This may rebuild your recovery partition.

I'm curious why:
1) you are jumping through all these hoops
2) why the advice I have given you isn't relevant.

Your original error message suggests Windows is telling you it cannot restore to a small apparently active partition. The BIOS looks at the MBR (512 bytes at the front of the HDD - nothing to do with the 100MB partition) which contains the partition table and the partition active status. This may be pointing to an old active 100MB system reserved partition.

If all this doesn't work clean install. If it's an OEM PC use or buy the factory restore disks.

 

[SIW2]

From the posts on this thread so far, the image is not on an external HD.

He has 2 HD's in the machine.

He also said he had deleted the partitions on his main HD (including the recovery partition ).

The windows sys img contains an image of the recovery partition as well as an image of the main windows partition.

However, win sys img refuses to restore.

Unless he can get access to an external enclosure, or somehow mount the vhd and image it, or extract the factory.wim from it.

He might have the factory discs - but he probably would have mentioned it by now - don't you think?

 

[SIW2]

The odd thing is - on an entrirely different thread - asmg says he has the factory.wim

I cant find imagex to restore factory.wim file

Pretty easy to apply it - don't know why he hasn't done that - except he would need to put imagex on some kind of boot media.

I did it just the other day myself in about 10 mins.

Once he has done that and is back in windows 7 - he should be able to mount the vhd and get at whatever he needs.

 

[Teerex]

Perhaps our poor OP asmgx could just reinstall Windows (making sure he doesn't overwrite the image), open backup and restore this image from the new installation?

 

[gregrocker]

I concur with Michael: There should be no error message about failure due to a too-small Active partition if OP was attempting to reimage to a wiped HD. There are partitions or code there interfering.

If booting to try to reimage to wiped HD fails, then mount the Win7 and any System Reserved partition VHD (only) from image file then create an image with Macrium as suggested. Virtual Hard Disk - Create and Attach VHD
Macrium - Image your system