Solved I'm crying for help - can't find system image

[AlienAmao]

I'm using windows 7 64bit. I made a system image a few days ago and today my laptop keeps crashing, so I decided to restore the image.
The image is on external hard disk. So i reinstall the windows, then i tried to restore the image However, At the locating image address page, it just says can't find system image.
After 4 hours of trial and error, I finally found out that the computer can't read my external hard disk, even though it's perfectly working well when windows is loaded. I tried to do as you said in the post, kept it plugging in before start the laptop, but it just doesn't work.

Could you help me? Please

 

[mjf]

Can you provide some more information.
- Brand and details of laptop
- Are you using an operating system that came installed with the laptop?
- What Windows reinstall or Factory restore options do you have
- Provide a screenshot from Windows Disk Management of both your laptop and external HDD connected.

To provide the screenshot
- Type "disk management" bottom left search box
- follow this tutorial to capture and upload
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

It's evening here so I'll look tomorrow if someone else doesn't before I do.

 

[AlienAmao]

Mjf
It's Alienware m14x, I used the windows home premium sp1 64 bit ,I also have the same windows disc that came with laptop. Right now the laptop can't even get on line, I'm using iPad now. I'll post pic later. I assume if I can fix the external hard disk issue, then I'm able to restore the image.

I'll summarize my problem: The laptop won't recognise my external hard disk at the locating system image page, even though the external hard disk works perfectly well when windows is loaded.

Thank you very much.


here is the pic

 

[Brink]

Hello Amao, and welcome to Seven Forums.

How is the external HDD connected to your laptop?

If it's using a USB connection, then double check to make sure that you have your BIOS settings (ex: Legacy USB) set to allow USB devices at boot.

 

[AlienAmao]

Hi Brink
How to make sure it's set that way?
I went to bios boot tab, and set priority from USB, then save and exit. Is it right?

 

[Brink]

Amao,

No. The boot priority setting is not for this. That setting is only to select the device to boot from in what order instead.

Look through each and all available setting in your BIOS for something like a "Enable USB at boot" or "Legacy USB" type setting to enable.

Please update your system specs with what brand and model of motherboard you have, or what brand and model of computer you have. We may be able to help give more precise instructions on how to with this information for you.

 

[essenbe]

When you reinstalled Windows, did you install the chipset drivers from your drivers disk. I notice all of the red X's in the bottom of your screenshot. Also, if your external hard drive is connected to a USB 3.0 port, connect it to a USB 2.0 port.

 

[AlienAmao]

OH Man you solved my problem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thought USB 3.0 is more "powerful" than 2.0.
It perfectly works when plugged into 2.0 dock.
Thank you and Brink and others , I was even ready to return the laptop...

 

[essenbe]

You're quite welcome. USB 3.0 is more powerful than 2.0, it's just not natively supported and needs drivers to work. The drivers are in the OS. So, if you boot from external media without loading the OS, 3.0 can't work.

 

[AlienAmao]

and I learnt it the hard way that all the backup should be under the root file of the disk, I first put it somewhere else and It just can't locate the image. Just so many places that might go wrong when using the windows 7 backup and restore system.

 

[Brink]

That's great news Amao. I'm happy to hear that you got it working.

 

[essenbe]

It's like most imaging programs. They all have their quirks and many people won't use it and others will swear by it. I don't like it because there is no flexibility in it. You can't choose what to image. Also, you can only keep 1 system image, they overwrite each other. There are ways around that, but you shouldn't have to do all of that. But, there are many here that swear by it. Many here use free Macrium or free versions of Acronis given out by Western Digital or Seagate if you have one of their drives. Others have issues with those programs. You just have to find a couple that work for you and use them. And I suggest you use at least 2 imaging programs and backup to 2 locations.

 

[AlienAmao]

you're right. it's always good to be safe.
and I don't know why, but when I made a copy of the system image and also the data, there're two files, one of them is the data and programs, the other I assume is system image. But both of them are like 125G, and I don't know why the system image file is so large

 

[essenbe]

The system image is the file named windowsimagebackup. The file and folder image will keep multiple images, the system image will only keep the last one. You can rename the windowsimagebackup to windowsimagebackup8-28 or whatever you want and it will not overwrite it. But in order to restore it, you have to rename it back to windowsimagebackup. Or, you can put it in a folder, but you will have to take it out in order to use it, and there cannot be 2 files with the same name in the same place. It is a good idea to when you do a clean install, let all the updates install then do an image with several programs. Then create a folder, i call mine 'clean install' and put all of those images in that folder. That way you can restore any of those images and never have to do a clean install again.

EDIT: you obviously have your user files in your C drive and that is why the image is so large. If you move the user files (pictures, documents etc.) to another drive or partition, your system image won't be as large and you can back them up separately.

 

[AlienAmao]

I know what you mean, but I didn't mean that I got multiple backup.
In one backup, I got the 2 large files. One is the WindowsImageBackup, the other is called MININT-ODTC753, which is my computer name. The weird thing is that MININT-ODTC753 is 100G, WindowsImageBackup is 138G.

Do the 2 files overlap? Like WindowsImageBackup is system+data while MININT-ODTC753 is data.


Pics posted

 

[AlienAmao]

The 2nd pic is what shows when I click on MININT-ODTC753.

 

[AlienAmao]

EDIT: you obviously have your user files in your C drive and that is why the image is so large. If you move the user files (pictures, documents etc.) to another drive or partition, your system image won't be as large and you can back them up separately.

Oh so if I only got one disk, does that mean WindowsImageBackup contains everything and actually MININT-ODTC753 is redundant and I can remove it.
Because when I bought the laptop it only has one disk, and Dell people told me it's not necessary to partition.

 

[essenbe]

Yes. The system image is OS, programs and user data, everything on the c drive.

 

[AlienAmao]

Yes. The system image is OS, programs and user data, everything on the c drive.

If only I knew it earlier, every time it took me almost 5-6 hours to do a backup, because apparently I'm doing two backup at once... Thanks

 

[essenbe]

No, don't remove it. You can restore files and folders from the user backup. The system image is an all or nothing backup. Look through the tutorial section. There are numerous tutorials about backups there by people who understand more about windows backup than me.