Image Restore Can Not Find Setup Information Files

[how2]

My hard drive crashed recently and after purchasing a new one, I was able to use the HP Windows 7 Professional System Disk Restore. Worked great and ready to restore an image I have of my hard drive earlier this year. When go through the process of restoring my image from either an external drive, or a network drive, nothing seems to work. The restore is looking for a "setup information" file which it does not seem to find. I have made sure that the directory off the root is named "WindowsImageBackup". I can see 1.3G if data in different subdirectories a) a user subdirector, b) a system image back up subdirectory and c) a WindowsImageBackup subsirectory. There is also a file mediaID.bin.

During one of my calls, Microsoft said that there also needs to be a .img file. I actually have two image backups from different years and neither one have an .IMG file.

Lastly, I made an image backup of the newly restored (and very clean hard drive) on the same external drive. I was able to do a restore of that backup. Also, no .IMG file found in either of those subdirectories.

Any assistance on how I can restore my image before I give up from exhaustion.

Thank you

 

[SIW2]

Use wbadmin commands from pe. You can restore from the .vhd. Not sure what they meant by.img files.

 

[mjf]

Use wbadmin commands from pe. You can restore from the .vhd.

I know you can easily make an image using wbadmin. It creates a WindowsImageBackup folder.
Do you have a link to describing how you restore an OS partition vhd from the .vhd alone?

@how2
If I understand correctly you have an operating Windows 7 OS but you would like to do an image restore on an older image. Windows is not recognizing this older image - correct?
If so, you can attach the OS vhd file in disk management. Then do a system image of the mounted vhd with free Macrium Reflect. Then use Macrium to restore the image. The system may not boot immediately. You may need to repair the system reserved partition or mark the reimaged OS partition active. Then run startup repair 3 times booting between runs.