System Image Restore Failed (0x80070490) - Tried Everything!!

[Gibbons]

Hi everyone,

I'm about to rip my hair out. Thank you for clicking on this thread and I plead that you keep reading.

I have the following setup:

250 GB HDD - WinXP 32bit
1TB HDD - Win7 Pro x64
2TB HDD ("1") - Complete System Image
2TB HDD ("2") - brand new unallocated

So here's the story: 1TB drive started failing via the click of death. Was planning for worst case scenario, so created a full system image using Windows built in tool. The image created contains both the WinXP x32 and Win7 x64 drives within a single system image.

Lo and behold, my 1TB drive dies a day after making the system image. No problem I thought.. I have the complete system image and my Win7 recovery disk. I'll just use the image recovery tool on my new unallocated hard drive.

Connected the "2" drive to my primary boot SATA port. Connected the "1" drive to another SATA port. Neither the 250 GB or 1TB are connected anymore. Put in my recovery disk, went into BIOS and changed boot order to disk first. Recovery disk loads, scans for system image, finds it on "1". Gets ready to restore image to "2", click next, restore begins. Then stops 5 seconds later with the following error:

The system image restore failed.
Error details: Element not found. (0x80070490)

Have googled around for the past two hours, trying everything I have found. I've changed the boot order of the hard drives. I've unplugged drive "1" until the disk loads, where I then plug it back in before the system image search begins. I've outright disabled drive "1" from the BIOS menu.. Same error every single time!

Please offer any ideas you may have. I really really don't want to lose the contents of this drive. I'd even be willing to buy another Win7 license as long as I can get my files back (which I can't as they are currently stuck in this image!!).

If it helps, I'd rate my computer knowledge as 'intermediate'. I can still access my WinXP drive via dual boot if required for some reason. I have a feeling the problem lies in the 2-systems-in-1-image?

Thanks very much for your time

 

[Gibbons]

Going to try to get some sleep now, but if anyone thinks of anything please post and I'll reply first thing tomorrow morning.

Got a few thread views so ty to those that clicked

 

[Gibbons]

Good morning all - crossing my fingers for some help today!

 

[whs]

Hmm, sorry to say that you are not the only "victim" of the Windows7 imaging. It is a real dog.

What I can suggest is that you mount the VHD of the image and image that VHD with free Macrium. Then restore the Macrium image. I have tried that before and it worked . although I only had one partition.

I don't know how many VHDs you have. You may have to deal with them seperately if there are more than one.

Try that and if you get stuck keep asking. We'll be here.

 

[Gibbons]

Thanks for your suggestion - I will certainly try this as soon as I get home from work.

Apparently it is also possible to retrieve files from a mounted VHD so I will attempt that first and foremost.

Still hoping to solve my restore error, if that's even an option at this point in time

 

[whs]

Yes you can retrieve files from a mounted VHD. It opens like any volume. That is useful for data files. But to restore the system, you need an image or boot directly from the VHD (which I have read about but never tried): Windows 7 Quick Restore using Boot from VHD

Regarding to fix your cutrrent problem I suggest you send a PM to mjf - he is the expert for Win7 imaging. Karlsnooks also, but he is not often around.

 

[Gibbons]

Will do, appreciate your help

Edit: Don't think I can send a PM yet, says I don't have privileges. Maybe because I'm still a 'New Member' Any chance you could send a PM with link to this thread on my behalf?

 

[whs]

Will do, appreciate your help

Edit: Don't think I can send a PM yet, says I don't have privileges. Maybe because I'm still a 'New Member' Any chance you could send a PM with link to this thread on my behalf?

OK, I'll send mjf a PM. He is in Australia. So consider the time difference for an answer.

 

[mjf]

What could be going on is:
Previously you had the 250GB HDD "A" (prob. sata 1) with XP and W7 on the 1TB "B" (sata 2?).
"A" was probably system active and contained the boot files and "B" was being booted through "A". When you make a Windows 7 system image it wants to image the system reserved partition and the OS partition if they are separate.
Normally this would be a 100MB system reserved partition and an OS (Boot,...) partition. In your case it looks like they may be have been on the separate disks "A" and "B".

Option 1 -
Ideally if you have another HDD (250GB or more) plus your new 2TB HDD (your "2") I'd connect them to sata 1 and 2 respectively and the image HDD (your "1") to a sata 3 port if you have one. Then retry the same process to reimage.

Do you follow?

Option 2 -
As suggested by WHS, if you can make a Macrium image of the mounted W7 vhd image, then follow your original procedure (& 2x2TB HDDs) except using a Macrium restore. Your reimaged new disk will not have the boot files which can be installed by running a system repair from the system repair boot disk up to 3 times.
(I have been able to make a Macrium image of a mounted/attached Windows 7 OS vhd in the past).

 

[Gibbons]

Thanks very much mjf, I understand the issue now.

Unfortunately, I do not have another 250 GB HDD. Thanks to a very kind friend, I was able to get a new, genuine Win7Pro x64 license.

I was able to recover all of my files using the VHDMount method. So big thanks to WHS on that.

I believe the easiest course of action for me is to simply install the new Windows 7 on my new 2TB and copy over all the files from the reoriginal. I will reinstall all the programs I need as I go about it.

Thanks again for everyone's time and I apologize for not seeing this through to a complete restore. I've simply wasted far too much time on this issue (probably 20+ hours by now) and I just want to be done with everything and back up and running.

I won't make the same backup image mistake in the future - that's for sure! This clean install won't be tied in anyway to my dual-boot XP 250GB HDD. The PC won't even know that ever existed

 

[whs]

I am glad you could recover your files. A clean install is probably the easiest solution - although reinstalling from an imaged VHD would have been more geeky.

mjf: Thanks for chipping in.

 

[mjf]

As a general note I think it is best to make sure that the (system active) used by Windows 7 is on the same physical disk as the OS. If you are multi booting use a separate system reserved partition (200MB rather than the usual 100MB is better).

 

[tauro]

System Image Restore Failed (0x80070490)

I know this thread is old but I had the exact same issue when restoring an image using the Windows 7 backup.

This particular job was to restore from the backup image stored on another drive attached to SATA port 2.
Initially it would not allow me to restore from the image as there were other files on the same drive and also the system was a dual boot Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 10.

I first received the message “The system image is on a hard disk but Windows needs to format that disk to restore your computer. Choose a different image to restore”.

I resolved this by copying the image files to another spare drive I had lying around. I figured the original destination drive had permissions and compression as once the drive was copied it went from 99GB to 376GB on disk. This also prompted me to advise the client they would require a larger drive to restore to.

I tested the restore to a spare 1TB drive and then came across the error the OP had which was "The system image restore failed Element not found error 80070490".

To resolve this I just reconnected the 500GB drive that contained the original backup image and the restore completed successfully.
Hope this helps others having similar issues but best avoid it and use 3rd party backup software.
I use Acronis Backup & Recovery Advanced Workstation Edition.