system restore image please help.....

[severedsolo]

Ok One last thing to try before we give this up as a lost cause.

Did your external HDD come with a driver disk?

If not, what is the make and model?

By the way... How are you booting Windows Recovery Environment if you don't have installation media?

 

[dezigner98]

external hard drive is a seagate free agent goflex 500 gb. im not sure what you mean about a driver for it..
i recieved the windows 7 oem cd today from dell ( operating system reinstallation dvd windows 7 home premium 64 bit). i put it in the drive reboot F12 boot from cd/dvd, it loads windows i click restore (not install) system recovery options ect... what the heck am i doing wrong? it doesnt see the partion we created.... on the c drive uggggggg......

 

[severedsolo]

Did the External Hard Drive come with a Cd or a DVD?

 

[dezigner98]

when i click advance it comes up with that window " reimage your computer" with only those 2 options " search for system image on network or install a driver"

 

[severedsolo]

I got that bit. Its not going to work obviously.

I have one more Idea, before I just tell you to reinstall and have done with it. but I need an answer to my question. Did the External Hard Drive come with a CD or a DVD?

 

[dezigner98]

external didnt come with cd.. omg im soooo sorry to be putting you threw all this you mus be tired and at your wits end

 

[severedsolo]

Damn it.

Ok I'm sorry to have to tell you this, you're not going to like what you hear.

It seems the Image is corrupt, that is why Windows can't see it, Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about this. I actually suspected this back on Page 5, but I was hoping it was a problem with the External Hard Drive.

This leaves us with one option. Reinstall Windows from the Dell OEM CD. That should get you your programs back (assuming they came with the computer.)

I'm really sorry, there is nothing else I can do to help you

 

[dezigner98]

ugggggg...... oh boy...... ok... we tried very hard ...... thank you for all your help you were extreamly patient and i appreciate what you had done. in the future.... after i reinstall windows and ect should i use the windows imagining or something else like ghost or...... ugggg...

 

[dezigner98]

im going to keep the image on my external incase ..... you wake up from a dream and say to your self " ahhhhh we should try that" lol my hopes..of course.. lol lol or maybe i should wake up and just say it aint gonna work ... well .. we gave it our best shot.
cheers and sleep well (maybe you will wake up with an idea)

 

[severedsolo]

I personally, would use Windows Backup, or Acronis, but Acronis is Payware.

Do yourself a favour, backup your files onto your external HDD before you reinstall, and delete the system image from E:\

Here is a tutorial: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html make sure you format the C drive before installing (the tutorial will explain how)

Honestly, we have tried everything, I know you don't see it, but behind the scenes, a team of Guru's have been helping me out with this thread, giving me ideas and such. We have exauhsted every avenue.

 

[dezigner98]

ok... thanks again for all your help. your a doll...

 

[severedsolo]

Your very welcome, I'm only sorry that it all ended up absolutely nowhere.

 

[dezigner98]

to all the guru's out there in cyber world and to you martin ...thank you all again....... i bid you good night, cheers

 

[severedsolo]

Can I please make a small suggestion for next time you post.

I don't mean this as a criticism, but this thread is 3 times as long as it should be because of your triple posting.

If you have something else to add, please use the Edit button on your posts.

 

[gregrocker]

If I am reading the screenshot of your External HD correctly, I believe you have a subfolder of the WindowsImageBackup file there which will not be autodetected by the booted Win7 Image Restore utility.

In my experience, the folder must be in the root of the External and can only be named WindowsImageBackup and nothing else.

It looks like you have the next sub-folder Cheryl-PC instead. You can create a New folder named WindowsImageBackup and place Cheryl-PC inside and the imaging utillity should autodetect it if it's not corrupted.

Sorry I didn't see this earlier.

 

[dezigner98]

Omg! That was it!! It found my external hard drive image and now preparing to restore. Oh crap just recieced error message. "The system image restore failed" error details: the volume I'd could not be found. (0x80070495). What's that?

 

[severedsolo]

a quick google suggests that it is either a corrupt boot sector on the Image, or a problem with RAID. As you don't have a RAID array, I think we can eliminate that one.

I'm thinking Clean Install again, but wait and see what Greg thinks, he is more experienced in these things than I am.

 

[Dave76]

If you want to try a version of Acronis for use on a Seagate HDD (internal or external) check this free version from Seagate.

You must have a Seagate HDD in your system for this to work.
I have used it many times for backups and restoring, cloning new HDDs, it works very well.

Seagate DiscWizard, a version of Acronis

 

[dezigner98]

OMG!!! it worked!!!! at first i tried to boot from external HD thats when i got that error. so i restarted and booted from windows cd. it saw the file named "windowsbackup" and it worked im back woooooooooooohooooooooohhhhhhhhhhoooooooooo......................
thanks guys !!! your all Geniuses
i have a few little errors i have to work out from bluetooth and word
but i hope i should beable to get them sorted out.

 

[gregrocker]

Glad it worked.

I found this out trying to juggle multiple backup image files for all 7 of our computers here on one external. You can change the name of the file, stick it in a folder, etc. But it has to be renamed exactly WindowsImageBackup and placed in the root like cheese on a mousetrap.

Many users don't like Windows Backup imaging because of this.

Just post any other issues you have in General or the specific forum if it's obvious.