| Windows 7 System Image Disc Recovery |  |
| Articles - Featured Guides | |||||||
| Written by Olin Coles | |||||||
| Tuesday, 02 February 2010 | |||||||
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Recovering Windows 7 with System Image Restore DisksVery recently Benchmark Reviews published the Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade and Installation guide, which helps erase the mistakes made by Windows Vista and introduces computer enthusiasts to the newly introduced O/S. Microsoft has enjoyed a successful launch for their Windows 7 Operating System, also referred to at Win7 or W7, and PCs have been made more productive and secure as a result. But like all good things that we receive, it's in our nature to protect and keep them. The best way to accomplish this is with a solid backup, and luckily Windows 7 offers a built-in Backup and Restore tool for creating System Images. By creating a backup file users can preserve their data, but with a System Image recovering the source disk can be helpful when replacing the drive with another. In this article, Benchmark Reviews guides users on the best practices for protecting and Recovering Windows 7 with System Image Restore Disks. Thanks to Moore's law, computer technology is always-changing, and for many hardware enthusiasts a new product for the PC means an exciting opportunity to experience the future. Since Windows XP was the last O/S to receive widespread acceptance from the power-user community, it's not surprising that many have taken to buying new computers with the Windows 7 O/S installed. Taking things one step further, some users are taking this opportunity to replace the standard hard drive with another great new technological advancement: the Solid State Drive.
This guide will detail the steps necessary to back-up data, create a system restore image, and recover the computer's drive using a system disk for Windows 7. Additionally, Benchmark Reviews offers advice on how to avoid the system image restore errors during the recovery operation. Users experiencing messages like "The system image restore failed. 0x80042403" or "No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found." and "The system image restore failed. Error details: The parameter is incorrect. 0x80070057" will be guided towards success in this article. Windows 7 System Requirements:
Additional Feature Requirements:
Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System choices for clean installation:
Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System choices for upgrade installation:
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Comments
"The system image restore failed. No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found."
I was trying to restore an image made from a 500GB disk (with 128GB used) to a 250GB disk. Swapping in a 500GB allowed the restore to happen.
Thanks for discussing and sharing this partition size issue.
Note to Microsoft: please make better error messages and tell us these issues up front.
This was exactly the problem that caused me to write this article. It would have been so simple for Microsoft to offer some basic suggestions that remedy this issue, but instead they used almost meaningless error messages.
I'm glad this guide helped you, and I hope it helps others too!
This is a great tutorial, and everything as explained is clear and makes sense. However I'm getting stuck on trying to restore the image to the drive--getting the 0x80042412 error.
Moving from 300GB HDD to a 120GB SSD (OCZ Agility 2) in a Thinkpad x201 running Win7 Pro 64.
I shrunk the 300GB drive to ~30GB using the Windows Disk Manager tool, but still getting this error. Any ideas?
Thanks!
I'm not sure if you're describing a Windows STOP error during boot-up, or an error you receive during the image restore.
You'll want to make sure that you shrink the source volume to it's smallest size, and then add back at least 1000MB.
Thanks for quick reply. I can boot from the system repair disc and walk through all the steps that are described on the last page of this article (e.g. select a disk image to restore from, etc.) It's not until the final step that it gives that error.
Re: the shrinking, I shrunk to smallest size plus 1GB and change.
Another guide I found (#sonic-media.dk/?p=103#comment-196) suggests that the built-in Windows partition manager is not sufficient because it doesn't move the pagefile (or something to that effect), and recommends using 3rd party apps. Any ideas whether this could be an issue for me?
Regarding DISKPART, I'm not familiar with this, I'm assuming that the steps would be:
1. Install new destination SSD
2. Boot from system repair DVD
3. ?? Somehow get to command line to type "DISKPART"?
I've read elsewhere that I should confirm that the destination drive is activated in the BIOS, and that I should use DISKPART to determine that. But I don't see any way to get the command line prompt when booting from my system repair DVD...
You'd use DISKPART with the SSD attached to a working system. That way you could determine which disk it is (0, 1, 2, etc) and properly select it. Say it's disk 1 (second drive), the process would be to open the command prompt and type:
DISKPART
SELECT DISK 1
CLEAN -ALL
Just make sure you select the correct drive.
Regarding DISKPART, I'm still unclear how to access it from the restore process. I'm creating a system image from existing HDD, and then want to restore it to a brand-new SSD. So when I put in the bare SSD into the laptop, all I can do is boot to the bios utility or boot from the system repair DVD I made with windows. I don't see any way to get to the command line from either scenario.
btw, thanks a ton for the help.
DISKPART can only be reached from the (DOS-like) command prompt. Usually it is performed on a working (desktop) computer, with the second drive attached as a spare. You shouldn't need it if the SSD is new and unused.
At this point it seems that Windows 7 Image Restore is not for you. I suggest looking into programs like Acronis True Image. Good luck.
Your article was really excellent and addressing the issue much better than Microsoft!
Just one question here about error 0x80042403: I have already created my image from a 180GB (?) drive on a 320GB HDD but the whole image is less than 40GB because the imaged drive (windows drive) was mostly empty. The image is on a 500GB external 500GB and to be restored on a new 160GB HDD on my computer which replaces the old dead! 320GB HDD.
So, I can not create a new image that drive what should I do to avoid 0x80042403 error. According to your article I guess the problem is that the drive I imaged is larger than the drive (and the whole HDD actually) I am restoring to. Is there any solution at this moment? Shrinking the drive on the External (image bearer) HDD? etc.
Thank you very much
I meant now that I have created the image and it is NOT possible to do it again (because the source drive is formatted and dead), and on the other hand since the imaged partition was bigger than the destination HDD (180 vs 160GB) to which I am going to restore, What should be done?
- The image can not be changed but I can do any changes on the drives of my image carrier external hard drive (500GB). Is there anything to be done with it to solve the problem?
Thank you again
I am not sure how to shrink the drive, can you please explain?
Thanks and your article is veryvery useful btw :)
thanks a lot!
I right clicked the "c:" then shrink volume, was i suppose to shrink it at the bottom aswell where the "line graph" looking thing was?
Thanks for your help, i really need it!
please help Olin
I've recently started running into this problem on some drives. What happens is that some files that cannot be moved, such as the page file, system restore files, or other system files. Usually it's only one or two files, and if you run Disk Defragmenter it will report the specific files to the event log. I've also found that shutting down services will free these files, as well.
Yes the target drive (& partition) is 111GB and source partition wqs 70GB. The shrink didn't work in Windows 7 but with EaseUS it was fine and rebooted etc. I am now trying the free EaseUS backup / restore tool instead of the Windows 7 one in case that makes any difference, or has better error reporting.