Windows 10: Using WindowsImageBackup with Windows 10

Hi all, I'm pulling my hair out over this.

I want to use a system image to set up several laptops with the same image. In W7, this was easy: use a bootable USB, repair your computer, swap out the USB with your drive that contains the image, and restore.

In W10, I'm using shift+restart to get to the advanced boot options, troubleshoot, use system image recovery. I follow the steps to get to browse for my image, but then the message appears: you must use an installation disc or system recovery disc. Well, you cannot get to system image recovery from a boot disc, and I've tried making a recovery disc on several different machines and they all fail.

What gives?

Thanks

:)

 

repair Windows 10 from system image - can't detect system image in external USB harddrive

Windows images are kept in a folder structure that looks like so:

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Backup 2015-11-05 085942

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Catalog

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\MediaId

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\SPPMetadataCache

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Backup 2015-11-05 085942\57f352ed-ad74-11e2-b151-806e6f6e6963.vhd

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Backup 2015-11-05 085942\57f352ee-ad74-11e2-b151-806e6f6e6963.vhd

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Backup 2015-11-05 085942\a6a9f160-5c1b-45ed-abc8-803da4c2bad3_AdditionalFilesc3b9f3c7-5e52-4d5e-8b20-19adc95a34c7.xml

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Backup 2015-11-05 085942\a6a9f160-5c1b-45ed-abc8-803da4c2bad3_Components.xml

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Backup 2015-11-05 085942\a6a9f160-5c1b-45ed-abc8-803da4c2bad3_RegistryExcludes.xml

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Backup 2015-11-05 085942\a6a9f160-5c1b-45ed-abc8-803da4c2bad3_Writer4dc3bdd4-ab48-4d07-adb0-3bee2926fd7f.xml

(5 more .xml files)

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Backup 2015-11-05 085942\BackupSpecs.xml

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Catalog\BackupGlobalCatalog

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\Catalog\GlobalCatalog

E:\WindowsImageBackup\PC\SPPMetadataCache\{3ca576e3-29cd-4c98-b8cf-57aaad4cfa1d}

You now need to check if you have a similar structure on your external disk.

 

Win 10 repair disk unable to find Win 10 system image backup

Although I thought that the Win 7 repair / restore was the issue, at another forum it was mentioned that doing a Win 7 backup to the same drive / partition as a prior Win 10 backup would cause the Win 10 images to no longer be visible to the Win 7 or Win
10 repair systems. This seems to be the actual cause of the problem.

My system has 4 hard drives, 5 partitions each. Windows 7 is installed on the 3rd drive, 2nd partition. Window 10 is installed on the 4th drive, 2nd partition. The Win 7 and Win 10 backups were made to the 2nd drive, 5th partition, and also to a "spare"
partition: 1st drive, 3rd partition (the 1st drive is the same drive as the boot partition, so the 2nd drive is the main backup). So I have two sets of Win 7 and Win 10 backups. I use different computer names for Win 7 and Win 10, such as NAME-7 and NAME-10
to avoid confusion with the image backups.

The suggested workaround from the other forum is to have two instances of WindowsImageBackup, one named WindowsImageBackup.W7 the other named WindowsImageBackup.W10, and then renaming one of them to WindowsImageBackup before doing a backup or restore. Using
the two separate instances of WindowsImageBackup appears to be working. This would seem to imply that somehow information is being stored in the WindowsImageBackup folder itself, but I don't know how. I do not see any files in the WindowsImageBackup, only
directories with the computer names.

 

Hi, you might find that ever so much easier if you use Macrium Reflect (free) and its Windows Backup option.

That's assuming all the laptops are precisely identical of course. I would ask how useful it is to do that, though.

I'm not sure what happens about activation- you would need a separate license for each PC, or Win 10 to have already been installed on them and activated. And that assumes there is nothing else installed whose license terms would be invalidated.

You can access system recovery from Win 10 installation media.

 

I have used Macrium in the past and like it, but these laptops have M2 drives so I don't have a cable for that.

How do I get to the repair your computer options from the install disc?

 

Hi, a cable for ... what? A USB cable? You could back up to network storage if you cannot connect USB drives.

But the ability to boot from external media- DVD/flash drive/USB HDD.... is essential for recovery.

Win 10 install media recovery? Insert and boot the Win 10 disk/flash drive... respond to the first prompt and click 'Repair my computer'.

 

If you use Macrium Reflect Free to create backup images, you can create a boot entry to boot from Macrium in winpe mode without even needing an external usb flash drive or dvd (except when windows is badly corrupted or hdd/ssd has failed).