[trnstar]

I have never been more infuriated with windows garbage before in my life... probably the first mistake I made was converting my disk to dynamic a while back which caused me no end of grief. I have installed, reformated, and done everything in the books atleast twice trying to get windows 7 and windows vista to dual boot. My second mistake was that I jumped on windows 7 beta and dumped my windows vista installation because of problems I had shrinking my drive to make room for another partition. I recently fixed the problem with the shrinking and finally went to install vista along with 7 only to find that for some reason it can't do that because it is a dynamic disk. So I then backed up windows 7 (a full system image) onto a newly purchased hard drive and also moved my media/documents to it as well. Then I used gparted to delete the partitions on my old drive (only after wasting a couple hours installing vista on my second hard drive to use to delete the old partition so I could create a new one and then discovered that you can't delete a system partition on vista or with your install DVD!?!?!?) and create new ones as basic. Then partitioned the older drive with half for vista and half for 7... Finally dual booting and very happy that I have been successful. Then I discovered that you can't restore the system image inside the OS so I boot up the install DVD, go to repair, and attempt to restore my system image. What can be more simple!?!?!?! Apparently microsoft found a way to make it difficult because it gave me some stinking error that makes no sense to me at all and I can't find anything from google, it is "the system image restore failed" with this ID 0x0042302... I figured maybe there was some reason that it couldn't have vista and 7 already installed so first I deleted 7 and tried again with no luck and recieved the same message. Then I tried deleting both and trying again but still the same message?!?!?! I am so annoyed with this whole situation and have installed the operating systems so many times that I have almost memorized my vista cd-key and I laugh everytime I see the "starting windows for the first time" message! Please help I am going insane with this situation... incase anyone got lost in my long ramblings, what I need help with is restoring my windows 7 system image.

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I Have felt your pain!!!
I was attempting the same install as you, except I am using virtualization (VirtualBox).
I created a test install drive, attempted restore from Image, got the same error as you.

There is bad news and bad news.

First Bad news, you're Image is Corrupt.

To test this I created a new Image. (Overwriting the old image)

Note: There is no OS on the drive I'm using the image to restore.
Tried to install Image on the virtual dive, this time it said it couln't find a drive to restore, suggested I may have excluded it. ( I Hadn't).

In order to prove to myself that I was on the right track, I did an Image restore to the Drive that the image was created from. WORKS JUST FINE!!

Further research: You'll notice in the drives to restore section, an information string, Volume {a08e (more stuff) ends with :c

If you're new at testing microsofts many, various, unsuccessful, ways to keep people from stealing their OS. Welcome to M$.

Conclusion: The Created IMage files Volume info, is put in the Installed Windows7.
When you attempt to use an Image Restore to a blank drive, (NO OS installed).
It Checks the Volume info in the Image, against the Volume info of the installed Windows7. If they Match, All is well. The Image will be restored.
If Not (NO OS INstalled), it isn't going to happen.

Bottom Lines: Never Use Dual Boot.
Use Vitualization software. VirtualBox, VMware etc.

Windows7 Imaging restore is, NOT the same, as Clone Imaging.
Windows7 can only restore an image to the same (OS) install, where it was created.

There are many backup solutions that will do what you are looking for.
Micrsofts, Windows7 isn't one of them.
I happen to be using Acronis. (This week anyway)

Hope this helps!

[isimaster]

I Have felt your pain!!!
I was attempting the same install as you, except I am using virtualization (VirtualBox).
I created a test install drive, attempted restore from Image, got the same error as you.

There is bad news and bad news.

First Bad news, you're Image is Corrupt.

To test this I created a new Image. (Overwriting the old image)

Note: There is no OS on the drive I'm using the image to restore.
Tried to install Image on the virtual dive, this time it said it couln't find a drive to restore, suggested I may have excluded it. ( I Hadn't).

In order to prove to myself that I was on the right track, I did an Image restore to the Drive that the image was created from. WORKS JUST FINE!!

Further research: You'll notice in the drives to restore section, an information string, Volume {a08e (more stuff) ends with :c

If you're new at testing microsofts many, various, unsuccessful, ways to keep people from stealing their OS. Welcome to M$.

Conclusion: The Created IMage files Volume info, is put in the Installed Windows7.
When you attempt to use an Image Restore to a blank drive, (NO OS installed).
It Checks the Volume info in the Image, against the Volume info of the installed Windows7. If they Match, All is well. The Image will be restored.
If Not (NO OS INstalled), it isn't going to happen.

Bottom Lines: Never Use Dual Boot.
Use Vitualization software. VirtualBox, VMware etc.

Windows7 Imaging restore is, NOT the same, as Clone Imaging.
Windows7 can only restore an image to the same (OS) install, where it was created.

There are many backup solutions that will do what you are looking for.
Micrsofts, Windows7 isn't one of them.
I happen to be using Acronis. (This week anyway)

Hope this helps!

[Austang]

You have to have made a windows 7 image properly first in order to restore it.

Here check this guide out: http://www.groovypos...7-system-image/

Then all you have to do is go into the back-up utility and run the restore wizard, pretty simple.

[rocoyanna]

if win 7 will not reimage to a new disk, what is the use? my hd failed and i have been trying unsuccessfully to reimage to a new disk for several days until i found this post telling me that is impossible.
what is MS trying to do here? an image restore is only good if it works also in case of hardware malfunctions. otherwise it is worthless!!!
the word has to be put out there that there (where???) is that terrible flaw with win 7 back up.

A further thought: is there an after market utility that might work around this problem and allow one to reimage to a new disk?

thanks.

Edited by rocoyanna, 12 October 2010 - 11:58 AM.