Home AOMEI Products Support

Unable to Restore Image File

I'm using your Standard version Backupper on a Win7 system.

I created a system image backup and verified it but when I attempt to boot into my system using the Windows PE file, I get the following message "Unable to get the backup information because the image file does not exist, or can not be accessed, or has been damaged."

Yet the image file does exist on my external hard drive?

Comments

  • My external HDD is working fine. My system recognizes the image on the drive when running the system as normal. But it doesn't seem to recognize it when running under the WinPE boot disc.

    Could this have anything to do with the fact that my external drive that contains the system image is attached to my computer through a docking station via USB 3? Are there any additional drivers I have to include when creating the bootable PE disc to make it recognize it?

  • I verified that the external USB 3 drive has nothing to do with the error msg "Unable to get the backup information because the image file can not be accessed or has been damaged" because I tried moving the image over to one of my internal HDDs and I get the same result.


    My OS is Win7 Home Premium and I loaded the smaller Win 7 version of Standard Backupper.

    I can't believe this is so difficult to figure out!

  • Have you tried to browse a path to select the image file to restore

  • Yes. When I try to set the path by looking in My Computer, I can see the drive that my System Image is on but the size of the drive is incorrect. When I'm using the WinPE boot disc, it shows 38.2 MB free of 99.9 MB when the drive actually contains 585GB free of 931GB. And when I try to browse to find the image on it (.adi or .afi), it can't find it when running under the WinPe disc. I can find it with no problem when running under my normal OS.

    I'm still wondering if this has anything to do with the fact that I'm using a USB3 external docking station for my backup drive? Do I need to add any additional drivers for this when I'm creating the WinPE disc? I'm running Windows7 Home Premium?

  • TigerBill, I had problems using my Win 7 created WinPE disk, specifically it not seeing my USB mouse [it worked with a PS 2 mouse] and the mouse being active on a Win 8 created disk but with no cursor.  Things USB seem to be problematic with the PE disks.


    I have a suggestion that is just a shot in the dark: try making a new image and save it directly to an internal drive.  Do this without your external drive connected and make a new PE disk without the external drive connected. 


    As I said, a complete shot in the dark based on trying to eliminate anything USB

  • Hey Homer, Thanks for your suggestion.

    I tried re-doing my backup using an internal hard drive and the restore procedure finally recognizes it! So it seems that backing up to and trying to restore from an externally connected hard drive via a USB docking station is the problem. (And I tested both USB3 and USB2 connections and neither of them worked.)


    I'm hoping someone has found a workaround for this problem.


    It certainly defeats the purpose of having secure backups that can be made and stored offline, if the backups you make using an external USB connected hard drive can't be used to restore your system...


    Yikes!

  • TigerBill, glad to see that my off the wall idea worked for you.  That it did just points out again that there are serious issues relating to USB devices and Backupper.  I hope Aomei is able to fix these problems.....soon.


    Have you tried manually copying the image from the internal drive to your external USB drive and then checking if it is seen by the restore process?  If that works, it is a somewhat clunky workaround.


    Are you using a WinPE disk for the restore or just doing it from the Backupper program installed on your computer?  I ask because I cannot get my PE disk to work if I use my USB mouse but it will work with a PS2 mouse.


    I use PE disks when restoring an image as I think it a better way to restore a boot drive than to use a program on the boot drive that I am restoring.

  • It is not a backupper problem. It is because the winpe does not contain the right drivers. Win7 pe doesn't have usb3 support built in, for example.


    If you are using win7:

    You can d/l this A26.zip, unzip it onto your hard drive , then run as admin on the run-me-as-admin.cmd file. It will make full featured pe for you and include any aomei products you currently have installedin your running os. Also includes quite a few network and usb3  drivers.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/alxvm6b9aic0ys5/A26.zip?dl=0



  • TigerBill ,

    In PE mode, the drive letter may change, so you can not locate the image file in the original path. You can recognize the partition containing the image file by its partition size.

  • @ SIW2

    two questions:

    1. if it's for WIN7 ... wil it work on 2008 R2 too?

    2. can I integrate own drivers somewhere?
    I need my sata-raid-controller integrated in the PE, because it's not recognized by default.

  • SIW2, the file you provided shows that 23 of 57 visus scanners at virustotal.com detected, well let's call it 'something bad'.

    https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/b3eb27c9ed3126d0371630e4b500fe973237bef4404f9aefb93793853ecabfdb/analysis/1432817990/


    Could you explain what could be triggering those results?  I am reluctant to try using this file because of those detection results.

  • Hey Homer,

    While I certainly wouldn't trust that file, I agree with SIW2 that the cure for our problem is including the proper drivers on our boot discs. But I don't know which drivers to include? 


    I looked through my system and included all of the drivers I could find that had USB in their name (admittedly, not a very scientific approach) but it still doesn't work. 


    Once we can find the corrrect drivers to include for each of our systems, I believe our USB related problems will go away.

    By the way, during my tests I couldn't get USB to work regardless of whether it was USB 2 or 3.

  • TigerBill,


    I tried making a disk with the drivers I could find too but I was more wideranging than you.  I found c:\windows\inf and threw them all onto the disk via the add drivers option.  I chose the .inf files since I knew they were driver installation files.  It took a very long time but the result was still no USB mouse.


    Then someone pointed me at c:\windows\system32\drivers.  On my system there are ~350 files there but they are either .sys or .mui files so I did not try making a disk with them.


    BTW, in another thread SIW2 said the hits from the virus scanners on his A26 file was probably due to Ammy, a remote desktop application.  He then posted a connection to A27.zip.  Virustotal only had 10 of 51 scanners find a virus/trojan on that file.  I am not going to try that file either.

    https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/0487667aebfd10a8cf72550e821730f95026cdcbca420b061f0c0577d6153248/analysis/1432899348/

  • The latest is that I have been able to successfully create a WinPE boot disc that can be used to access my USB connected externlal hard drive but only when connected via USB 2.


    I created the boot disc by adding additional drivers that - I was guessing here - I thought the system might need to be able to find my external drive.


    Now, I'm at the point where I've got it working using USB 2, which is quite a bit slower than USB 3 but at least it works!


    If the admin (or anyone) has any advice on how to I can identify my USB 3 drivers, I would appreciate it as this will most likely allow me to go back to using my external drive in USB 3 mode.


    Thank you.

  • TigerBill, when you get this sorted out I would appreciate knowing where the drivers came from on your system that enabled you to use USB.  My attempts did not even have the success you now have.  I do not know if my mouse is USB 2 or 3 and whether the port it is plugged into is USB 2 or 3.  Before you ask,  accessing the back of the computer is a pain.


  • For Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

    I used the following USB 3 drivers to enable the USB 3 ports on my motherboard when using Windows Repair disk.
    The same files are added to the AOMEI PE disk to enable the USB 3 ports on the motherboard
    https://ww2.chemistry.gatech.edu/software/Drivers/Lenovo/T420s/USB3/
    File name is 8ay208ww.exe

    Run the file and save the files to a new folder on the desktop - do not "install" the files when prompted
    Open the folder on the desktop where you saved the files.
    Look for sub folders: Files > x64 and scroll down.
    There is a group of seven files, the two .inf files you select when adding drivers to the PE disk.


    image

  • sidrick, I extracted the files from the EXE but I did not get any subfolders such as you described.  I did not execute, i.e. double click the EXE, since you said not to install the files.  Should I have double clicked the EXE?  Would that have given me the option to save files rather than installing?


    Here is what I extracted:

    image

  • What your image shows is the compressed contents of the .exe file.

    Run the exe file and it will extract the contents to a default location or, as I prefer, to a new folder handy on the desktop.

    It's the final step where it offers to actually install the drivers that you don't want.

    Uncheck the box when it offers to install them and 'Finish'.

    image

    image


  • edited April 2018

    This is too much faffin' about to do a system restore. Win 7 Backup / Restore does it flawlessly (even with a Bitlocker external drive).  I'm currently evaluating AOMEI Backupper.  Works for file/folder backup, but falls short on system restore.

  • @toddk63 The restore failed?

Sign In or Register to comment.