Windows 10 System Image Issues

Hi all,

After posting on four different forums and getting next to no help I finally remembered the name of this site which has helped me so many times in years past. So here goes, with a little backstory:

About a year ago I built a new windows 10 box. I decided that after I got it built, drivers installed and software etc completed that I would make an image of the system for the purposes of being able to revert back to that image should the need arise (viruses etc). That way I'd never have to worry with reformat/reinstall drivers/reinstall programs etc. I could revert back and bam...fresh computer. In theory at least.

To do this I went to control panel -> backup and restore -> create a system image -> on a hard disc -> and made it on my E: where it has sat to this day.

A few days ago I received a windows 10 update in the middle of the night and suddenly I have some Microsoft programs ( solitaire for crying out loud) and others crashing upon launch for no reason. I figured I'd finally utilize that system image instead of endless fighting with Microsoft. E: is an internal drive and the system image is housed at the root of the drive so I presumed I'd have no problems. After a quick bit of googling I found that holding shift and clicking "restart" would take me to access the advanced startup option and allow me to restore from that system image. After making my way to the menu, going through the account selection and login process I am told by a pop up that there is no image present. Apparently it's not detecting E: drive. It offers me the option to rescan, search the network or install a driver with no other alternatives. I tried this several times with the same result.

I should mention that there seems to be no restore points to roll back to prior to the update for some reason. I thought that maybe I could utilize a 3rd party software to do this after google suggested Acronis. I bought the program and didn't see any features that would permit using the already created system image .vhdx file to restore my C: with. I'm out $30 but maybe it will come in handy in the future.

I posted to four other large pc repair forums and got hit with a plethora of questions that argued the logic of what I was doing and in the event I was not clear on those forums let me be clear here: I have a system image already. I would ideally like to use that system image. I do not fancy the idea of reformatting, which I could have easily already done, installing drivers, updating everything, installing the entire adobe creative suite all over again among everything else. It's just not the way I'd like to spend an afternoon if I can get out of it. I would love to just roll this bad boy back to it's picturesque form as it was in the system image that I made a year ago just moments after completing everything from scratch.

Now that I've said that. I have a 128 gb flash drive that I tried to copy the image to and see if the system image recovery option would read. It did not. It is entirely possible that I went about that the wrong way as I literally just copied the .vdxh file to the root of the empty flash drive and prayed. I was told by another user on another forum that Windows 10 will not read an internal drive and that the image must be on an external. I've already purchased a 3.5" external HD dock and I intend to pull the E: and plug it into that and again..pray. However, that will not be shipped to my home until tomorrow so in the mean time I'm trying to gather information and find out if there is an alternative.

Sorry for the wall of text. In summary my question is :

Is there a way to make this .vdhx image file do what it was intended to do and how?

 

I understand your problem but am mystified by your description of the file. System images made with Windows have a .vhd file extension, not .vdhx. I have such files on one of the systems here. Having said that, you won't find a better description of the backup and restore process than THIS, which I suspect you have already seen. The fact that your image is on an internal drive is irrelevant unless that drive contains any system files or folders, which normally it will not.

 

http://imgur.com/d88LLLI

That's the image I'm looking at (if the image insert doesn't work : http://imgur.com/d88LLLI ). It's definitely a vhdx. Is it possible to convert vhdx to vhd and make it work?

 

I've just performed a Win 10 image backup and the file is .vhdx. They've changed it since Win 7 so that's a red herring, sorry. It has backed up fine to an internal HDD. Booted to a Win 10 system repair CD it should work fine but if not ???????????

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the system repair disc the same thing as holding shift and clicking on restart? I made a windows 10 repair disc (control panel -> back up and restore -> create a system repair disc) and when loading it and restarting it would take me to the exact same menu. I'm unsure what purpose the disc serves if you have access to desktop. That being said, once I access the advanced options recovery menu, the scan takes place but finds nothing. What would cause that? I presumed it had to do with either it being on an internal drive or how it was placed on the internal drive. You can see my file hierarchy here: http://imgur.com/nbShhsO

That is how it was stored from the wizard that created the image. Is that perhaps not the right hierarchy to have it recognized?

 

Everything looks normal. I have no explanation atm for the backup not being found but try booting from the CD anyway - you never know.

Right now I'm going to see if my new .vhdx file will mount in a virtual machine. If it does it will at least give you a way of checking your backup is good.

 

I'm not getting anywhere with that, just error messages when I try to mount it. Your image contains two partitions, one 38GB and one 74GB. That's an awful lot of data for a system image. Have you possibly included drive E: in the image? That would cause it to fail.

 

One image is of C: and the other is of another hard drive. I was going to delete the unneeded image and keep the other one when it occurred to me that I didn't know which was which. I tried attaching and mounting them in disk manager but neither will attach now for some unknown reason. Worked fine yesterday. I think I'm just going to bite the damn bullet on this one and reformat.

With that in mind, after I reformat/install programs/drivers etc; What's the best and most painless way to create an image that can be stored off-drive that can be used to revert back to. I'm open to third party programs as well if it will save me this headache again.

 

I alternate Acronis and Macrium Reflect on a monthly basis. Others here have other favourites. See HERE

I wouldn't ever use the built-in system you have used.