[SOLVED] Difficulties restoring Win7 system image over network

[Something]

I have a MBP and i'm trying to restore the Win7 system image I made of the Boot Camp partition but within the Windows system recovery (using a Win7 installer disc) I encounter these errors.

This, when I try and recover over network (using Ethernet).

I've tried using \\<name of FreeNAS>\<share name> as well as \\<IP of FreeNAS>\<share name> but neither work.

Instead, I tried putting the system image backup in the root of the C:\ and encountered this error instead.

Any suggestions?

Please and thank you.

 

[cyberjock]

I could be mistaken, but I swore the last time I used the Windows backup tool I learned one very important lesson.

You can backup over the network, but you cannot restore over the network. Then, to make things crappier, if you copy the files to a local disk, you STILL can't recover without doing some sneaky trick. Sorry, But I forget the sneaky trick.

That is why I do not use the Windows recovery tool, nor do I ever, ever recommend or expect it to work.

 

[gpsguy]

This isn't a FreeNAS problem.

That being said, you didn't mention which version of Win 7 you have. If it's the Home version, then, no, it doesn't work with network drives. You have to have the Pro (or higher) version. And, I doubt you could put it on C: - maybe D: or something higher.

You might have better luck in a Windows forum, except that you've further complicated it by running it on a MBP inside Boot Camp.

Like cyberjock, I don't use Windows backup either.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

You can backup over the network, but you cannot restore over the network.

I have successfully restored a Windows System Image backup from my FreeNAS to a standalone PC after a disk failure. The Windows system didn't have anything important on it, but it saved me several hours reinstalling Windows and downloading hundreds of updates.

Unfortunately the fact that it worked for me doesn't help the OP. I don't remember having to do anything unusual to get it to work.

I've never tried it with a BootCamp partition, and I don't know why that would make a difference, but I suppose it could.

 

[Something]

Okay an update, I googled around and I found out that you need to have the ethernet driver (you have to manually load it for w/e reason, it won't just auto-find it even though it was already installed to windows, and you can't use the driver itself but the driver system info file in DriverStore not Drivers in C:\Windows\system32\). I was then able to recover from my NAS.

This led to another issue though. It recovered the partition exactly, so I ended up having a smaller partition than my drive could handle, so I tried to manually extend it to fit the rest of the space on the drive. That then botched my Windows and OS X partition and I had to go to Apple to have them reinstall OS X lol.

So, lesson learned, don't use Windows backup. In a couple months time i'm going to have to recover all the files from my NAS and manually put them all together because apparently system image restore is just awful.

I could be mistaken, but I swore the last time I used the Windows backup tool I learned one very important lesson.

You can backup over the network, but you cannot restore over the network. Then, to make things crappier, if you copy the files to a local disk, you STILL can't recover without doing some sneaky trick. Sorry, But I forget the sneaky trick.

That is why I do not use the Windows recovery tool, nor do I ever, ever recommend or expect it to work.

Windows backup is a new level of god awful and I really hope MS does something about.

For now though, I got a copy of Acronis and I'm going to start using that instead.

What do you recommend for Windows backup/recovery?

This isn't a FreeNAS problem.

That being said, you didn't mention which version of Win 7 you have. If it's the Home version, then, no, it doesn't work with network drives. You have to have the Pro (or higher) version. And, I doubt you could put it on C: - maybe D: or something higher.

It's Ultimate x64.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, I use Clonezilla. Sometimes I do an old fashioned dd using Parted Magic. One thing I like about the dd is I have a virtual guarantee that it *will* restore. It sucks because it is a bit slow to do. ;)

 

[leenux_tux]

Take a look at "Clonezilla" for creating (and restoring) system images to and from your FreeNAS system from Windows/Linux.
I have been using it for a number of years now and have successfully restored both Window and Linux based systems via this tool. The network transport can be a number of methods including SMB and NFS. You can also dump the images to locally attached USB, then copy those images from USB to your FreeNAS system (just another way of backing up)

 

[gpsguy]

I'm glad you finally got it straightened out. Now, you see why some of us don't like Windows.


Sent from my phone

 

[Apollo]

I'm glad you finally got it straightened out. Now, you see why some of us don't like Windows.


Sent from my phone

Windows is good, but like everything else it has its caveats.
I do use Clonezilla but it doesn't always play nice with computers.