So, in Windows 7 RC I can make a backup successfully on my USB 2.0 500 GB HDD connected to a USB 2.0 port direct on my PC. System Image backup completes successfully.Now I'm trying to restore the image on the same computer, but on a new hard drive. The original hard drive was a 750 GB SATA but was using only 100 GB of space. I want to restore the image to my new 500 GB SATA HDD. I took out the old HDD, installed my new one into the same and booted with my Windows 7 DVD. I chose Repair and went through the steps to restore the system image backup.It finds my new HDD successfully, I choose to restore the image backup, and as soon as it starts it says:The system image restore failed. Error: Error details: The parameter is incorrect.(0x80070057)I have tried formatting my external backup HDD and made a new system image from scratch. Same error when trying to restore it.Is it true you can't restore from a USB HDD? If so, why let me backup to it in the first place? I don't know what to do. This just means since Windows 7 came out in beta stages, my backups must not have been restorable all this time. Scary.Or is it true I can't restore to a new HDD? What if my old HDD had died?Any ideas? The last time I successfully restored was from an internal SATA HDD on Vista, and I restored to the same HDD on which Vista was originally installed on as my installation became corrupt. The restore was perfectly successful.

This problem should be fixed in the RC, but apparently is not. See: http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/pages/common-causes-and-solutions-to-backup-system-restore-and-complete-pc-backup-problems.aspx, referring to Vista Complete Backup (what's nearly the same like "Backup personal folders and system image" in Windows 7).Mobile AMD64 3000+, VIA Apollo K8T800 chipset, 1 G RAM, ATIRadeonMobility 9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

Ah, however, error 0x80070057 on the link you provided refers to a similar error but when making a backup. My error, also 0x80070057, comes when restoring the image. So 0x80070057 has two errors, one for backup and one for restore. The link you provide shows the backup error is fixed in the RC, but I'm getting this restore error.I finally gave up. I don't think RC is allowing restores from a USB HDD, andI don't have an internal HDD to test with.EDIT: OK, I used CloneZilla and cloned my Windows 7 RC from the old HDD to the new HDD. I then disconnected the new HDD and connected the old one and booting with the Windows 7 DVD. I tried to restore the image over my existing copy of Windows from my external USB HDD. It said preparing to restore image, but hanged there. I waited 2 mins and gave up. It might have started but I couldn't hear any HDD activity.I then erased the old Win 7 HDD, and tried again. I now got the same invalid parameter error.It seems, the Win7 System Image backup can only restore to the SAME HDD that Win 7 was originally installed on, and that installation must already be installed. If you try to restore to a new HDD or erase the current Win 7 and try restoring the image on that, it won't work because the volume ID or volume information is different. I'm saying this because when you try to restore the system image backup, just before it begins, a screen shows the system image's date and time, and volume information ID.How are we supposed to restore the image to a new HDD if it is looking for a previous installation?! Defeats the point of the backup. Vista's one works just fine.Can somebody please try restoring a system image onto a clean HDD (completely formatted and empty) and let us know it works? This needs to be fixed.EDIT 2: Just read this. It says I should make a 100 MB starting partition on the new HDD and mark it active, and make the rest of the space as a new partition. If this works, it defeats the point of the option during system image restore which says it can create and partition it automatically. Will try this now any way, see what happens..EDIT 3: Right. Formatted original Windows 7 HDD. Inserted my external USB HDD containing the image backup. Tried restoring, and this time it worked?! And I did this without creating the 100 MB partition as mentioned in Edit 2 above. I just restored onto the original unformatted unpartitioned HDD and it worked. But this time my USB HDD was plugged into my monitor's USB port. Ithen erased the HDD, restarted,tried restoring from a different port, and it failed.Then I tried the same monitor port and it failed, but did this without restarting.It could be, that the restore doesn't work from a USB HDD if it is plugged into a slower USB port, or if it is swapped from one USB port to a high speed port without restarting because you can't "safely remove" the USB HDD in the recovery environment. So plugging it into a USB port that is high speed while the computer is off, and trying again, should allow it to restore.Butone question remains: Can you restore to a HDD of a different make, model and size? Someone test please.

I know the above has been confusing. To sum it up, I couldn't restore my system image backup from a USB HDD. But it worked successfully when I tried it in another USB port and had the HDD plugged in before starting the PC. Then my main question was, does Windows 7 restore a system image onto a new unformatted HDD of another make or model? Well I've just tried it now and I know the above has been confusing. To sum it up, I couldn't restore my system image backup from a USB HDD. But it worked successfully when I tried it in another USB port and had the HDD plugged in before starting the PC. Then my main question was, does Windows 7 restore a system image onto a new unformatted HDD of another make or model? Well I've just tried it now and it worked.Verdict: To restore a Windows 7 System image from a USB HDD onto a new HDD of any make and model, ensure the HDD is definately plugged into a USB 2.0 port.Even though mine was before, but sometimes my USB 2.0 ports play up and act like USB 1.1 ports. But that's probably just for me...

Hi nLinked, I'm going through the exact same thing! My MBR is on a RAID0 set so I decided to try and do something about it finally. The RAID set held Vista, which I can live with losing now, but I installed W7 on an extra 750G sata. I booted into W7, created a system backup with only the W7 partitions off the 750G. I then fitted a new 1TB drive (I have no idea why we need these size drives these days but what the heck...), installed W7 on it in order to create a new boot record. Now I want to get everything back how it was using the image on my external drive. I insert the created DVD and it boots up correctly but when I select the image restore all I get is 'The image restore failed. No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found.' I got drastic and removed all the partitions on the 1TB using DISKPART, but no joy. Hmmmmmm I guess I'm stuck with the 750G Samsung which I think is starting to fail..... I'll try again tomorrow.

Hi nLinked,I'm going through the exact same thing!My MBR is on a RAID0 set so I decided to try and do something about it finally. The RAID set held Vista, which I can live with losing now, but I installed W7 on an extra 750G sata. I booted into W7, created a system backup with only the W7 partitions off the 750G.I then fitted a new 1TB drive (I have no idea why we need these size drives these days but what the heck...), installed W7 on it in order to create a new boot record. Now I want to get everything back how it was using the image on my external drive.I insert the created DVD and it boots up correctly but when I select the image restore all I get is 'The image restore failed. No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found.' I got drastic and removed all the partitions on the 1TB using DISKPART, but no joy. HmmmmmmI guess I'm stuck with the 750G Samsung which I think is starting to fail.....I'll try again tomorrow. I think I can help with the The image restore failed. No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found error. Happened to me so many times and then I found out why.Although you made a recovery disc, I havea strong feeling that when you boot the computer, the recovery environment is loading from your hard drive. Have you by any chance got a HDD in there with the Windows 7 files on it at the same time as the recovery CD, but your BIOS is loading the HDD first?Going back a bit, you said you tried to load Win7 on the drive to make the boot loader. You don't need to do this. Ensure the 1 TB HDD is blank, unformatted. Ensure bothHDDs are connected.Boot with the DVD only (set your DVD drive as the first boot device, and unplug any USB drives), and use that to restore the system image to the new drive.

H again, I'm trying to simulate HDD failure in the case of the 750G - so it is disconnected. You think I still need the original 750G (with W7 currently working) attached in order to get this to work? - as a third device. Comes back to your 'defeats the object' statement. Boot order is CD then the 1TB. I tried having the USB disconnected at boot but it gave the same error. I did the W7 install on the new drive in desperation but as you say - it shouldn't be necessary. Hence why I deleted the paritions to get me back to square 1. It's just not liking the new drive by the sounds of it? Perhaps what I am asking isn't possible because of my original setup. Although W7 was running, the MBR/system disk was on the RAID pair - so I have a system disk on the 750G which was selected to boot from an MBR on another drive. No MBR on the image. Since there wasn't an MBR, the recovery won't create one as required? Not sure how or if it will work but I could try going back into Vista (on the RAID), creating an image from there. Disconnect the RAID and (hopefully) then put that image on the 1TB first. Then try my W7 recovery????? I need an image tool that will allow me to select the MBR from the RAID and then create an image of the 750G....

Please read this: If you are recovering to a new hard disk, make sure the disk is at least as big as the disk that contained the volumes that were backed up, regardless of the size of those volumes. For example, if there was only one volume that was 100 GB on a 1-TB disk during backup, you should use a disk that is at least 1 TB when restoring. At this link http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755163.aspx Knowledge makes man great, practice makes him perfect!

I recently ran into a similar issue. A few months ago, I bought a new PC. Then a couple of weeks ago my HDD started making some alarming clicking noises and I got the company I bought the PC from to send me a replacement drive. I used Windows 7's image backup feature to copy what was on my old HDD to the new one and it worked great. Then, about a week ago, I decided to invest in a SSD in the hopes of being able to avoid the mechanical failures that tend to plague standard HDDs. So, when I got my new SSD a few days ago, I tried going through the same process of using Windows 7's image backup to copy what was on my old HDD to the new one. However, this time around, when I went to restore the image, I got a fairly generic error message along the lines of not being able to find an appropriate drive to restore to. After some research, I came across this thread here and it looks like the problem is that, despite the backup image only being 145 GB, I can't restore it because my old HDD is 1 TB and my new one is only 240 GB. I then tried using some third party software to clone my old HDD to the new one, but that didn't work either because when I boot off the SSD, Windows 7 says it's not a "genuine" copy and won't run properly. I'm a software engineer who works from home and a PC gamer, so, I have a fair amount of software installed on my PC and I really don't want to re-install everything. But, at this point, it looks like my only option may be to use my system restore discs to get my new SSD to a "factory default" state then spend several days re-installing all of my software. Someone please tell me I'm wrong.

I got the error message "No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found" when trying to use Windows backup to move my 40GB Windows 7 partition from a 500GB HDD to a 120GB SSD. I finally resolved the issue by installing a fresh copy of Windows 7 on the SSD, but without activation. Then I used the restore tab in disk utility on a Mac and a couple of external firewire enclosures to replace the new Windows 7 partition on the SSD with my old Windows 7 partition on the HDD. I left the new "System Reserved" partition on the SSD alone. After booting into my old Windows 7 partiton on the SSD, I went to activate windows, just to make sure I don't run into the same issue speedy7878 had with activation, and it told me that activation was successful. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I've found a solution to a similar problem. My situation: Replaced my 80gb HDD in my laptop with a 60gb SSD. I created a backup system image from the 80gb and tried to restore it to the 60gb using the win7 installation CD. I always arrived at the "No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found". Solution: Replaced the 80gb hard drive and created a new system back up image, however, fist I did this: Go to Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management Right-click on your C:drive, or whatever the 2nd Partition is (not the 100mb system reserved partition is) and select "shrink volume" Using this utility, shrink the volume of your second partition to less than that of the disk that you will be recovering your system to. This should enable your system to be restored to a disk smaller than the original disk. Once you've recovered your system, you can go to Disk Management again and Expand the volume to get all of your disk space back. Hope this helps others.

Hi, You have to shrink ALL your partitions such that the total size is less than the size of your destination disk. W7 image restore would restore the partition table and check to make sure that the partition table make sense for the new drive. I did a blog post about this http://goo.gl/xypD0 HTH