Restoring Win 7 system image from network location
Dear all Can anyone help me with a System Image restore problem. I have 2 PC’s running Win 7 Ultimate which can communicate together on a Homegroup network using a cross over cable. One of them is new so after getting it set up how I wanted, backed it up to the old PC (over the network) using Windows Backup and Restore. It all worked fine but now I can’t work out how to restore it. During restore process I get as far as getting prompted for a user name and password and can get no further, error is ‘Network location cannot be reached (0X800704CF). So far i've tried; Entering the credentials of an administrator level account on the PC which stores the system image, using computerName\userName format for the User Name. I've turned off Windows firewall on the detination PC. Disabled the pasword for the administrator account I’ve noticed the procedure and resulting error message are exactly the same even if I remove the cross over cable. It seems booting into the recovery environment does not give me enough network functionality to make connections to any other PC?? Thanks SE11
May 14th, 2011 11:57am

Can you please confim if the TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Service is started or not, if not please make sure that it is started.
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May 14th, 2011 2:11pm

Hello PK thanks for the message but not sure how I can do that from the recovery environment? I haven’t booted into windows. I’ve booted from windows CD so I could select recovery options and restore a previous system image. I don’t want to recover from within windows as I want to simulate a scenario where the PC is not bootable.
May 14th, 2011 2:44pm

Hi SE11 MWF, Can you boot into Safe Mode? If you can only boot from Windows CD, I suggest you choose to do a In place upgrade firstly http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2255099. After you can normally boot into your system, run the system restore again to that network location. If you still that error during restore, please also refer to this thread: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-networking/windows-7-system-error-1231-network-location/07c46785-cd1b-42c9-aa94-0adf1f4e2516 Regards, MiyaThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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May 17th, 2011 2:07am

Hi, How's going? Please feel free to give us any update. Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
May 20th, 2011 3:30am

Hello Miya, Thanks for message. Yes my PC is booting. I was actually trying to get my backup/restore procedure ironed out so that if the time came when a restore was needed I know it will all work. I now don’t see any reason why your suggestion wouldn’t work. Previously I was under the impression that you need to boot from a repair disk or Windows 7 cd to restore a system image, as it appears to state in my Windows 7 book (70-680). I guess my networking problem is not so important now but it would have been nice to crack it. Since my original post I found out that when I boot using windows CD or repair disk it doesn’t seem like the onboard network card is getting initialised. Ipconfig returns no information same result from netsh show ipv4 interface command. Not sure what the solution could be here. I’m thinking maybe a customised boot disk with nic drivers added. I’ve updated BIOS and network drivers and created a repair disk from the PC in question but same result so far. If you got any ideas on this would love to hear? Or should I post again in networking forum? SE11
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May 20th, 2011 1:56pm

Some questions: 1 Can you physically browse to the location the image (from the new machine while they are connected) "you might need to enable show all files in folder view to do this on one or both machines" 2 Have you reinstalled windows for some reason on the new machine If you can answer yes to 1 or both of these questions try browsing back to the location (from your new machine) right click the file and select "take ownership" you should now be able to use the backup image/filePlease remember to flag a post that helps you as "answer" so that it may help others with same problems.
May 22nd, 2011 11:15am

Thanks DirtyOleBegger for the reply. The answers are 1) yes 2) No However if you see my last post in this thread, i'm pretty sure that my problem is that when I boot from a CD into the Windows recovery environment my onboard network drivers are not being enabled. Even though i'm not using IP, ipconfig and netsh commands should at least show me connection/device information but I get nothing. SE11
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May 22nd, 2011 12:48pm

so umm... did you take ownership of the folder using the system its supposed to belong to? backing it up to one machine is fine but I'm sure once the file was on it, the machine took it as its own file and not another machines... at least try taking ownership of the file I had something very similar but not on network and all it required was me taking MY new machine and browsing to where the file was located and taking ownership of it, then when I booted using the windows CD repair console it was able to see it. Please remember to flag a post that helps you as "answer" so that it may help others with same problems.
May 22nd, 2011 3:33pm

Hi SE11, Thanks for the update. So after you boot from the recovery CD, did you repair your computer ? Could you normally boot from the system and enter into the normal mode now? After you enter into the normal mode, run cmd as administrator, then input command ipconfig, could you get the information? I think your network connection is working now. Since you can browse the backup on the old computer, you can set that backup as shared, or as DirtyOleBeggar replied, take the ownership of that folder, set the owner to both administrators on the old and new computer. Then try to restore again. Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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May 23rd, 2011 4:47am

well i gave it a try but seems like i find myself in a stale mate situation. I booted both PC's into normal windows mode and joined them to my HomeGroup but couldn't change the permissions of the file or folder. From the old PC i'm not allowed to assign permissions to any accounts from the new PC. No accounts on the new PC are visible and I can't select by typing the path name as it does not recognise the other PC. From the new PC if i browse to the old PC and view properties > security of the folder, on the ownership tab it does actually show the old PC as being the owner as you guys have said and below in the Change Owner To box it shows the account which i require, the account on the new PC. However it won't let me select the account, it says I need to have restore permissions on the folder to change ownership. so I added my admin account on the new PC to backup operators group but that didn't do the trick. So to sum it up i can't give the rights to the account that needs it and the account that needs the ownership can't take the rights. I am able to do an ipconfig command from the new PC when it is in normal windows mode and i get normal collection of information back but when the same PC is in recovery environment it just returns ' Windows ip configuration'. That can't be right? On the old PC it at least tells me I have a local area connection. I've tried doing the procedure the other way around i.e. booting the old PC into recovery environment and going through the restore image process. I got an 'internal error occurred while enumerating backup set' or if I enter a path where there is no image file it will put me back at the select image window. At least it seems there's a connection between the 2 machines whereas none of that would have made a difference on the new PC. it always takes the same amount of time to come back with the same error. I still think this is a network connectivity issue rather than a file permissions thing at this stage. ANYWAY i've added a second internal disk to the new machine as a dedicated backup drive and put the image folder there. I performed a restore from the second drive in the recovery environment no problems so for now I think i'll' have to put this issue on the back burner as I have other things to do. I'll most likely come back to this in the near future but for now thanks for your help and ideas. SE11
May 24th, 2011 3:48pm

Hi SE11, Thanks for the update. And glad you successfuly restore from a second internal disk. I'll temporarily mark this thread as 'Answered' in order to help other community members who encounter the similar issue. They can try the methods above. Meanwhile, as soon as you come back on this issue, you can directly reply to this thread. Or making a new thread to start from the head, including more information in it. Thanks for your efforts and cooperation! Regards, Miya TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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May 25th, 2011 4:47am

Thought I'd update this post as I came accross the same problem on a 2008 Server and I would think this would work for Windows 7 too. This time I found out I needed to use the wpeinit command from the command window. Wpeinit starts Windows PE which loads the network resources, a lack of network resources was the key to the problem. Once Windows PE is started I was able to configure an ip address with netsh and get the 2 machine talking, once that happened the restore worked without a problem.
April 23rd, 2012 2:48pm

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