Windows 8.1 system image recovery isn't seeing backup on network

I needed to change out my HD on my local system. I used the System Image Backup from File History to create the image. The image was created on a NAS server I use for data and backup in my home lab. The backup took just 20 minutes to make and appeared to finished successfully. The new drive was installed and I'm using flash drive media to boot the windows setup. After booting I selected Repair Your Computer. Then Troubleshoot, then Advanced Options and finally System Image Recovery. The System Image Recovery initially tells me it can't find any system image on this computer which would make sense. I hit cancel and then the radio button is automatically set to "Select a system image". The next screen has an advanced and refresh button. I hit advanced, then I go through the process to "Install a driver". Here I install the LAN driver for the NIC on the motherboard. I verify it's working by hitting Shift+F10 and running "ipconfig" and ping the NAS. Once that's confirmed I go back to the previous screen, I hit advanced again and this time hit "Search for a system image on the network". I hit Yes and then enter the network location and a username and password. It quickly flashes a screen like it's searching for a backup but then takes me back to the previous screen with no backups displayed. I know that the backup exists. I can browse it from other computer locations. The path is ||server|share|WindowsImageBackup. When I specify the location of the system image I set ||server|path. I've tried specifying ||server|share|WindowsImageBackup and even ||server|share|WindowsImageBackup|HOSTNAME but nothing ever comes up with a image in the list. The old drive has had it's data erased, didn't know I was going to have this problem, so I'm stuck. The image is a bit to big to put on a thumb drive so I'm trying to find a drive caddy with a spare HD to copy the image to.

Why won't System Image Recovery see the image on the network drive. I don't understand.

Side Note - I've had to use Pipes instead of backslashes. The forum automatically makes network locations into links and as I'm unverified I'm not allowed to post links I was unable to post this topic. Why I couldn't remove the links is beyond me. Everytime I hit delete and removed the "link" I would click away and the forum software recreated it as a link. Sorry but this is ridiculous. Either allow new users to post links or allow users to remove the linking component so that they can post. I'm a bit annoyed already at 2 in the morning trying to recovery my OS and this just t'ed me off. </rant>

June 20th, 2015 6:15am

Hi,

There is 3 possible reason that Windows PE cannot find your system image.

Wrong Windows PE version.

NIC driver.

Windows image corruption. (Didnt created successfully or corrupted during data transmission)

Since you mentioned that you were prompted a user name and password, I am supposing the driver is out of the case. So please make sure that the Windows PE version is for Windows 8.1.

I have to mention that I met this kind of issue once before, also on a NAS. So after that, I always create it on another computer share and test the image once to make sure it could be found under Windows PE. And never erased data before new hard disk successfully imaged. So for the last try, try moving your image to a network share or external drive and give it another try.

Regards,

D. Wu

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June 24th, 2015 9:18pm

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