RE Images and refresh does not work

[Mitchell]

Hi,
So i have had to result in reinstailling windows 8 from scratch since neirther my saved system image worked and the refresh and restore options dont work.

I have had this system image problems happen twice, when i go to restore the image i get an error saying that the image was made on a different OS varient. E.g it was made of a 32bit system and im reimagaing a 64bit os. However this is not the case.
When i brought windows 8 i had the 32bit OS but i have upgraded to the 64bit OS and the reimage was done on a 64bit OS. I only have one PC so it nots likely that it was from a different PC.

Also when i go to the refresh option, i get an error saying that the drive is locked.
I have no idea how it was locked and how to unlocked it.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?
As each time i need to fix the OS i have to instaill from scratch

 

[SIW2]

The locked message can be because it thinks the winre.wim and install.wim do not match. Can happen if one is 8.0 and the other is 8.1. Or if one is 32 the other 64 Can also happen if you try from booted media of the wrong version.

Ridiculous message.

Sounds like your 8 64 bit install may be picking up the 32 bit winre.wim from your previous install.

You can have a look and see what reagentc is pointing at ( if anything). It might have sorted itself our now you have reinstalled, but I wouldn't bank on it.

At cmd prompt

reagentc /info

 

[whs]

!. In the future I suggest you use free Macrium for imaging. Then you don't have such problems.

2. You can recover your image with this tutorial. At the same time you will see the instructions for Macrium.

System Image - Recover a Broken Windows 7 System Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[Mitchell]

The locked message can be because it thinks the winre.wim and install.wim do not match. Can happen if one is 8.0 and the other is 8.1. Or if one is 32 the other 64 Can also happen if you try from booted media of the wrong version.

Ridiculous message.

Sounds like your 8 64 bit install may be picking up the 32 bit winre.wim from your previous install.

You can have a look and see what reagentc is pointing at ( if anything). It might have sorted itself our now you have reinstalled, but I wouldn't bank on it.

At cmd prompt

reagentc /info

To be honest I have no idea what you mean. Anyway I ran cmd and have attached a screen shot.

Shall try that program in the future. thanks

 

[SIW2]

No OSIMAGE is registered.

You need to find install.wim

Or copy it from installation media onto a folder on your drive.

I called the folder REC-OSIMG. Inside C:\REC-OSIMG folder put a copy of install.wim






Then you need to tell windows the path to the folder containing Install.wim

reagentc /setosimage /path c:\rec-osimg /index 1 /target c:\windows

(press enter)

reagentc /enable

(press enter)

If you then do reagentc /info it will be something like this:

 

[Saltgrass]

I have seen the OS variant message when playing with re-imaging my system. As SIW2 mentions, if you are using a Windows 8 image, you will need a Windows 8 recovery media or install media to boot, then recover the image. Since you say the image is x64 and the bootable media is x64, I will assume that part of the message does not apply.

I believe I have also seen the error when, even though using 8.0 boot and image, I was re-imaging to a hard drive that already had 8.1 installed. Since an image will restore to a new or blank hard drive, you might try cleaning it or using a new one.

Also, booting into a Legacy version of the boot media when trying to recover a UEFI image, or vice versa, will throw an error. It may not be the same error, but make sure you are booting into the correct configuration.

Some confusion may come in exactly what System Image means. To me, it means an image created using the built-in Windows Imaging utility and saved to another Hard Drive. Other folks think of it as a .wim file used with procedures such as Resetting the PC.

I have no ideas about the "Drive is Locked" situation, but it might be related to the re-imaging situation. Maybe a picture of your Disk Management window would yield some clues.

 

[SIW2]

That reagentc /info in my screenie is 8.1 x64, it was pointing at the wrong winre.wim