Solved Unable to image hard disk w/ Win 8 Backup

JCClouser

Member
Member
Messages
76
Location
Las Vegas, NV
Hi Folks,

I have been using Win 8 exclusively for about a month and have been able to do regular full backups, including disk images, until last week. I have been using the Win 8 version of Backup and Restore (Windows 7 File Recovery!). I still am able to do a personal file and setting backup, but it refuses to do an image. I get the following error dialog:

A backup of a system image cannot be saved to a removable device. :confused:

I use an HP Personal Media Drive for backups. This is essentially an external HD, though it is plugged into the front of the computer chassis in a special bay, and uses a standard USB 2 port. I have used this same drive for all backups under Win 7 and the first full backup in Win 8.

One more bit of background on this issue...Until last week I was using Win 8 as an upgrade from 7 (Yes, I have a full image of my Win 7 system! :)). I then tested the Win 8 refresh and reinstalled all of my software and personal files. Everything works great except imaging.

Thanks for any help!!!

John
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1 Update 1 Pro 32-bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP m8200n Media Center PC
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
    Motherboard
    ECS Nettle2 (Socket M2)
    Memory
    4 GB DDR2 335 Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    1GB NVidia GeForce GT 430
    Sound Card
    Onboard Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung BX2440
    Screen Resolution
    1920 X 1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung (primary) 500 GB,
    WDC-WD10 HP Personal Media Drive (USB) 1.0 TB
    Keyboard
    HP Multimedia
    Mouse
    Microsoft Explorer Trackball
    Internet Speed
    10Mbps/750Kbps DSL
    Browser
    IE 11
    Antivirus
    Microsoft Windows Defender
One word: Clonezilla

You may like it for it's ease of use and abilities. You may not want it because you feel Win 8 should work as you want without it. Decision is yours. I just give the info. :)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8250 x86 + 7 SP1 x86 + Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x86
    CPU
    P4 3.4 GHz HT
    Motherboard
    MSI-7211
    Memory
    OCZ 2 GB DDR @ 400 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    HIS AGP HD 3850 Turbo Ice-Q
    Sound Card
    MOTU Traveler firewire interface
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer x223w
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata II, WD 400 GB Sata I, WD 120 GB Sata I
    PSU
    300W generic
    Case
    Cybertron
    Keyboard
    Logitech Classic Keyboard 200, Dell RT7D20
    Mouse
    Logitech M510
    Internet Speed
    2 MByte/sec Down, 250 KByte/sec Up
Thanks GMan for the suggestion and I might try this sometime.

If possible, I would still like to know why Win 8 changed its mind about removable media when I did the refresh, as it worked before. Just one of those things that make you go ....Hmmmmm!!! :huh: Since all external HD's are essentially removable media, this makes no sense. As it stands now it looks like I can only save an image to a DVD or internal HD. Oyyy!!!

John
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1 Update 1 Pro 32-bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP m8200n Media Center PC
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
    Motherboard
    ECS Nettle2 (Socket M2)
    Memory
    4 GB DDR2 335 Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    1GB NVidia GeForce GT 430
    Sound Card
    Onboard Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung BX2440
    Screen Resolution
    1920 X 1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung (primary) 500 GB,
    WDC-WD10 HP Personal Media Drive (USB) 1.0 TB
    Keyboard
    HP Multimedia
    Mouse
    Microsoft Explorer Trackball
    Internet Speed
    10Mbps/750Kbps DSL
    Browser
    IE 11
    Antivirus
    Microsoft Windows Defender
John: here's a thought. Possibly the Eight 'Refresh' hosed the driver for your HP device. In earlier versions of Windows when something like this happened one trouble-shooting protocol was to locate the device in Device Manager, delete it, then restart Windows to force the re-installation of the driver.

Alternatively, you could see if HP has a late Windows 7 driver for the HP Personal Media Drive matching the 'bitness' of your Eight and do a driver 'update' from Device Manager.

Since dual boot versions of Windows don't do restore points, I am completely dependent in my machine on imaging for system backup and 7 + 8 would have to access separate drives or partitions on the same drive. Therefore I have bypassed Windows Backup and Restore in favor of the Linux Recovery Boot Disc of Acronis True Image Home 2011 (alas the 2012 version installed into Windows has been a plague). It's great advantage is that each image may be independently named as well as assigned a unique description, so a stack of backups representing the evolution of a system may be maintained. I never mess with incremental or differential backups, always performing a 'full' one.

The performance of this system has been exemplary: fast and 100% reliable. My Eight is not a production system, setup merely to test and torture lightly, mostly with many utilities, deep customizations, and Office 2003. For this reason and the fact that all my data resides off the boot disk, Eight has only grown to about 17 GB and at this size the Acronis Recovery Disc images the Eight volume [partition] in about two minutes. Validation of the resulting file take a little less than two minutes and the recovery of an image about 90 seconds. The fast times derive primarily from the boot disk being an SSD and the external drive SATA II connected by eSATA.

Initial problems with the video driver for my graphics card, but especially the ordeal of installing the driver & software for an X-Fi Xtreme Music audio card on Eight have necessitated about a dozen image recoveries so far, each flawless.

Hope you get the situation with the HP & Windows 7 Backup and Restore straightened out because a sound image resource is the bedrock of secure computing.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro with Media Center x64
atitlan...I did as you suggested uninstalled the driver for the Media Drive, rebooted, and allowed Win 8 to reinstall it. No change in the status of the drive. Win 8 still warns that system images cannot be saved to removable devices. I will now go to HP and try to find a newer device driver.

I'll let you know what happens...

John
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1 Update 1 Pro 32-bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP m8200n Media Center PC
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
    Motherboard
    ECS Nettle2 (Socket M2)
    Memory
    4 GB DDR2 335 Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    1GB NVidia GeForce GT 430
    Sound Card
    Onboard Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung BX2440
    Screen Resolution
    1920 X 1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung (primary) 500 GB,
    WDC-WD10 HP Personal Media Drive (USB) 1.0 TB
    Keyboard
    HP Multimedia
    Mouse
    Microsoft Explorer Trackball
    Internet Speed
    10Mbps/750Kbps DSL
    Browser
    IE 11
    Antivirus
    Microsoft Windows Defender
Anything that has been coming out of Microsoft in the system recovery and restore area since XP was defunct. I have given up trying to understand why they cannot fix that.

Instead I use OEM products (mostly free Macrium) that do a beautiful job and are fast and reliable. With the MS functions you can never be sure if you will be able to recover even if a valid image or restore point was created. What good is that.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Vista and Win7
    System Manufacturer/Model
    2xHP, 2xGateway, 1xDell, 1xSony
    Hard Drives
    5 SSDs and 12 HDs
I've been using Windows Image Backup exclusively since the W7 beta was released.

Only ever had trouble once, and that was my fault.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Enterprise 64-bit (7 Ult, Vista & XP in V-Box)
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire Ethos AS8951G 'Super-Laptop'.
    CPU
    Intel Sandy-Bridge i7-2670QM quad-core
    Motherboard
    Acer
    Memory
    8GB DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel 3000HD / Ge-Force GT555M 2 gigs
    Sound Card
    Realtek/5.1 Dolby built-in including speakers.
    Monitor(s) Displays
    18.4" full-HD
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1024
    Hard Drives
    2x750GB Toshiba internal, 1x500GB Seagate external, 1x2TB Seagate external, 1x640GB Toshiba pocket-drive, 1x640GB Samsung pocket drive.
    PSU
    Stock
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    Air-cooled
    Mouse
    I/R cordless.
    Internet Speed
    Borderline pathetic.
Well...I went to HP and got the newest driver. Of course this is the one I already had, but reinstalled it anyway. They stopped manufacturing this insertable external drive in 2010, and that's when they stopped updating the drivers. Strangely enough this particular model was supposedly only sold outside the USA, but I purchased directly from HP's store.

BTW, no change in the status of the drive with Win 8. I will follow some suggestions and get third party software to do the job!!

Thanks all for your help.

John
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1 Update 1 Pro 32-bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP m8200n Media Center PC
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
    Motherboard
    ECS Nettle2 (Socket M2)
    Memory
    4 GB DDR2 335 Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    1GB NVidia GeForce GT 430
    Sound Card
    Onboard Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung BX2440
    Screen Resolution
    1920 X 1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung (primary) 500 GB,
    WDC-WD10 HP Personal Media Drive (USB) 1.0 TB
    Keyboard
    HP Multimedia
    Mouse
    Microsoft Explorer Trackball
    Internet Speed
    10Mbps/750Kbps DSL
    Browser
    IE 11
    Antivirus
    Microsoft Windows Defender
Curious.

It seems that the upgrade retained something that you already had in win7 - therefore imaging worked fine.

Refresh is actually an installation - (extracted from install.wim ) - that seems to have removed/replaced something and caused the problem.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    7/8/ubuntu/Linux Deepin
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
I've been using Windows Image Backup exclusively since the W7 beta was released.

Only ever had trouble once, and that was my fault.

How often did you have to use it to recover?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Vista and Win7
    System Manufacturer/Model
    2xHP, 2xGateway, 1xDell, 1xSony
    Hard Drives
    5 SSDs and 12 HDs
Well...I went to HP and got the newest driver. Of course this is the one I already had, but reinstalled it anyway. They stopped manufacturing this insertable external drive in 2010, and that's when they stopped updating the drivers. Strangely enough this particular model was supposedly only sold outside the USA, but I purchased directly from HP's store.

BTW, no change in the status of the drive with Win 8. I will follow some suggestions and get third party software to do the job!!

Thanks all for your help.

John
John, there is a vast choice of free imaging programs that fit the bill. I happen to like free Macrium because it is easy to use, fast and reliable. If you want to look at it, here is a tutorial to get you started: Imaging with free Macrium - Windows 7 Forums
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Vista and Win7
    System Manufacturer/Model
    2xHP, 2xGateway, 1xDell, 1xSony
    Hard Drives
    5 SSDs and 12 HDs
John, as I recall you can bypass your problem by using a network share. Just share you HP device and then in the backup parameters refer to the share name instead of the real drive letter.

Cowboy
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Howm grown
    CPU
    i7 3960k
    Motherboard
    ASUS P9X79 Deluxe
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI 560
Hi Everyone...

Thanks for all your suggestions. I downloaded and tried Macrium, created a system image, and restored it. Worked flawlessly. Ultimately, I solved the issue through a little serendipitous detective work. I noticed some piece of software I was testing at about the same time I did the refresh, placed a sort of media descriptor file (MediaID.bin) on the HP Personal Media Drive. I took a chance and deleted the file, and rebooted.

Lo, and behold, Win 8 now sees the drive as an external hard drive and system imaging works as before. Now I'm going to do some Googling to see what software creates this file and why it changed the description of the media.
:geek:

I am marking this as solved. Thanks again everyone!!!

John

[EDIT] The file, MediaID.bin, is created by backup software during the setup process. It may have gotten corrupted when I had attempted to use a third-party backup software by Roxio called Back on Track. :sarc:
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1 Update 1 Pro 32-bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP m8200n Media Center PC
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
    Motherboard
    ECS Nettle2 (Socket M2)
    Memory
    4 GB DDR2 335 Mhz
    Graphics Card(s)
    1GB NVidia GeForce GT 430
    Sound Card
    Onboard Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung BX2440
    Screen Resolution
    1920 X 1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung (primary) 500 GB,
    WDC-WD10 HP Personal Media Drive (USB) 1.0 TB
    Keyboard
    HP Multimedia
    Mouse
    Microsoft Explorer Trackball
    Internet Speed
    10Mbps/750Kbps DSL
    Browser
    IE 11
    Antivirus
    Microsoft Windows Defender
I've been using Windows Image Backup exclusively since the W7 beta was released.

Only ever had trouble once, and that was my fault.

How often did you have to use it to recover?


Apologies for the delay in replying, WHS.

Couldn't say for sure, maybe half-a-dozen or so.

The one failure that I had was because I'd resized the c:\ partition
since creating the image. As I said, it was my fault, not a failure of
the software.

Returned the partition to its original size, and no problem.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Enterprise 64-bit (7 Ult, Vista & XP in V-Box)
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire Ethos AS8951G 'Super-Laptop'.
    CPU
    Intel Sandy-Bridge i7-2670QM quad-core
    Motherboard
    Acer
    Memory
    8GB DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel 3000HD / Ge-Force GT555M 2 gigs
    Sound Card
    Realtek/5.1 Dolby built-in including speakers.
    Monitor(s) Displays
    18.4" full-HD
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1024
    Hard Drives
    2x750GB Toshiba internal, 1x500GB Seagate external, 1x2TB Seagate external, 1x640GB Toshiba pocket-drive, 1x640GB Samsung pocket drive.
    PSU
    Stock
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    Air-cooled
    Mouse
    I/R cordless.
    Internet Speed
    Borderline pathetic.
That sounds good. I was not so lucky.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Vista and Win7
    System Manufacturer/Model
    2xHP, 2xGateway, 1xDell, 1xSony
    Hard Drives
    5 SSDs and 12 HDs
Back
Top