PC Complete Restore failed to restore

[churin]

I wanted to replace a hard drive on my laptop machine. The hard drive
was of SATA type. I attempted to use VHD file to migrate the system
from the old hdd to the new hdd but failed. The following was the steps
taken:

1. Created a VHD file on the laptop machine and stored it on an USB
interfaced external hdd.
2. Temporarily installed the new SATA hdd on a desktop machine and
created partitions including data partitions.
3. Moved the VHD file to one of the data partitions on the new hdd.
4. Replaced the old hdd on the laptop machine with the new hdd.
5. On the laptop machine, the first primary partition of the new hdd was
set active since the Vista system was installed on the first partition
of the old hdd.
6. Started the laptop machine, let the system boot from the installer
DVD and selected "Repair".
7. "PC Complete Restore" was selected. The installer located the VHD
file and the restore process began.

Then the following message was displayed:

The Windows Complete PC Restore operation failed.
Error details: The parameter is incorrect.(0x80070057)

What did I do wrong?

 

[Chad Harris]

I wanted to replace a hard drive on my laptop machine. The hard drive was
of SATA type. I attempted to use VHD file to migrate the system from the
old hdd to the new hdd but failed. The following was the steps taken:

1. Created a VHD file on the laptop machine and stored it on an USB
interfaced external hdd.
2. Temporarily installed the new SATA hdd on a desktop machine and created
partitions including data partitions.
3. Moved the VHD file to one of the data partitions on the new hdd.
4. Replaced the old hdd on the laptop machine with the new hdd.
5. On the laptop machine, the first primary partition of the new hdd was
set active since the Vista system was installed on the first partition of
the old hdd.
6. Started the laptop machine, let the system boot from the installer DVD
and selected "Repair".
7. "PC Complete Restore" was selected. The installer located the VHD file
and the restore process began.

Then the following message was displayed:

The Windows Complete PC Restore operation failed.
Error details: The parameter is incorrect.(0x80070057)

What did I do wrong?

Hi Churin--

I don't know. I'm not fond of any backup method that is in Windows,
although they've done better in Vista and Win 7 than the horrible thing they
had which didn't even back up to media in XP.

Restore your computer from an image backup (Vista Help MSFT)

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/0448354e-aeb6-4953-8be1-74cde71e85811033.mspx

Backup using Complete Backup
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/ca11e84f-fce6-4e3e-82ef-467870bb6baf1033.mspx

How to Use Vista's Complete Backup and Restore Utility
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial145.html

If you don't get a good answer here, ask the boys and girls who make the
thing here. This is the blog where they hang out, and you can sign in and
ask them directly:

http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/

I see no reason why in the world the best way to backup is not to media by
burning whatever you want to a DVD or to another HD. I'm fond of that
because what you see is what you get. But HDs have been known to fail on
occasion--that's why I like backing up to media and Acronis has been known
to fail as well. I've seen a number of posts where the .tibs were
corrupted, but I know Richard Urban is fond of it, and in Richard's hands no
doubt it works very well. Many people are fond of Acronis True Image.

We've had many people on these groups link to their favorite image maker.

Good luck,

CH

 

[Richard Urban]

Although I trust TrueImage 100% to image/restore my system partition I
refuse to allow it to touch my data.

For data I want a 1-1 backup (a COPY) of the original file - without any
compression. I will never again be encumbered with an inaccessible backup
due to faulty proprietary software. I use to always use BackupExe. But then
they came out with a new version that could not access the backups created
by the prior version.

Microsoft did much the same thing with the various backup programs that were
included in Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows 2000 etc.
What a mess! You would install a new operating system and, just when you
needed the backups the most, you would find that the information was not
attainable. You would have to mount the backup in a computer that still had
the older version of the backup program and extract the files to a folder.
Then you would COPY the folder to removable media and install the folder
under the new operating system.

A quality solution - NOT!

 

[Chad Harris]

Although I trust TrueImage 100% to image/restore my system partition I
refuse to allow it to touch my data.

For data I want a 1-1 backup (a COPY) of the original file - without any
compression. I will never again be encumbered with an inaccessible backup
due to faulty proprietary software. I use to always use BackupExe. But
then they came out with a new version that could not access the backups
created by the prior version.

Microsoft did much the same thing with the various backup programs that
were included in Windows 3.11 to Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows 2000
etc. What a mess! You would install a new operating system and, just when
you needed the backups the most, you would find that the information was
not attainable. You would have to mount the backup in a computer that
still had the older version of the backup program and extract the files to
a folder. Then you would COPY the folder to removable media and install
the folder under the new operating system.

A quality solution - NOT!

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

AMEN. Very well put Richard. I think John Barnes said much the same thing
a couple weeks ago and I couldn't agree more about the risks of compressing
data. I wish they didn't exist, but they do.

CH

 

[churin]

AMEN. Very well put Richard. I think John Barnes said much the same
thing a couple weeks ago and I couldn't agree more about the risks of
compressing data. I wish they didn't exist, but they do.

CH

Chad and Richard:
Thanks for the responses.
I used to use Drive Image but recently Ghost 14 or Acronis TI 2009. But
the VHD image appears that it can be used a la such third party
softwares. Only differene between restoring VHD and sv2i(Ghost) or
tib(TrueImage) is that restore partition can not be specified for VHD.
Then to which partition is VHD restored? My experience is that if there
are multiple partitions, VHD is restored to one of the primary
partitions which is active.
Anyway my trial did not work as detailed in my original post. Could
anyone point out what did I do wrong?

 

[DL]

Restoring with TI you can select the partition, you can also select to have
the restore utilise the whole disk size
(ie origonal disk 80gb, new disk 250gb restore/ clone to use whole 250gb)

 

[churin]

Thanks for responding to my thread but my question is about partition
imaging utility which is built in Windows. Any suggestion is appreciated
for solving the problem as stated in my original post.

 

[DL]

I missread your last post

Thanks for responding to my thread but my question is about partition
imaging utility which is built in Windows. Any suggestion is appreciated
for solving the problem as stated in my original post.