Restoring Windows 7 from a system image

I am asking now so when the time comes, I can restore from the image on my NAS drive drive.

I have Windows 7 Home Premium, and used the anytime upgrade to upgrade to Windows Professional, for the network backup features. I created a system image on my NAS drive.

If my system were to fail can I use the windows 7 Home disc to perform a system restore from the backup on my NAS drive.

Or will I have to format, install Windows use the anytime upgrade key, to upgrade to Professional and then do the restore when I have the extra features from the Professional version in order to restore from the image on the NAS drive?

Dizzy Bryan High

Posted 2013-02-18T20:50:52.830

Reputation: 131

Answers

Based on what I experienced during the recovery process I recently had to perform, I found that Windows expects the disks to be local to the server for M$ Windows imaging to work.

If you had a USB external disk, it is possible if the drivers are either incorporated or can be loaded in during Windows recovery mode.

mdpc

Posted 2013-02-18T20:50:52.830

Reputation: 4 176

Don't bother with system restore. Just capture an image of your system and reimage it using ImageX down the road if need be. ImageX is Microsoft's free imaging tool (better than ghost), it will grab all the files, and you can also mount the image later and make changes if need be. Use WAIK to build a winpe boot USB, and you're all set.

From Win PE:

net use z: \\server\share

To Capture:

imagex /capture d: z:\imaging\data.wim "My Image" /verify

Then to apply:

imagex /apply z:\imaging\data.wim 1 /verify

see below for more info and examples:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749447(v=ws.10).aspx

MDT Guy

Posted 2013-02-18T20:50:52.830

Reputation: 3 683

That doesn't really seem to answer the question... – Canadian Luke – 2013-02-19T19:47:07.683

That's because the user is confused. The answer to his problem is to capture an image of the system instead of having to do a restore or worse yet a whole reformat. – MDT Guy – 2013-02-19T20:41:31.170

what is WIN PE? what is WAIK? – Dizzy Bryan High – 2013-02-21T15:46:04.840

I already have a system image, made using the windows back-up, my question is: as this back up is on a NAS drive can i restore it when i enter windows set-up, my home premium version does not have the network options in windows back-up, the professional anytime upgrade i have does, do i have to reapply the upgrade before i can restore the image on my nas drive? – Dizzy Bryan High – 2013-02-21T15:51:51.217

WinPE is Microsoft's pre boot enviroment, it's a stripped down and bootable enviroment designed to replace DOS boot enviroments. You get it from the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit). It's here that you'll find imagex.exe, microsoft's free imaging tool. – MDT Guy – 2013-02-21T15:54:26.213

you can always get to a command prompt in windows setup by using shift+f8, use the netuse command to map to your nas and then apply the image to the disk. – MDT Guy – 2013-02-21T15:55:52.107