Vista can't restore from an external

Greetings. New to the forum. Deeply in need of help.

I'm operating Vista Ultimate x64 on an HP Tx2 Touchsmart. (The 3rd one.)

I've had the Touchsmart for a month and the case broke - so before I swapped it out at Best Buy I went over to the Backup and Recovery area of Vista and made a full restore on to an external hard drive. The folder "WindowsImageBackup" now exists on my G: external drive.

I go swap out the two machines, come home and try and get Backup Status and Configuration to recognize the G: drive backup - it finds the drive, not the backup. I get to the point where it searches for a backup to restore - but it won't see anything there. I can see it, but apparently Windows can't.

What do I do?

Besides cuss at HP for making a machine I had to return twice because of hardware issues. It's a sweet little tablet (multi-touch) but I've got some lemons right off the rack.

Don't let me down Vista community! I NEED HELP!

I am not sure what you mean when you say "Backup Status and Configuration"?
Have you tried inserting the disk, booting into advanced recovery Utility and restoring the image? Or accessing it through "backup and Restore Center""? These are the only ways to restore the image.
"restore your entire computer from a Windows complete PC Backup.".. or "Windows Complete PC Restore" If you created this backup with a third party imaging software, you will need to reinstall that program in order to restore the image.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/194765-system-recovery-options.html

CJ,

Move the backup file onto the HDD of your new machine. Vista should see it then.

~Lordbob

I have the same problem. I reformatted my hd and am trying to restore my files from a backup I did on an external. I can see the files on my external but Vista doesn't see them. I've copied them onto my machine but I'm still not having any luck. Any suggestions? I'm completely devastated at the moment! I greatly appreciate any advice you have! I've never had a problem like this before but I'm really starting to lose faith in Vista... tempted to go back to XP.

I had the same problem. The difficulty is that HP notebooks/computers only come with HP Startup Discs (One for Start Up and the Other for Drivers). Even though Vista Recovery recognizes the Complete Backup on your External G Drive, there is no way to restore this unless you have an Vista Start Up Disc. If you had this, it would take less than 30 min to get your new notebook running as is was. This is a big flaw with HP Notebooks and very disappointing. From reading HP Forums, the only recommendation is backing up your files (documents, pics, music etc) to an external hardrive) and creating restoration points frequently because the Complete back Up System restore does not work with HP Notebooks products. Even if you do a complete Backup Image on both your notebook harddrive and external harddrive. Even though the Advanced Restoration recognizes the backup on both after hitting the F8 key at boot etc, it cannot do the backup. Trust me, I had the exact same problem as you and researched this to the max. For the future, if you are able to get your notebook to a desirable state, Geek Squad recommends a backup program called Acronis which is about $40 from Best Buy or:

Complete hard disk recovery solution, backup, drive copy, clone and image computer software

I have not tried this but basically you put in the CD that comes with this and it creates a complete image to an external harddrive. Then if you have a problem in the future, you put the CD back into the DVD ROM and follow the instructions which will find the Backup image on your external harddrive and repair as is.

However, because of the problems with HP Start up Discs (i.e. only repairs your notebook to the factory condition), I am not sure if this program works for HP notebooks/computers.

In summary, from the research I have done, the only thing you can do is get an original Vista Operating System Disc, place this into your hard Drive, and then it will ask you if you want to restore from a backup, click yes, and in 30 min, all should be as is.

Sorry, I feel your pain as this happened to me and I could not afford to buy Vista Ultimate and luckily I had all my important files on my external hard drive. It took me about 10 hrs to get my notebook as is before the crash. Thanks and good luck! Steven