System Image Recovery fails with a 0x80070002 error

This article describes a system image restore problem that occurs in Windows 8.1 when you try to recover from a backup that’s stored on a partition on the system disk. A resolution is provided.

Original product version: В Windows 8.1
Original KB number: В 2989057

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

• You’re running Windows 8.1, and you have the Windows 8.1 update (KB2919355) installed.
• You’ve taken a system image backup and saved it to a partition on the same disk as drive C.
• The partition that you saved the backup to is much smaller than drive C.

When you try to recover from the backup by using System Image Recovery, it fails and returns the following error:

The system image restore failed.
Error details: The system cannot find the file specified. (0x80070002)

Additionally, you can’t start Windows after this error occurs.

Cause

The error occurs because the backup image is prematurely dismounted during the restore process.

Workaround

When you start the system after this error occurs, it generally goes into Automatic Repair mode. However, this process fails. To recover, follow these steps:

Click Advanced options.

Under Choose an option, click Troubleshoot, click Advanced options, and then click Command Prompt.

Using DISKPART, locate the volume where the OS was installed. After the problem occurs, the volume will be recognized as a RAW volume (drive C in the following example).

The drive letters may differ in your installation of Windows.

Format the RAW volume:

Exit DISKPART, and then close the command prompt:

Under Choose an option, click Troubleshoot, click Advanced options, and then click System Image Recovery.

Follow the steps in the Re-image Your Computer Wizard to complete the restore from the backup that you saved.

Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the «Applies to» section.

Microsoft regularly releases software updates to address specific bugs. If Microsoft releases a software update to resolve this bug, this article will be updated with additional information.

System image restore to new drive fails. 0x80042414

Original upgrade install to 300gb drive split into 3 100gb partitions, C:, D: E: (Intel Matrix RAID 1)
After running into space issues, and one drive failing twice, I decided to move to la larger drive.
New drive is a 1TB RAID 1, partitioned 3 ways again, mounted as L, M, N (booted from the 300gb drive)

Did a Windows 7 System Image Backup to the 3rd partition on the new drive. (N:) It backed up C: and D: into a file, taking about 110GB of space.

Disconnected the 300gb drive, booted to the install DVD and selected System Repair.
Picked Restore from Image, and it found the image backup on the E: drive. (Only the new drive mounted now.)

The image restore confirms that it’s going to restore C: and D: but when I start it, the error below appears.
There is 3 times as much space in the new partitions as in the original ones.

I started a straight install to the new C: drive, and it ran OK until I stopped it, so the CD boot OS can see the drive and all the partitions

Any idea why it’s failing, or is there another way to move Win7 to a larger drive?

The full error message follows:

Window title: «Re-image your computer»

«The System image restore failed.

Error details: Windows did not find any disk which it can use for recreating volumes present in backup, Offline disks, cluster shared disks or disks explicitly excluded by user will not be used by windows. Ensure that disks are online and no disks are excluded by mistake. (0x80042414)

SOLVED!
From a post in another Microsoft forum, I tried Acronis True Image 2010 (30 day free trial)
It made a perfect copy of my original drive, and even offered to let me partition it manually or partition proportionally to the old drive.

So, I conclude that the Windows 7 Image backup DOES NOT WORK, at least for restoring after your hard drive dies and is replaced.
I’ll have to spend another $40 for a workable backup solution, but at least it will be one that works.

System Image restore fails: «0x80070057 the parameter is incorrect»

When trying to restore my Windows 10 system disk from a System Image, I received the error message «0x80070057 the parameter is incorrect». The restore was c95% complete at that point and the auto-repair offered by the system could not recover.

After some research, I made a second attempt to restore the System Image and selected the option to repartition the system disk. That attempt failed with the same error message, having almost completed.

I’m:
— running Windows 10 Home Edition with the latest updates applied
— booting from a System Repair CD
— attempting to restore from a 10 day old System Image stored on an internal HDD
— restoring to an internal SSD

I’ve found several references to the error on this forum and on others too. However, none of the offered solutions seem applicable or accessible in my particular predicament.

Is the situation retrievable by restoring the recent System Image? If so, how would I circumvent this error?

Replies (7) 

The Error code 0x80070057 the parameter is incorrect can be caused by an corrupted restore file. It would be great if you can tell us more about your concern. Kindly answer the following:

• Did you notice any system setting changes prior to the issue?
• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far?

Please tell us all the troubleshooting steps you’ve done so we can avoid repeats.

1 person found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

If there is no known silver bullet, I will:
— reinstall Windows, create a new System Image and test that it can be resored on my configuration
— if the test restore works, I will try to restore from my exisiting image one more time.
— if the test restore fails or my existing image fails, I will rebuild my system disk by hand
Given the potential horror of an application by application rebuild, I do hope there is a silver bullet!

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Hello again Devlin,

The log file within my critical system image is error free.

I’d be grateful for help to diagnose the cause of the failure with a view to fixing and restoring the system image.

If a fix and restore is not possible, a diagnosis would help prevent future recurrence.

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Thank you for getting back to us.

It is possible that the issue is due to the system restore point being corrupted. Therefore, we advise performing the System Restore using a new Windows 10 installation media. You can create a new installation media using the Media Creation Tool found from this link. Follow the steps under Using the tool to create installation media to install Windows 10 on a different PC. After creating the Windows 10 installation disc, boot your PC with the disc inserted. Select Repair your computer, in the Windows Setup screen. Go Troubleshoot > Advanced options, and then select System Restore.

Let us know if you require further assistance.

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How to restore a Windows 10 system image to an existing or larger storage device

Technical Level : Intermediate

Since Windows Vista Microsoft included a system imaging utility that makes it easy to backup your entire computer, which you can then use to restore in case of system failure, move to a larger hard disk or simply to have a working state of your computer just in case. As noted, a system image is an exact replica of your hard disk, down to the partition layout. Depending on how large your Windows 10 installation is, it can use a lot of space, so you should invest in an external USB hard disk with a lot of space. In this article, we take a look restoring the system image on a larger hard disk. This makes it quite convenient if you somehow outgrow your current storage allotment.

First, check out the following article how to create a system image here.

Once you have your backup ready, you can proceed to shutdown the system, install your hard disk or restart and boot from the recovery drive or Windows 10 bootable media. If you don’t bootable Windows 10 media, see the following article for instructions:

To learn how to change your BIOS options to boot from the DVD drive, see the following tutorial:

Once your computer is set to boot from the DVD, you should see this option.

If you are installing from a thumb drive, see the following instructions how to prepare your computer to boot from one:

The Windows logo will appear on screen, this might be here for a while, as long as you see the indicater, everything should be ok.

Click Next

Click Repair your computer

Click Troubleshoot

Click System Image Recovery

Make sure your external hard disk where the system image is located is connected and turned on.

System Image will select the latest system image, if you would rather restore another image, select the Select a system image radio box and click Next and follow the on screen instructions to select an available system image.

System Image will format and repartition your hard disk, if you have partitions or other attached storage you would to exclude, click the Exclude disks. button and do so then click Next

Click Finish to begin

One final warning before the restoration begins. Click Yes to continue.

Wait wait while the restoration takes place. This can take some time.

When complete, your computer will restart automatically or you can do so right away.

Reclaim unallocated disk space if necessary

If you restorage a system image on a hard disk or SSD that is larger than the one it replaced, then you will have unallocated disk space to reclaim because the system image restored according to its known partition layout.

Press Windows key + X or right click the Start button and click Disk Management

You will notice there is a unallocated partition, this is what you need to reclaim. To do so, right click the Local disk where Windows 10 is installed, usually C:\ and click Extend Volume.

Click Next

Click Next (make sure the unallocated partition is actually selected).

Click Finish , you should now see a single disk partition for your Local disk in Disk Management with reclaimed space.

Related:

Was this article helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this article?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this article?

Thanks for your feedback.

Comments (31) 

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

That is all fine and wonderful, but my image restored with a 450MB recovery partition between my primary partition and my unallocated space. The option to extend my system volume and reclaim the extra 118 GB of space in my larger drive is not available. Any ideas how to fix this?

112 people found this comment helpful

Was this comment helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback.

26 people found this comment helpful

Was this comment helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback.

If u select exclude partitions would u be able to exclude all exept for the partition where the default os is installed? (Usualy C) or can u only exlude certail drives, and is it possible to make a system backup of a certain drive only (eg of only windows os drive and exclude all other partitions from ur image)

18 people found this comment helpful

Was this comment helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback.

10 people found this comment helpful

Was this comment helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback.

14 people found this comment helpful

Was this comment helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback.

I was reading along and thinking «didn’t I already try this and was unable to expand/extend my partition?».

I was eventually able to reformat my new larger drive (1 TB) by using diskpart to delete partitions. I was about to have another go at transferring my full 500 GB drive to the 1 TB using Acronis with both drives plugged into SATA ports on a desktop. Unfortunately, I let chkdisk run on the 500 GB and it is basically ruined now with «file or directory is corrupted or unavailable».

I’m hoping I still have the image file.

8 people found this comment helpful

Was this comment helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback.

install MiniTool Partition Wizard

delete the recovery partition,

then merge all the partitions to system partition

22 people found this comment helpful

Was this comment helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this comment?

Thanks for your feedback.

Just to start I have to say that I’m a deprived widower of Rescue & Recovery, the wonderful former IBM (then until Windows 7, Lenovo) program that saved me a lot of times with its incremental backup/restore functions.

Now, in Windows 10 that program is no more supported, and I asked many time for a valid substitute. Microsoft and also Lenovo, answered that the need of R&R is completely overcome by the standard Windows 10 Backup and restore functions.

Thus I used the standard functions making regularly both system images and file backups.

The first time I needed a restore because of a Hard Drive Crash, I started the image restore with the last copy available. The re-imaging started perfectly and I started breathing regularly, while the restore went up for about one hour and a half.

But unfortunately I discovered at the end of the restore that it was unsuccessful due to an incorrect parameter; error 0x80070057; no other comment from the procedure.

There are many advices on the InterNet, quite common among the users, none of them worked. Luckily informatics is my job and after a week I solved, but a “normal” user?

Now a backup/restore like that is as a parachute full of holes, or a lifebuoy made of lead. Horrid!

I’ll look for something better, like Acronis AOMEI or something else, but Microsoft can be charged for refunds, being responsible of such a disgusting functionality.

Waiting anxiously for some answer and advice…