Vista - Vista Ultimate Complete PC Restore from external USB drive

I suffered a hardware failure on the system (C:\) volume yesterday, which is in a RAID 0+1 configuration (of four Western Digital Raptor 74GB drives). I managed to keep the system up long enough in degraded mode to perform a full (and successful) Complete PC Backup onto an external USB hard drive.

This was done just in time, as at the next reboot, the RAID array failed completely and caused data loss (amongst others, my user profile files and the boot manager system file).

When I booted up with my original Ultimate DVD and chose to completely restore the PC, it cannot find any images despite the USB drive being connected to the PC. I have verified in the BIOS that the USB drive was recognised. Upon further research, the original (pre-SP1) Vista RE does not support the loading of USB drivers at the Complete PC recovery stage - these drivers have to be loaded in manually via drvload.exe in X:\windows\system32.

I tried to load in drivers in C:\windows\system32 (surprisingly still accessible), but failed to do so.

Has anyone done this before? Where do I find the correct INF to load into Vista RE in order to access my Complete PC Backup image? Do I need other INF files in addition to USB.INF to get this working?

I presume it may be necessary to get the USB drivers onto a CD-R and loading them in that way, although I'm hoping the solution will be more self-contained on the PC's system drive.

Actually, just a thought - given I have a full backup image of my system drive - can't I just re-install Vista and then run the restore from within Vista itself, rather than via the DVD?

I was going to suggest that. Install vista then restore from your USB backup. A pain in the arse i know that but it should work.

I've done several restores of my Ultimate from backup. Not once did it allow me to restore from USB. My guess is that this feature works on hard-wired HD's only. If you can load an OS to copy the files to ANOTHER hard disk (non-C, then give that a go.

I've tried searching on the web for recovering a backup from USB. Nothing came up.

If you want to spend a few bucks, Acronis True Image works from and to USB drives. It also has many more features than Vista's built-in backup. Then again, why spend more money when you already spent so much on Vista Ultimate.

Hey, I have a lappy right here with Vista Ultime. I'll try to backup and restore from a USB drive. I'll post results later.

Welp, I was wrong. I backed up the whole lappy using ultimate backup tool to a 120 gig USB drive. Upon reboot, from the installation DVD, I was able to select the USB drive as a complete system restore.

Thus, I'm not sure why yours isn't working. Sorry mate.

Here's how I've done it.

I managed to repair my RAID volume on which Vista is installed - well, "repaired" sufficiently for Vista to start up with all the necessary system files in place.

I then moved the Complete PC Backup image onto a local (RAID 0+1 again) volume and did the restore from there. I could've probably moved the image with Knoppix but I had a feeling it might not recognise the RAID volumes.

So, in short - still no solution for the missing USB support for Vista Complete PC Restore (unless you've bought the PC from a vendor such as Dell and they've done the hard work for you on their rescue DVD). Can't wait to see that resolved in SP1 as MS has promised in a couple of press releases - would make Complete PC Backup a bit more useful and straightforward!

This is one reason why Im gonna use an old pc and the new Windows Server 2008. Backup and media streaming in one, plus access from a browser over the net with your own personal page. Nice.

Andy, I didn't buy my pc through a vendor. It's a home-brew pc. Each part is from a different manufacturer, water cooled, 4-Raptoir raid, etc.. Somehow my USB works from the restore part of the Vista DVD. Perhaps some USB drivers / mobo combinations just don't like the Vista DVD (or, rather, the other way around). In either case, what I would try next, is to see whether Acronis works for you (True Image that is). You can download a trial for free, and although you might not be able to do a full restore with the trial, you will be able to tell whether USB works or not. I actually like True Image, it has many more options than the built-in Vista backup/restore, but right now it's overkill for me.

Thanks for that tip! I'll grab a copy of Acronis and have a play with it. Probably gonna be the weekend now though...

Just last night I used Acronis Echo server to backup and do a test restore of Windows Vista Business 64 bit version. Super easy and quick. Highly recommended.