System Image Restore can't see USB hard drive

Question

Hi
I've just spent a day taking System Image backup images of three different hard drives. Well ok I didn't just sit and watch the bar move across the screen although it did hold up my computer. Anyway, what a waste of a day from my PC because
when I try to restore using System Image backup from my USB drive, the USB drive cannot be found. I have followed the procedure on page 750 of Configuring Windows 7, 70-680 precisely.  I tried booting from an OS DVD and a Windows Repair
DVD, but no USB drive.  I tried using a blank usb stick and that can't be found either. The USB drive can be seen when I logon to Windows to get the images on it. Might this be more to do with hardware such as adjusting BIOS boot settings,
or updating BIOS firmware. There seems to be others with unresolved problems like this. Should I join them and buy Acronis instead?
Tx

Answer 1

Hi,
Could you please check the following newsgroup posts for your answer. The posts lists different scenarios that might work for you.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsbackup/thread/9a082b90-bd7c-46f8-9eb3-9581f9d5efdd
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsbackup/thread/11d8c552-a841-49ac-ab2e-445e6f95e704
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsbackup/thread/9a082b90-bd7c-46f8-9eb3-9581f9d5efdd
Best Regards,
Kim Zhou
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Thanks for sending me these links and I will check them out. I think I came across most of the answer on the following link although doubts are raised: 
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-system/windows-7-restore-from-image-wont-recognize/ce8e3d0a-236d-4eff-8370-c171d2dfa555?tm=1333929198413&page=1#footer
Basically, I should have had three files on the external drive as follows:
a.      A file named: MediaID.bin
b.      A file that has the same named as your computer name (this is where the .zip files are located).
c.      The 'System Image' folder named 'WindowsImageBackup'.
By moving my backups into a folder out of the way and doing a fresh backup I prevented some confusion in the system. After this I could at last see the external drive and backup when doing a system image recovery. But how is
it be possible to store more than one backup of hard drives on an external disk? The only way I know is by moving backups in and out of a folder which will take ages to do. Maybe I can rename the unused backups but this will get confusing
because there are thee files to a backup and I think files are overwritten when doing backups if left in the route of the external drive. I is too easy to overwrite a backup of another drive by accident.