I was unable to restore my OS drive from a system image restore, yet I can access the image's files.

BC795

So two days ago, the SSD that houses my OS failed out of nowhere and was unreadable. I had a backup in the form of a system image from last month (December 16th, 2020) on my external hard drive, so I was certain this was an easy fix once I get a new one.

The following day, I bought a new one and attempted a system image restore of the OS drive from said image of last month. It progressed fine until it was "complete". Every time I attempted it, I was greeted with this at the very end: 

(error code 0x80070057)

I tried looking up the error code, nothing seemed to come up on anything that involved restoring from a system image. I tried startup repair and chkdsk, and those didn't work. I even tried a clean install and then attempting it again and I got the same result. The only thing I can imagine is that a Windows update since the backup has invalidated my old backup somehow. I did not make any major changes to my OS hard drive prior to the failure. As a result, I was forced to do a clean install.

Today I was able to reinstall most everything, and I was able to mount the backup as a virtual hard disk and extract files that were on there, which only makes me a bit more perplexed on what was preventing my restore in the first place. 

This has ultimately made me doubtful of using a Windows system image again, let alone that I'm also at a loss of how to do future system images, as I'm concerned that making a new one would overwrite my old one, and there might be important files that I'm forgetting still inside my old backup. I'm also contemplating using Acronis TrueImage to periodically clone my new OS hard drive to my old one turned spare once it returns from its RMA, as it's still under warranty.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

CindyH

Windows backup and image creation is cruddy IMHO. However, I have seen this error when trying to restore an MBR partition to GPT. Acronis has a similar error. You can research into your replacement hard drive and compare it to the old. At any rate, I recommend Acronis regardless of your issues.

BC795

I did not know there was a difference in partitions (MBR and GPT). How can I check that?
Also, I forgot to mention that both of my SSDs are WD Blue ones, with 3D NAND and 500GB of storage. The external hard drive that has my backup is this particular Seagate backup plus hard drive.

JS_MC

Hello, @BC795 Welcome to the community!

Note: If you receive this message when using an external drive, USB you will need to connect it before running CHKDSK command.

    Plugin external driver, USB.
    Type Command Prompt in the Windows search bar.
    Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator from the context menu.
    Next in Command Prompt window, type chkdsk E: /f /x /r
This command will direct CHKDSK to check and repair file system corruptions, errors, bad sectors, etc. Once finished, exit Command Prompt and reconnect the drive.

The other reason for 0x80070057 error message is corrupt or missing system files. To resolve the problem, you can use System File Checker a.k.a. SFC to fix wrong system files.

1. Type Command Prompt in the Windows search bar.
2. Right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as Administrator from the context menu.
3. In the Command Prompt window type SFC/scannow, and press Enter.

System File Checker will now look for corrupt system files and will fix it. Exit Command Prompt when the process is finished and see if 0x80070057 the parameter is incorrect problem is fixed or not.

Let us know if these solutions worked for you!

BC795

LandShark said:

System File Checker a.k.a. SFC to fix wrong system files.

1. Type Command Prompt in the Windows search bar.
2. Right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as Administrator from the context menu.
3. In the Command Prompt window type SFC/scannow, and press Enter.

System File Checker will now look for corrupt system files and will fix it. Exit Command Prompt when the process is finished and see if 0x80070057 the parameter is incorrect problem is fixed or not.

Let us know if these solutions worked for you!

I think I remember attempting that too, and it didn't work, but I will keep these in mind for future reference even if I'm not likely to use system images going forward. I might do one last attempt with this on the returned RMA drive. Thank you regardless.

Though, is it safe to use chkdsk while your computer is running on its OS? I wanna make sure before running it on my external.

JS_MC

Yes, it would be safe to perform the chkdsk while the computer is running. Please let us know of your results after you've completed these tests!

PowerSpec_MikeW

@BC795

Please provide us with a bit more information on this. What OS are you running? What device or media is the recovery image stored on? Looks like your in a PE environment to try to restore. Is this just a windows repair disc you've created?

BC795

TSMikeW 
I was running Windows 10 Pro, and I mentioned in an earlier post that my image was stored to this external hard drive. What I was using to attempt the restore was the windows installation media. I do not have a repair disc. The only major change I made my system before the failure was swapping its motherboard, which went without a hitch back then. I made a discussion post about it here. The specs of my current system are on there too.

Even so, because of it, I might not attempt the restore to my RMA drive after all, as I've already reinstalled just about every essential program that I use. My personal files are intact as well because they were on a different drive.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@BC795

If you do pursue it, sounds like an access denied error to me. What I would look at is what driver letters are assigned, mainly to your flash drive with the Windows 10 media. There may be a conflict here. What you can do is boot into the media, and before you select the menu to restore the drive, just unplug the flash drive. You can also Shift+F10 and go into DiskPart via command light, you can shuffle the driver letters here to verify the driver letters it'll need to assign to the drive when it restores the image, are indeed available.

UUNISAVANT

I have run into this error as well when using SSD external USB-C drives (the case, not the drive).  I think it's more of a Microsoft update related problem when you created your system image.  I have not found a satisfactory solution, other than to grab a 1TB drive and put a bunch of image backups on it.  I actually put system images on three separate SSD's, over periods of a few months.
It turns out that when I had to restore, one of those drives might have the following problems:
1.  system image "not found" on the drive
2. system image installed, but have same error as your problem
3. most recent system image found, but none of earlier system images that were saved on the same drive
I don't want to jump the gun and blame any of those SSD's since they are reliable when testing system image restores many times over ( I do a lot of these tests on a regular basis since I wipe my system clean every few weeks -- don't ask).
It seems to coincides with news of corrupted Microsoft Updates that seems to occur on almost monthly basis. (the kinds that kills testing PC at review sites like Tom's Hardware or Forbes magazine).

What I would like to clarify is that all of my system images created with "clean installs of Windows 10 using installation DVD" NEVER has any problems. Even when I loaded all my applications and drivers and do a system image backup (without running Windows Updates). Again, I had done this on a weekly basis while using both Windows 10 with Windows Update enabled, and without Windows Updates disabled (during the entire time that I'm using the system and consequently created system images of those running Windows 10 environments).

That's why it's indicative of Windows Updates on a running Windows 10 system that is the culprit.

I also don't want to blame it all on Windows Update,  there are many background processes that use system DLL's and locks them from being accessed by the Windows BACKUP application (Windows 10 not a system that seems to do a 'shadow copy' of a system DLL when it's in use by a process that locks it up).  Thus when you do a system restore, everything looks fine until you boot it and it is not in 'safe mode'. That critical system DLL might be missing from your system image.  Shadow copy might be available in the server versions of Windows 10.

I wish you the best, and would recommend grabbing a $99 deal on Samsung SSD QVO/EVO 1TB drives when they're on sale.  Also, getting a reliable and well engineered case for the SSD is critical, which I've found on Amazon.  Direct message me if you want to know the brand ( I do like Microcenter, but they don't carry many cases for SSD bare drives).