Driver to restore Win11 image backup

Question

Hello;

Inspiron 16 7630 2-in-1 laptop, Windows 11 Pro 21H2 2.2000.2538

I have been trying to test restoring a window11 image backup. I can successfully create the backup and a startup USB drive. When I try to restore I get the image restore failed, error 0x80042414, when I try to find the image file. I have researched this, my storage BIOS setting is set to RAID by default.

I didn't want that but that was the default I guess. One article suggested switching to AHCI mode but when I do that the system won't boot. I've tried toggling secure boot etc. no effect.

I believe the solution is to load the right RAID driver during the restore. I tried to download one and while it seemed to load it still failed.

I really dont want to reinstall everything under AHCI mode, is there a driver I can use? Thanks

ubstung71 · Accepted Answer

@Kflash08​  I found the solution and it did involve finding and configuring the right driver files on the USB boot drive I had created with MS media creation tool.  I found the right driver by chance via internet search on the HP forums. (same Intel controller I guess). Following is a snippet from that. ********************************************************************* You need to add Intel RST storage controller driver to the Windows installation media for it to see the storage drive since your laptop comes with an Intel Core 11th gen processor.    you can download IRST driver (sp146929) from the link below,  https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp146501-147000/sp146929.exe   Then follow the steps below to complete the installation:   Connect your Windows installation usb drive to the laptop (use an installation usb drive created with Microsoft Media Creation Tool rather than with Rufus for the best results). Right-click on the downloaded sp file and click on 'Run as administrator' to start the extraction process. When you are asked where to save files, with the default directory path being displayed, click on Next. Go to C:\SWSetup and locate the sp146929 folder that holds extracted files. Double click the folder and copy the F6 folder to the root directory of the Windows installation usb drive. ********************************************************************* The key was to extract the driver files and copy the J6 folder to the root of the USB boot drive. Then run the image restore and use the 'add driver' functionality to add the drivers to the USB.  Once I did that it all worked. I did have to redo the bitlocker encryption wiht  a new key. It may work with the driver supplied here but i'm not pushing my luck

Kflash08 · Answer

If the Windows Recovery environment is detecting your SSD/HDD, then there should be no additional driver required. If the restore is failing, then it sounds like an issue with the backup itself, or possibly the drive that you are trying to restore from. If at all possible, I would preform another system image, but only after deleting all existing system images from your backup device, and after verifying that your backup device is free of errors and bad sectors. Also, keep in mind that Backup & Restore (Windows 7) has not been updated in many years, and is no longer being maintained by Microsoft, so there maybe a limit on how big of a drive or what kind of file system it can fully support. (I wouldn't exceed 2 TB or use anything other than the NTFS file system for your backup drive, and I'm pretty sure I did a successful restore once with the GPT partition style to a NVMe drive).

And yes, you shouldn't switch between RAID and AHCI. I can't confirm myself, but doing so could prevent Windows from booting or break it altogether, even when switching back).

Inspiron

Driver to restore Win11 image backup

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