Completely lost on recovery...

[jdpalo]

Hi guys:
I've been searching and researching over the Net for the last few days trying to solve my issue to no avail...I've seen some very good and close answers on this forum so I'm gonna give it a try...
My Laptop fell and the HDD got damaged (Gateway NE56R50u). I chose to replace the drive with one that I had laying around (the damaged one was 500 GB, the replacement is 320GB). I formatted it, used DiskManagement on my son's computer to initialize it, DiskPart to turn it into GPT (since the Gateway uses UEFI) and finally got it to start loading the Erecovery disks I purchased. When all disks are loaded and the system tries to transfer the image I get an error message stating that "Apply failed-Error code=0x2 (ImageX cannot apply image: WIMGAPI failure)". I have tried going through Legacy mode, no progress. Tried loading WinPE and doing a CHKDSK, all seems right, no bad sectors or nothing...I have no earthly idea what is going on!

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

I do not know what the Erecovery disks are but if they are similar those made by the windows recovery DVD builder program on most laptops they expect a hard disk partitioned exactly as the existing hard disk or blank

Eg your partitioning process was not needed and is interfering with the recovery process.
You need some software to erase the first cylinder or MBR sector of disk

Make sure you get the correct disk by having only one disk drive installed

Try mbrwiz or similar on a bootable USB disk memory stick

I am not sure gpt is required unless disk size exceeds 2TB

There are several very small partitions preceding the main partitions C: (& D
Unless you created them the Windows install gets blocked


Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[jdpalo]

Hi

I do not know what the Erecovery disks are but if they are similar those made by the windows recovery DVD builder program on most laptops they expect a hard disk partitioned exactly as the existing hard disk or blank

Eg your partitioning process was not needed and is interfering with the recovery process.
You need some software to erase the first cylinder or MBR sector of disk

Make sure you get the correct disk by having only one disk drive installed

Try mbrwiz or similar on a bootable USB disk memory stick

I am not sure gpt is required unless disk size exceeds 2TB

There are several very small partitions preceding the main partitions C: (& D
Unless you created them the Windows install gets blocked


Regards
Mike Barnes

Hi Mike:

The eRecovery disks are the ones built by Gateway to completely recover this laptop...the recovery process is not even started unless the disk is GPT (which is something I could not understand to begin with, since the target drive is only 320GB). Since I cannot access the original drive, how can I know what the original partition looked like? Ok, I get the idea of using a bootable USB stick, but the only one I have (16 MB) is being used by the WinPe...is there an alternative way, like say, CD Roms? The eRecovery disks do the partitioning process (I start with a totally empty HDD and, when checked through DiskManagement after the fail, I can see the added partitions the process created)...If I need to create the partitions, what would be the recommended size (taking into consideration that the recovery process asks for an OS partition of at LEAST 100 GB)???

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

Sorry I presumed they came from some web site selling recovery disks
Don't Gateway have a full set of instructions ?

I have used the recovery process on Toshiba, Acer and similar laptops With Win 7 using system recovery DVD 's I burnt previously

I booted of the first DVD which prompted for the next DVD
Once I noticed an error while copying files from DVD to second (visible) partition D:. I checked faulty DVD in a desktop PC and copied disk at a slower speed
The duplicate worked

Best of luck

Regards

Mike Barnes

 

[jdpalo]

Hi

Sorry I presumed they came from some web site selling recovery disks
Don't Gateway have a full set of instructions ?

I have used the recovery process on Toshiba, Acer and similar laptops With Win 7 using system recovery DVD 's I burnt previously

I booted of the first DVD which prompted for the next DVD
Once I noticed an error while copying files from DVD to second (visible) partition D:. I checked faulty DVD in a desktop PC and copied disk at a slower speed
The duplicate worked

Best of luck

Regards

Mike Barnes

The instructions that came with the DVD's are extremely simple like "Insert System Disk and follow on-screen instructions...", etc. Yes, I've done this several times before with my XP and Win7 machines, but never had this problem...I read that since the UEFI came into being things have gotten quite harder to accomplish... DVD's seem to be fine (they load into memory with no errors); the problem is while trying to export the image to the HDD...I'm trying with a different partition setup this time...will post updates...In the meantime, any suggestion is welcome!

 

[jdpalo]

UPDATE: 73% complete, 42:15 to go, no fail...After I posted, somebody else kinda posted the same issue but with different setup...HDD got partitioned in three same-sized partitions, thus allowed for the recovery process to complete...If this one goes right, I will repeat using the other method and see what happens...So far, so good...

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

I looked at your error messages in first post
and Googled it with out much useful info except to check for hardware problems first

I would suggest testing memory using ramtest86 or ramtest86+ or equivalent on a Windows Vista or 7 DVD

then get a bootable diagnostic disk from the hard disk manufacturer to check the spare 320GB hard disk does not have any bad sectors

Then test the eRecovery disks can have all the files copied off them on to a spare working PC

once that is done and all tests pass use suitable software to wipe the partition cylinder of the 320GB hard disk

before starring again

best of luck

Mike Barnes

 

[jdpalo]

Hi

I looked at your error messages in first post
and Googled it with out much useful info except to check for hardware problems first

I would suggest testing memory using ramtest86 or ramtest86+ or equivalent on a Windows Vista or 7 DVD

then get a bootable diagnostic disk from the hard disk manufacturer to check the spare 320GB hard disk does not have any bad sectors

Then test the eRecovery disks can have all the files copied off them on to a spare working PC

once that is done and all tests pass use suitable software to wipe the partition cylinder of the 320GB hard disk

before starring again

best of luck

Mike Barnes

Thanks Mike! Very helpful! Check my post above yours...looks like it was related to the partition size, since apparently the one created for the OS AND recovery partitions weren't big enough...right now it is at 83% complete and no fail so far...I'll use the DiskManagement tool after it completes and check to see if resizing is an option, to get some data space back...I know: I Googled it for days and came up empty, like you did...hopefully someone will find this thread and be of help to avoid wasting time and effort!

Once again, a million thanks for your inputs, highly appreciated!

 

[jdpalo]

Well, FAIL! At 100% of loading the image to the HDD, it says it cannot find the specified path...hmmm...we're getting close, but I've been at it since early this morning and I'm kinda burned...I'll re-post tomorrow with all details and see where we go from there...suggestions still welcome!

 

[jdpalo]

Hi everyone:

Let's get going:

Yesterday, after a long wait, the recovery process seemed like it was to complete satisfactorily when a message stating "Restore failed-cannot find image path M:\RecoveryImage\Install.wim" appeared.

Having WINPE, I logged in, ran Diskpart, List Volume, and got this:

0 D DVD-ROM
1 C Acer NTFS Partition 277GB HEALTHY
2 RECOVERY NTFS Partition 400MB Healthy Hidden
3 ESP FAT32 Partition 300MB Healthy Hidden
4 PushButton NTFS Partition 20GB Healthy Hidden
5 E FAT32 Removable 15GB Healthy

where all partitions were created during the restore process by the system itself, E is my USB drive containing WINPE...

I ran the LIst Partition command in DiskPart and got the following:

1 Recovery 400MB 1024KB (offset)
2 System 300MB 401MB
3 Reserved 128MB 701MB
4 Primary 277GB 829MB
5 Recovery 20GB 278GB

All this was created by the system, again, during the recovery process, which is no more than loading the DVD's at the specified order and moment. I wonder if a fresh, out-of-the-box drive would get the same results (that's why I'm holding back on spending $$$ on a new drive)...

Edit: I wrote the data in table format but it got put together by the software this site uses...

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi
You do not need to get a new hard disk if it has been tested and passed

You need to clear the partition cylinder (which is more than the MBR (very first sector) )

then the disk is treated as brand new by Windows installation as it finds no trace of previous use at the begining of the hard disk

Since you have a Win PE you can run mbrwiz from cmd prompt
free utility to clear MBR or partition cylinder

or carry out back up or repair to MBR & partition information
(the graphic wizard for comd line version mbwiz costs about $10 (USD ) )


Keep on trying

regards

Mike Barnes

 

[jdpalo]

Hi
You do not need to get a new hard disk if it has been tested and passed

You need to clear the partition cylinder (which is more than the MBR (very first sector) )

then the disk is treated as brand new by Windows installation as it finds no trace of previous use at the begining of the hard disk

Since you have a Win PE you can run mbrwiz from cmd prompt
free utility to clear MBR or partition cylinder

or carry out back up or repair to MBR & partition information
(the graphic wizard for comd line version mbwiz costs about $10 (USD ) )


Keep on trying

regards

Mike Barnes

Hi Mike:

I got the MBRWIZ, wiped the MBR and tried again... Failed with the first error I reported... I'm wiping the disk once again... If I get a fail once more I'll get another drive and test on it... Should it repeat, I'll turn to Microsoft for answers...

 

[jdpalo]

Failed with "apply failed-error code 0x2(ImageX cannot apply image: WIMGAPI failure)"...I wiped the HDD again, wiped MBR again, started recovery to ONLY install OS and failed again with same error...back to square 1!

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi


have you run Memtest86 (or similar) to test your RAM modules ?

Do you have access to a USB DVD Drive ?
(use instead of internal DVD drive)

How did you test the Hard drive ?

Did you test the DVD's containing the e-recovery?

I appreciate it must be very frustrating to keep getting these errors

It is usually a result of a hardware fault someware in the chain between the DVD media, memory and hard disk

Back in the time when AMD Athlon XP cpus were common I had a similar problem which turned out to be a faulty level 2 cache on the CPU, I had a choice of disabling the level 2 cache and installing very slowly or being unstable.

We need to know you have run these hardware checks before making other suggestions

If after running these tests without finding any hardware errors look at BIOS setting for SATA controller
is it ATA (= PATA) compatible or AHCI (or native sata) mode ?
Try changing it to opposite

regards

Mike Barnes

 

[jdpalo]

Hi


have you run Memtest86 (or similar) to test your RAM modules ?

Do you have access to a USB DVD Drive ?
(use instead of internal DVD drive)

How did you test the Hard drive ?

Did you test the DVD's containing the e-recovery?

I appreciate it must be very frustrating to keep getting these errors

It is usually a result of a hardware fault someware in the chain between the DVD media, memory and hard disk

Back in the time when AMD Athlon XP cpus were common I had a similar problem which turned out to be a faulty level 2 cache on the CPU, I had a choice of disabling the level 2 cache and installing very slowly or being unstable.

We need to know you have run these hardware checks before making other suggestions

If after running these tests without finding any hardware errors look at BIOS setting for SATA controller
is it ATA (= PATA) compatible or AHCI (or native sata) mode ?
Try changing it to opposite

regards

Mike Barnes

Hi Mike

After some tinkering, I finally got UBCD ISO burnt to a CD and ran the Memtest86...One bad memory module...I had run KillDisk (an earlier version) and it completed ok, but ran the one in UBCD 5.28 and showed some problems with the write operation...This morning I got to CompUSA and got me a new memory module and a new HDD and VOILA! I'm writing this on my recovered laptop!

It is unbelievable that fails like that had to do anything with the memory modules...anyway, I learned a lot from the experience and I'm very grateful for your support...I'll look for you instead of them people at Gateway!

Best regards

Jd