Windows image restore (Error code 0x80070057; "the parameter is incorrect")

Hi! :)

I have a Samsung PM800 256GB SSD. I made an image backup two nights ago with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. Then yesterday I had some issues with partition alignment which somehow botched the Windows Repair/Recovery Environment found in "Repair Your Computer" when you hit F8 on boot. Windows, however, was fine after a startup repair and the partition was aligned perfectly. :)

However, I couldn't get the Recovery Environment back so I did a fresh install of Windows Professional 64-bit onto my system. The recovery partition was there (and on a side note, it was aligned correctly, too). I am now trying to restore the image I made a few days ago. However, I realize I cannot conduct this restore (of the image) if I
access the recovery environment through the hard drive (tells me it can't restore because the environment is on the hard drive which is to be restored) or a disc (I cannot eject a disc in the recovery environemnt due to lacking drivers for the touch-sensitive eject key). So I put the Recovery Environment on a flash drive which seems to work fine, though I cannot be certain that this is working perfectly.

Nonetheless, I insert the disc with my backup (50GB Blu-ray DL) and the jump drive. Boot into the recovery environment via flash drive (my motherboard supports USB booting) and attempt to restore the image. It tells me it will have to format the drive, etc. However, as soon as I click the final "yes" prompt and it starts to restore, it immediately spits an error at me:

Error: The parameter is incorrect
Code: 0x80070057

I have google'd this for hours, no luck: so few people have this problem and if so it is in MAKING the backup, not restoring it.

The disc is fine: I've cleaned in numerous times. If you can't figure out the solution, can someone PLEASE tell me how to get this image onto my hard drive somehow? It is a *.vhd file about 18GB in size, but it includes a handful of other cryptically-titled files. :/

Thanks,

~Ibrahim~

Some possible useful bits of information:
I made an image of my 7 Ultimate 64-bit drive, but only had a 7 Pro disc handy. I have my Ultimate 64-bit key, but don't have the disc currently. So I'm trying to restore an image of 7 Ultimate 64-bit onto my 7 Pro 64-bit installation: issue?

There were no errors when making the image.

Idea: wipe the drive clean (how?) and then use the image restore tool on my jump drive? I would do this RIGHT now, but I don't know how to format the hard drive without concurrently installing Windows. I have GParted (which I initially used to align the partition) on a disc: just use that? I want to be SURE that this is a good solution, though: if I formatted it, tried the restore and it failed, it would be a PITA to have to reinstall 7 again. :(

Have tried the solution mentioned in the below threads, if your problem is not solved then reply here again :

• http://forums.techarena.in/operating...ms/1250796.htm
  
  
• http://forums.techarena.in/windows-update/1042130.htm
  
  
• http://forums.techarena.in/operating...ms/1237613.htm
  
  
• http://forums.techarena.in/windows-software/909705.htm

Hi! Thanks for the response; I figured it out. :D

I called MS and they told me that you can't do an image restore unless ALL the drives are exactly as they were. Meaning when I was using my jump drive to initiate the recovery (because I can't eject the recovery disk to put in the image disk), it was counting that as a drive. So no go on using a jump drive to initiate the Windows Recovery Environment. That was what was the "the parameter is incorrect; 0x80070057" error.

I figured out a workaround that I should have seen INSTANTLY. All this time, it's been there. When you're selecting an image, Microsoft realized some people might have their images on external drives which require special drivers. You just go there and wala, you see a Browse icon. Go in there, right-click the optical drive, eject, put in the one with the image.

It's restoring now.

OH YEAH!

And, btw, if you were wondering, 3 is the limit of times you can clean install from an upgrade disk on 7. I had to call and get that working,too.

~Ibrahim~

I'm just posting this so others googling for this problem will this. I had a similar problem to ikjadoon. I booted win7 off a USB thumbdrive (which has a Win2Flash copy of win7 on it) to get into the recovery console. Then (after some work on getting the right drivers installed, off another USB thumbdrive) I tried to do a system image restore off a network drive. It all went well till the actual image restore process started but it then errored out with the same error code as above. I had left the Win7 USB thumbdrive in its slot. I tried it again after removing the thumbdrive and it all worked.

It seems that the process is very sensitive to what drives are in place when you try to restore but MS don't have any warning to remove all unnecessary drives before starting the process

Posting my experience for others. The Princhester solution above on 2/1/12worked for me on the system update described below. The solution was to remove the USB boot Drive when it was no longer needed before starting to transfer the image from the HD image to be recovered. Can't have two USB's connected during recovery. I'm not a techy, so don't understand why.

I was trying to update a 64GB SSD Patriot PS-100 with a Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD. Compaq Mini 32 bit laptop (small for travel, love it). There is no DVD drive.

Copied the system image to a USB WD 150GB hard drive. Used a 4GB USB drive made bootable with the USB DVD Download tool containing the ISO of the Win 7 media.

Installed new SSD, plugged in both the bootable 4GB thumbdrive and the 150GB hard drive containing the image, turned on the laptop which booted off the thumbdrive. Used the system repair option and image recovery.

KEY TO SUCCESS. Remove the bootable thumbdrive before the selection of the image to be restored.

Thanks to MS for making this hard drive upgrade possible. Too bad they did not document the issue.