Windows 7 "can not find system image on external hard drive" Windows 7, 64 bit.

"External hard drive can not find system image" Windows 7, 64 bit. I need to restore my computer from the system image made with windows 7 backup on my external hard drive (WD). When I go through the process I get the message "can not find system image" and I am given the options to install drivers or search the network - both things do not solve the problem.
I read that people had the same problem as me (typical for microsoft to pretend that they have a working recovery system when it actually causes a lot of troubles) but so far I have not seen a solution - just some vague suggestions. (I need the programs on the system image, since microsoft discontinued to sell the Hebrew language pack for Office 2007 in order to force people to upgrade. I bought the pack 3 years ago at their store and they can or won't help me to download it again i.e. retrieve the key....). I would appreciate every concrete help (and yes I know now never ever to trust microsoft programs again...and to switch to apple as soon as I can) thanks

You might find this guide useful. Btw, you don't need to go to Apple - just try a copy of Acronis True Image for (IMHO) the best backup app on the market:

http://www.sysprobs.com/restore-files-folders-windows-7-system-image-backup

Can you see the image on the drive in Windows and it is in the root directory and has not been renamed?

Does the WD external drive have a USB 2.0 connection and you have it plugged into a 2.0 port?

You can mount an image and retrive files from it. Use Disk Management and select "Attach VHD" from the Action menu. Then search for the .vhd file in your backup. If the option is greyed out, select one of your partitions and it should then show available.

When you want to quit, right click the left end of the VHD disk in Disk Management and select Detach...

Hi, first of all thanks a lot for your reply. I tried the link (although I was not sure how to retrieve office 2007 once I got to the vhd file). I got stuck anyway and could not find the VHD file but only zipped files (I did not zip them - they were zipped) - see screen below, and now I am not sure how to proceed. do you have any suggestions thanks again, h.

There don't seem to be any zipped files in the Image backup, and none show up when checking a file backup (green arrow icon). Are you sure the backup is an image. It should have at least one .vhd file listed in the backup folder, and you can check that by just opening the WindowsImageBackup folder.

If you see zipped files when checking the folder in Windows Explorer, can you open them?

Hi Saltgrass, many thanks for your reply. I am not sure what you mean by 'root menu' (Sorry for being so obtuse but I am not versed in computer language), but I did not rename the image and I can find it when I got to the WD drive - I even could see when I tried to restore the computer and browsed for it with windows explorer - there was just no way to select it. The answer to your other questions is yes. regarding your VHD suggestion: I tried it but got stuck - see my answer above. Any suggestions? I appreciate your help

I am sure it is a image - at least that's what I asked windows to create and it looks like this - oh sorry I am not able to post screen shots. OK, I try to describe it: when I click on the file with the green arrow it leads me to a folder 'Backup Set 2012-09-29 115121' when I click on it I get to four different folders "Backup Files 2012-09-29 115121", "Backup Files 2012-10-06 160545", "Backup Files 2012-10-06 184118" and "Catalogs." (I did a system image on 09/29 and renewed it on 10/6) When I search for VHD I get no result. When I open one of the Backup Files folders I get to even more folders which are zipped and numbered 1-1147 (in the folder: Backup Files 2012-09-29 115121"). I am not sure whether and how I should unpack these folders without destroying the image....any suggestions? thanks

I used the image already in order to restore files from it with the recovery option in windows. when I search for folders then -everything is normal.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding about what an image is, since what you are looking at is a file backup. An image will be in an WindowsImageBackup folder. You can make an image separately, or as part of a file backup.

The image is normally used to restore a hard drive to the condition it was when the image was taken. So again, if you are trying to restore an image, you need the WindowsImageBackup folder.

The only way I managed to recover win 7 from an image on an external hard drive was to reload windows on the computer right up to the point of putting the verification code in.
I then made an image to the external making sure not to overwrite the one I wanted to load. Removed the newly written one and replaced with the one I wanted. Windows then found this one and restored from it.