Set up image backup with c’t-WIMage [1]

WIMage is a backup solution provided by c’t for the main disk partition (C:\). The Windows Setup Tool, which installs Windows operating system images, accepts such a backup and transfers them onto hard disk partitions. WIMage supports Windows 8.1, 10 (from 1703) and 11 in both 32 and 64-Bit variants.

Prerequisites

Procedure

Setup

  1. Connect the USB storage device.

  2. Start the Media Creation Tool and step through the wizard to create an installation media.

  3. Select the exact version, which the backup installation uses (for example, Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit).

  4. Select the USB storage device as target and launch the creation. The wizard assigns ESD-USB as name for the installation media.

    Warning

    For Windows 8.1, use Rufus to create the installation media.

  5. Unzip ct-WIMage.zip and copy both the ct-WIMage directory and ct-WIMage-maker.bat to ESD-USB’s root directory (which already contains the Windows install files).

  6. On the storage device, run ct-WIMage-maker.bat as administrator.

  7. Confirm the security question with “J” (Ja/Yes).

  8. The script creates a new partition on the storage device. If the explorer appears in the forefront, ignore it. Don’t abort the script.

After the setup is complete, the ESD-USB device name changed to CT-BOOT (keeping the same assigned to drive letter D, if not already occupied) and created an additional drive, named CT-WIMAGE (assigned to drive letter E, if not already occupied).

Create backup

Important

The initial backup can take 5 hours and longer, though parallel work is still possible. Choose a suitable time slot for it.

If the initial backup is aborted in the process, the Setup steps need to be repeated as the backup script reports errors, like:

Error: 13
The data is invalid

Important

It is recommended to quit OneDrive during the initial backup, as it tends the crash WImage. This was not observed for subsequent backups.

  1. Open the CT-WIMAGE device and execute the ct-WIMage-x64.bat as administrator.

    Hint

    In case CT-BOOT uses a 32-Bit operating system the file is named ct-WIMage-x86.bat.

  2. The explorer might open a new window in the foreground, selecting another new partition (drive letter P, if not already occupied), which is a shadow copy of your system drive. Its content which is then saved onto CT-WIMAGE.

  3. Wait until the backup is complete (might take several hours on first run, depending on the disk size and transfer speed).

    Hint

    In case of errors, check out the troubleshooting section.

    Hint

    It might happen that the process gets stuck. The output

    Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.19041.844

    is showing and the copy process does not start for over an hour. Hit Enter to proceed, which prints the message

    Saving image

    After a short while, the progress bar should appear.

    Hint

    Future backups are faster, depending on the amount of changes after the last backup, but may still take 3 hours or longer.

Restore from backup

Follow these steps to restore the hard disk from the backup. This may become necessary in case of

  • a hard disk defect

  • a serious error in your Windows installation (for example due to updates or some other erroneous actions)

  • transferring the present state to a new hard disk

  1. Boot your PC from the external USB storage device.

    Hint

    How to do so depends on the hardware provider’s BIOS. You might have to disable secure boot to enable booting from external devices).

  2. After the Windows setup initialized, select your preferred keyboard layout and location.

  3. Next up, select Install now.

  4. After the setup has started (might take a minute to complete), accept the license terms and select Next.

  5. Select the customized installation type.

  6. Choose the install location. If you want to restore your broken Windows partition, select the one containing the existing main disk partition C:\. If you are using a different hard disk, select a partition which has a size of not less than the original backed up drive.

    Warning

    The CT-BOOT and CT-WIMAGE partitions should also be listed, but are not to be used!

    Warning

    When selecting a partition which already holds a Windows installation, WIMage moves that content to a sub-directory named Windows.old. From there you may access earlier files. In this case, the hard disk requires space to store another instance. Logically, if the old files aren’t needed or the backup partition uses more than 50 % of its available space, format the drive first.

  7. Choose Next and wait until the installation is complete.

  8. Restart the PC (in case, external disks have boot priority according to your BIOS settings, detach the hard disk after the shutdown).

Troubleshooting

WIMage exits due to missing wimre.wim

WIMage requires a copy of the Windows RE (Recovery Environment), which resides on a separate partition. The RE partition is commonly used to repair a corrupted Windows installation. In case it isn’t found, the script exits with a note Operation fehlgeschlagen after the message Windows RE auf Windows-Partition verschieben.

  1. Check, if the recovery environment is active:

    reagentc /info

    If it shows enabled under Status, it’s already active. In this case, deactivate it temporarily by entering:

    C:\> reagentc /disable

    You may check the status via /info again to verify.

  2. Go to C:\Windows\System32\Recovery and check whether it contains a file named winre.wim. In case it does, leave the rescue environment status as is and start another WIMage backup.

  3. In case it doesn’t, the rescue system is missing and must be retrieved by another Windows installation using the same Windows version. For instance, when using Windows 10 Pro, the file must come from the same edition, though the version may differ for example 21H2 also accepts the rescue system from 22H2.

  4. Download the Media Creation Tool (in case of Windows 8.1, download the ISO image) for the respective Windows version (Create <VERSION> installation media entry):

  5. Connect a USB storage device with at least 16 GB of disk space. Careful: Creating the startup disk formats the device, so save any important data from the device first, if needed.

    Important

    For Windows 8.1

    Download Rufus to create an installation media using the downloaded ISO. Ignore the next step.

  6. Launch the Media Creation Tool / Rufus, follow the wizard and create the installation media.

  7. Go to the sources directory on the installation media device and locate a file called install.esd and copy it to C:\.

  8. Open a command prompt as administrator, go to C:\ and run

    C:\> dism /Export-image /SourceImageFile:install.esd /SourceIndex:1 /DestinationImageFile:C:\install.wim /Compress:max /CheckIntegrity

    which converts the file to install.wim located at the same directory.

  9. Mount the file by running

    C:\> mkdir C:\wintemp
C:\> dism /Mount-Wim /WimFile:"C:\install.wim" /index:1 /MountDir:"C:\wintemp"

  10. Go to C:\wintemp\Windows\System32\Recovery and copy the Winre.wim file to C:\Windows\System32\Recovery.

  11. Restart the WIMage script. If the error doesn’t reoccur, delete C:\wintemp, install.wim and install.esd. First unmount C:\wintemp via:

    C:\> dism /Unmount-Wim /mountdir:C:\wintemp /discard

OneDrive sync crashes WIMage

Experiences show that synced directories or files in OneDrive from which you aren’t the owner are crashing WIMage. To prevent that, stop the sync on all these directories or files and delete them from the hard disk. You may resync them after the backup, if needed.

Hint

Better quit OneDrive before creating the backup.

The scripts reports the following error at the first stage and exits:

-9 was unexpected at this time

To resolve it open ct-WIMage-x64.bat on the root of your CT-WIMAGE partition and find the following line (at around line 234):

for /f "tokens=3" %%a in ('dir %systemdrive% /-c ^| findstr /i "Verzeichnis(se)"') do set frei=%%a

and replace it with:

for /f "tokens=2" %%a in ('wmic volume get DriveLetter^,FreeSpace ^| findstr /i "%systemdrive%"') do set frei=%%a

Save and close the file and start a new run.

Damaged hard disk junctions due to OneDrive

Somewhere during the script operation, the script abort showing this error:

ERROR 4393

The tag present in the reparse point buffer is invalid

It means, some mentioned junction files might be in a damaged state. This may occur if OneDrive has crashed or terminated improperly at some point.

  1. Open a command prompt as administrator.

  2. Enter (in case the system drive uses a different letter, replace c below):

    C:\> chkdsk c: /r /f

  3. Confirm with Y when asked.

  4. Restart the PC and wait for the disk check to complete (it may take two hours or longer).

  5. Retry running the WIMage script.

Backup fails due to insufficient free disk space

During the execution of a backup, the following error message appears on the command line:

../../_images/wimage_no_space_error.png

The external hard disk ran out of space to save the new backup image. ct-WIMage originally is supposed to automatically remove the oldest images to make space for the new ones, but this mechanism may not work in any case.

In such a case, the latest image needs to be exported into a new image file and overwrite the existing image bundle file (install.wim). Follow these steps:

  1. Connect the external hard disk (which contains the WIMage backups).

  2. Open a command line as administrator.

  3. Analyze the image bundle file (install.wim) on the external disk (here: disk letter E):

    C:\> Dism /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:E:\sources\install.wim

  4. Make sure you have enough free disk space on your internal hard disk (or an additional external hard disk) to save the latest image (highest index), which is approximately half the size of the currently occupied space on the main disk partition (C:).

  5. Change into the directory, where you like to temporarily save the new image into.

  6. Export the latest image into a new Windows image file (here again, disk letter E), replacing the <HIGHEST_INDEX> with the proper number:

    C:\> Dism /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:E:\sources\install.wim /SourceIndex:<HIGHEST_INDEX> /DestinationImageFile:install.wim

    The export may take around 15 minutes, depending on the image size and your hardware. The filesize should be less than the corresponding file on the external hard disk.

  7. You may check the resulting image file for its content:

    C:\> Dism /Get-ImageInfo /ImageFile:install.wim

  8. Replace E:\sources\install.wim on the external hard disk with the newly created one. Make sure to delete it from its original destination afterwards.

  9. Start a new backup cycle, which should finish successfully.