SOLVED Unable to create system repair disk

[mjw72652]

I just did an in-place upgrade to 20H2 on two different HP laptops, which went smoothly once I disconnected everything that was attached to my USB ports, and was then able to install all the latest updates as well. I couldn't create a bootable DVD, I guess because the ISO is now too large to fit on a DVD, and Windows won't let you do it to a Blu-Ray. I created an ISO on the desktop on each, mounted and installed on both. I also was able to create a USB boot disk. I did system Image backups on a portable hard drive on each, and created a flash drive recovery drive for each. When I did the image backups, I also tried to create System Repair DVDs for each. One laptop created it just fine. The other one told me it "couldn't create a repair disc because the selected disc did not contain a valid windows installation", followed by "a system repair disc cannot be created without a Windows installation disc." I did the exact same thing on both laptops, so I don't understand the why the problem occurred or how to fix it. The laptop that created the disc ok is an HP 15-b2344wm with a 1 TB WD SATA SSD and 8GB of memory. The one with the problem is a 15-da0053wm with a 1 TB WD PCIe/NVMe SSD in the M.2 slot where the Optane memory used to be. Dioes anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Bighorn]

I couldn't create a bootable DVD, I guess because the ISO is now too large to fit on a DVD, and Windows won't let you do it to a Blu-Ray.

I haven't tried with a Blu-Ray but have not had an issue with creating the bootable DVD using DVD+R/DL discs. Not all drives can handle Dual-Layer discs and the discs may be hard to find locally. Using the MCT I always get the third choice of both x86 and x64 which does require the DL disc that can handle up to about 8GB. I use the same choice with the Bootable USB Thumb drive and use 8GB or more recently 16GB drive, they get wiped and formatted as FAT32.

 

[bassfisher6522]

Yep....so much easier with a bootable USB.

 

[mjw72652]

Problem solved. I simply mounted the ISO file, which I had saved to my hard drive, and told Windows that was my installation media. Now it is happily creating the repair disc on a DVD. The other machine, which had no problem, still had the ISO mounted when I did the repair disc on it, so it never had the problem.

 

[bassfisher6522]

I keep forgetting the nice feature of mounting the ISO. Save's the trouble of actually burning it to a DVD.

 

[wingy]

Problem solved. I simply mounted the ISO file, which I had saved to my hard drive, and told Windows that was my installation media. Now it is happily creating the repair disc on a DVD. The other machine, which had no problem, still had the ISO mounted when I did the repair disc on it, so it never had the problem.

I tried what you did but still had the error message "The selected disc does not contain a valid Windows installation." So how did you link Windows to the mounted ISO ?

 

[wingy]

njw72652, My Windows 10 is version 21H1 which I did a custom clean install on brand new HDD. What I did was put a Windows 10 installation DVD into the drive for Windows to extract whatever files needed and then following, put a blank DVD disc and that allowed me to create the repair disk. I found this a bit odd. I never had this issue using previous versions of Windows 10.

 

[davehc]

The downloaded ISO can be anywhere on your HD. I prefer to create a folder for it. Then right click it and select Mount from the menu.
It will open, and, from there, run setup.
Tip. Having gone to the trouble of downloading the ISO. When you have finished working with it, save it to a safe place for furure use. An external device is a good plan!

 

[mjw72652]

I didn't do anything special- I just mounted the ISO and away I went. What is interesting is that I upgraded to Win11, and tried to create a new repair disk. I got the same error message. This time when I mounted the new Win 11 ISO, I still got the error- Win11 wouldn't acknowledge that the ISO was a valid Win11 installation medium. I have two laptops, and upgraded both. The other laptop had no problems creating the repair disk- I didn't even have to mount the ISO. I have had numerous inconsistencies between the two laptops (both are identical) in both Win10 and Win11. I wish I could be of more help. I believe all repair disks are the same, so I don't think it matters what computer you create it on. Doing it on another machine might be the simplest way to solve the problem.

 

[windows user]

I tried what you did but still had the error message "The selected disc does not contain a valid Windows installation." So how did you link Windows to the mounted ISO ?

Mount the ISO then right click on it and select burn to dvd.

 

[wingy]

The downloaded ISO can be anywhere on your HD. I prefer to create a folder for it. Then right click it and select Mount from the menu.
It will open, and, from there, run setup.
Tip. Having gone to the trouble of downloading the ISO. When you have finished working with it, save it to a safe place for furure use. An external device is a good plan!

I already have Windows 21H1 installed so will running setup starts copying files over my existing OS ?

 

[wingy]

Mount the ISO then right click on it and select burn to dvd.

My issue was the error message came up when I was trying to create a system repair disk after creating a system image backup successfully. I have a Windows 10 21H1 installed and I am not trying reinstall Windows or burn the ISO to a DVD.

 

[windows user]

Wait you are trying to make repair disk from the backup disk image! If you are i don't think it will work. But I will provide instructions for how to create repair disk in next post

 

[wingy]

I didn't do anything special- I just mounted the ISO and away I went. What is interesting is that I upgraded to Win11, and tried to create a new repair disk. I got the same error message. This time when I mounted the new Win 11 ISO, I still got the error- Win11 wouldn't acknowledge that the ISO was a valid Win11 installation medium. I have two laptops, and upgraded both. The other laptop had no problems creating the repair disk- I didn't even have to mount the ISO. I have had numerous inconsistencies between the two laptops (both are identical) in both Win10 and Win11. I wish I could be of more help. I believe all repair disks are the same, so I don't think it matters what computer you create it on. Doing it on another machine might be the simplest way to solve the problem.

I know what. Two weeks ago I created a system image backup on the same with the same Windows 10 Version 21H1 and I managed to create a system repair disk without any issue. At that time I have a C: drive containing the OS and a D: data drive with a couple of windows system files. That backup backed both my C: and D: drives as the latter is treated a system drive. So I used the cmd prompt: bcdboot c:/windows /s c: to transfer all the system files (including a bootmgr) from the D: drive to the C: drive . I made the C: drive active and D: inactive (because it still contains a copy of the bootmgr) and Windows booted up OK. Since then, I get this "The selected disc does not contain a valid Windows installation." I overcame this by inserting a Windows 10 DVD media followed by a blank DVD to create the repair disk.

 

[windows user]

I have no idea it is so easy to create repair disk it is simple.
Just search recovery in windows search and click on recovery drive and it will create recovery drive on usb

 

[wingy]

I have no idea it is so easy to create repair disk it is simple.
Just search recovery in windows search and click on recovery drive and it will create recovery drive on usb

This system repair disk I am talking about is the one used for restoring a system image backup onto a blank clean HDD be it a SSD, 3.5" or 2.5" HDD. When you create a Windows system image backup immediately on completion you will be prompted to create a bootable system repair disk whether it is on CD or DVD which will only take a couple of minutes. This is handy if you want to move your Windows to a new HDD or SSD whether same size, larger or smaller. The system image backup will keep all your applications and files ie. your system would be exactly like you left it before when its image was created. This would include the restoring of your data, apps, saved settings, and so on.

You will need at least a 8 Gb or 16 Gb USB drive to create a recovery drive. The job of a Recovery Drive is to return the Windows to its original state - sort of a complete reset - and it won't include your files and applications.

 

[windows user]

Ah tell me how you do it i will probably do the same as i am thinkin of switching hdd to ssd i may still be able to help to.

 

[wingy]

Ah tell me how you do it i will probably do the same as i am thinkin of switching hdd to ssd i may still be able to help to.

IF you are using Windows 7 or 10 first go to Control Panel and look for File Manager.

Open File History and on the bottom left click System Image Backup, then on the top left click Create a system Image. Make sure you have an external hard drive is connected and turn on – the size will depend on the used space of your C: drive containing Windows. Windows will then look for your external drive.

The selected drives will be ticked. Please note the system image backup will also back up your other drives if they contain system files so make sure the size of your external drive covers the amount of space required. It could take a while depending on the speed of your PC.

When finished you will be prompted to create a system repair disk. I normally create one using a DVD disk.

To restore the image onto a new the SSD into your PC SSD you need one that is blank and clean ie. no formatting or partitioning. If you have one with data, formatting or partitions used the Diskpart utility to ‘clean’ it. Connect your SSD up and temporarily disconnect other drives.

Insert your System Repair Disk and select your DVD as the first boot. Some PCs or laptops default to DVD drive as the first boot. It will ask you to press any key to boot from the DVD. When booting up you might see a blank screen for a while and then it will ask you to select a keyboard – a list of keyboards will appear. Select the appropriate country.

Thereafter, when prompted to choose an option, select Troubleshoot, then System Image Recovery, then select the appropriate system image backup – normally the latest version. Just follow the instructions. System Image will format and repartition your hard disk.

If you restore a system image on a hard disk or SSD that is larger than the one it replaced, then you will have unallocated disk space to reclaim because the system image restored according to its known partition layout. You can extend your used volume into unallocated space.

 

[davehc]

Not in Windows 10 right now, but "File Manager" I cannot recall that. Is it a third party App you need to download.?
I would continue to maintain, though, That and image mad with Soething ( Free) like Macrium, is as good as it gets.
But the original question from Win user "repair Disk" ... Seems the same, a reinstall of your image?

 

[windows user]

IF you are using Windows 7 or 10 first go to Control Panel and look for File Manager.

Open File History and on the bottom left click System Image Backup, then on the top left click Create a system Image. Make sure you have an external hard drive is connected and turn on – the size will depend on the used space of your C: drive containing Windows. Windows will then look for your external drive.

The selected drives will be ticked. Please note the system image backup will also back up your other drives if they contain system files so make sure the size of your external drive covers the amount of space required. It could take a while depending on the speed of your PC.

When finished you will be prompted to create a system repair disk. I normally create one using a DVD disk.

To restore the image onto a new the SSD into your PC SSD you need one that is blank and clean ie. no formatting or partitioning. If you have one with data, formatting or partitions used the Diskpart utility to ‘clean’ it. Connect your SSD up and temporarily disconnect other drives.

Insert your System Repair Disk and select your DVD as the first boot. Some PCs or laptops default to DVD drive as the first boot. It will ask you to press any key to boot from the DVD. When booting up you might see a blank screen for a while and then it will ask you to select a keyboard – a list of keyboards will appear. Select the appropriate country.

Thereafter, when prompted to choose an option, select Troubleshoot, then System Image Recovery, then select the appropriate system image backup – normally the latest version. Just follow the instructions. System Image will format and repartition your hard disk.

If you restore a system image on a hard disk or SSD that is larger than the one it replaced, then you will have unallocated disk space to reclaim because the system image restored according to its known partition layout. You can extend your used volume into unallocated space.

Oh, you are using windows 7 backup and restore to create a system image backup. Well I have used that before and I might use it again but it is really annoying and when it failed to find a drive then I decided not to use it but you can't turn it off it just makes the computer think there is something wrong and gives you constant notifications and asks you to back up.