Part II: Restoring the Windows 7 Image – Using the WHS Client Restore Wizard

You may be wondering what happened to Part II, as Part I was written forever ago. I’ve been busy.

Using the tool “ClientRestoreWizard.exe” located in C:\Program Files\Windows Home Server, I did a restore onto a 2.5” hard drive for a laptop. This is a somewhat short and yet complex process, requiring you to have a disk or partition currently mounted in order to restore. Here’s a link to the process: http://www.wegotserved.com/2009/11/17/how-to-restore-a-client-computer-without-using-the-client-restore-disk/

Then, I put the hard drive into the laptop and turned it on.

On bootup I got the message, “BOOTMGR is missing”. Hmm… It’s been a while since I’ve done my own bootup tech support.

I used the Windows 7 installation DVD and entered into the recovery mode. It did its thing and a few reboots later, I get a login screen. Success! (Or so I thought…)

I put in my password, and it does an update. Then I get the famous “You must restart your computer to apply these changes.” message. I also see that it is installing a driver of some sort. My confidence level is increasing.

I click to Restart Now.

Restarted. Logged in. Once more got the same message and apparently another driver. Restart again. My confidence level is now decreasing. Could this be an endless reboot loop?

Restarted. Logged in. Third time’s a charm? Nope, same message, and another driver. Restart again. At this time I’m thinking, well, it seems to be doing different things, as at some point it must have installed an audio driver, I now have sound, and it appears a better video driver. My confidence level is still decreasing. It’s looking like an endless reboot loop.

Restarted. Logged in. Same message? Nope. It works!!!

Now, I’ve got a fully functional Windows 7, with audio, video and network working fine. At this time, I can go and install specific audio, video, networking and any other driver that requires specific hardware, but the base Windows 7 drivers give me good hope in both Windows 7’s built-in drivers and that I’ve got a working PC from my VM. This is the way to upgrade a PC.