Bare Metal Recovery - Cannot mount USB HDD

[aafj]

Hi,

I've tried to perform a bare metal recovery of a Windows 7 32 bits to a VMware Workstation, but I'm not being able to mount the USB hard drive where the disc image is storage.

I tried to load a driver and I could see that there is a "Universal Serial Bus (USB) controller in the list of unknown devices, but the "install" bottom is disabled for this one.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[Dima P.]

Hello Ademir.

Generic driver should be included by default. What OS was used to create Recovery Media (same Windows 7 machine)? Thanks.

[aafj]

Hi Dima,

Yes, recovery media was created in the same Machine.
During the creation of the recovery media I got an alert about "32-bit version of Windows 7 does not support EFI boot", but I failed to see if there is any relationship with the USB not being mounted.

[Dima P.]

It's not related - check that VM BIOS is set to run in legacy mode instead of EFI boot. For USB drive mount you should see the USB device in VM properties (can you check if mouse or keyboard connected via USB are properly connected to your VM when you boot Recovery Media)? Thank you.

[aafj]

Hi Dima, Thanks for your help!

VM is set to use BIOS (EFI mode is disabled), and yes mouse and keyboard are working fine.
The fun fact is that, I have another workstation, same hw but running Win 7 64 bits, and I had no issues while recovering it using VMware.

[Dima P.]

As a quick fix: try to copy your backup files from USB device to local machine and share the resulting folder. From Recovery Media side choose shared folder as a backup file location. Let me know how it goes. Cheers!