How to recover HDD using Imagex? ("The subsystem needed to support the image type is not present")

I have here a Toshiba Satellite laptop with on the D: partition an 11GB HDDrecovery directory.

It contains, among other files, the app Imagex and a file called boot.wim.

I gathered what's need is that I boot from a USB key and run the command Imagex /apply.

When I booted from a Win x64 USB install key and went to commandprompt, I then ran the imagex apply command. I got the error message:

"The subsystem needed to support the image type is not present"

Any ideas? Should I perhaps boot from a different environment?

Previous dicussion about this issue here.

 

Have you tried booting from a Win 7 install CD?

And by the way, I guess you did a google for "The subsystem needed to support the image type is not present" and checked out the top few hits / suggestions???

 

I don't have any CD.

I did google it, this is one of the pages I found.

Maybe the error is coming from the fact that I booted from Win 7 x64, while the imagex file might be Win 32 only.

 

Could it be that the recovery image on your machine is encrypted?

boot.wim can be encrypted at the OEMs discretion. The OEM then provides a modified version of ImageX that can accept a special decrypt key (in the form of a keyboard entry or USB drive, etc), when a user needs to zero out/restore their machine.

I've only ever seen this on a few lenovo corporate laptops, but I suppose anyone could be using this feature by now.

Have you called Toshiba to ask what's happening?

 

Yes could be encrypted.

Here's another interesting directory.


I haven't called Toshiba yet. I'm using their forum but am not getting the right help yet.

 

swm files are split wim files not unlike split zip or rar files