Case
To perform a BMR on a pc from WHS 2011 you should use a USB flash drive created with WHS 2011 (KB2781272 installed) including the drivers of the pc. But on a Windows 10 UEFI/GPT pc this often seems not to work : the 'RestoreCDInit.exe - Application Error' is
showing up. Neither 32 or 64 bit installation, all possible BIOS settings and options, or adding USB drivers to boot.wim seem to resolve the issue.
Solution
Finally (after weeks of trying) this procedure showed up to be successfull.
- Use Media Creation Tool to create a bootable Windows 10 64bit 8GB USB flash drive for legacy BIOS and UEFI (https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2376-create-bootable-usb-flash-drive-install-windows-10-a.html)
- Copy the folder with the drivers of the pc to the USB flash drive (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-home-server/ff402461(v=ws.11))
- Copy the content of the folder C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin\ClientRestore\1FAE75EB-B11A-4883-BCEE-9AC1C6D95216\X64 on the server to a folder
WHS on the USB flash drive
- Copy C:\WINDOWS\System32\shutdown.exe from a W10 pc to the WHS folder on the USB flash drive
- Keep the pc connected to the network
- Boot the pc with the W10 USB flash drive and select repair the computer
- Select advanced options and open the command prompt (don't close it !)
- Run NOTEPAD and use the File/Open dialog to see the drive letter assigned to the USB flash drive and other drives
- Eventually reset the pc's disk(s) : DISKPART / LIST DISK / SEL <n> / CLEAN / EXIT
- On the command prompt change to the USB flash drive and then to the WHS folder
- Run WSSDRIVERSETUP.EXE to install the missing network drivers
- Run NETCFG -WINPE and WPEUTIL INITIALIZENETWORK to setup the network connection, this can take some time, check with IPCONFIG
- Run CLIENTRESTOREWIZARD.EXE to start the restore process (it's marked 'SBS 2011' but that's ok)
Use the wizard to select the drives, otherwise use DISKPART (disk management is not available) - When finished, you can use DISKPART to check the partitions and volumes
- Finally run REBOOT /R (without this the process doesn't complete as I experienced)
This procedure worked in my specific situation but possibly doesn't in yours.
References
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e3cd8791-5456-479b-943e-6399092363a7/how-to-restore-a-client-pc-if-the-network-connection-does-not-work-in-the-cd-based-restore?forum=whsfaq
https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/14f0a649-e9e9-4b79-a767-c850b773d117/failing-full-client-restore-cd-or-usb-key-restorecdinitexe-application-error-0xc0000025-at?forum=whs2011
https://support.symantec.com/us/en/article.tech165596.html