How can I fix a system image restore failure?

[Windows Central Question]

System Image restore failure

Created a system image backup with Win10 backup... it created a system image on my external USB drive. For some reason everything seemed to work fine when I made the image... so I figured I could use that if Win10 has more bugs...

I created a Win10 bootable USB drive..

Low and behold, my Win10 got some update and BAM!!! I no longer have Internet!! Everything else worked ok.. but I'm not liking this new Settings page...

Anyway, decided to book from the USB drive, went to Recovery options, selected Advanced, went to system image for a restore... It found my image on my USB drive. I selected it.. and crossed my fingers for the restore on my main HD. Result? Failure. Why? The drive is fine, the image is fine.... I thought maybe it was the bootable USB not being excluded from the image restore.. so I found that, marked the X to exclude it.. and still - Failure.

Does WIN10 image restore even work???

Grrrrr now I have a useless machine and am really angry! I suppose I could reinstall Windows 10 from the flash drive... but WHY doesn't the system restore work?

And, on a side note - has anyone had luck making an actual DRIVE clone of a Windows 10 HD? What tool can we use??

HELP!