I searched and can't find this exact similar issue. I have a system image of my hard drive (Windows 8.1) on an external hard drive. I Created a Recovery Drive onto my USB stick (Only the tools, no partition). When I boot to the USB, I get an error that states that the boot-able files have errors or is corrupted.
I know the USB stick is fine because it works and comes up the blue screen that prompts for the keyboard language then gives the different recovery options when I attach the stick to a different computer with Windows 8.1 and boot to it.
Assuming that I have a blank hard drive to restore my image to, it can't be a corrupt file in the operating system because there is no operating system. Is it the firmware? I tried different things in the bios by turning off secure boot as some forums suggested but to no avail. The error that I get states, "Windows Boot Manager contains Errors. 0x0000178. in EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD.
Thank you in advance!
James