Your Computer Clock Is Not Synchronized

Situation

When trying to restore an image-based backup via a bootable USB drive, you may receive an error "Your computer clock is not synchronized. For security reasons, Amazon generates error when your clock is not synchronized. Check out http://www.greenwichmeantime.com/ to synchronize your clock.". This may be caused by an incorrect local time or an unavailable network time server.

Solution

You can verify your system time on The World Clock site.

1. Check computer time and date

Go to Boot Menu -> Tools -> Command prompt. Check the time and date with the "time" and "date" commands. You can adjust the time and date with the same commands.

2. Sync computer time with network time server

Go to Boot Menu -> Tools and press the "t" key. Your computer will try to sync the time and date with the time server "time.windows.com". Successful synchronization result is "Done".

3. Check time synchronization with domain controller or host server

In certain situations, the machine's time could be passed down to it from a domain controller (in case the machine is a part of Windows Active Directory) or a host server (in case the machine is a virtualized instance).

If the time is unsynchronized and deviates from the correct one on a domain controller or a host server, it can continuously override the time adjustments made on the initial machine itself, thus keeping the time in an incorrect state.

Windows Event log (SYSTEM) usually records such an issue as "An application or system component changed the time" message from Kernel-General (Event ID 1):

For such situations, we recommend checking and synchronizing time settings on a domain controller or a host server instead of the machine where the issue was initially observed.

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