Hi guys, I have posted this question on another forum but that one may not have been the correct forum to use... I have an external 2TB HDD which holds my backup images. My Win7 Pro PC has a 640GB which I have divided up into four partitions one, of course, is the system drive which is 250GB. The other three are used for files and so forth. I have win7 Backup and Restore creating an image of my system drive every Monday. Now lets say my Win7 system gets corrupt and I want to restore the image onto that one partition, can this be done on only this partition? or will the restore only see the entire 640GB HDD and reformat it instead, losing ALL 3 other partitions. I just wanted to make sure it gives me the option to choose the partition i want to drop the restore image onto. Thanks

Hi, I would like you to know a system image includes the drives required for Windows to run by default. It also includes Windows and your system settings, programs, and files. If you don't change the configuration, the system image should only contain one partition. Therefore, it won't give you option to choose one partition. If you saved several system image, you will have option to select one of them. Regarding how to restore the system image, you can refer to the following article. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Restore-your-computer-from-a-system-image-backup Best Regards, Niki Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Thanks for your reply… I would like you to know a system image includes the drives required for Windows to run by default. It also includes Windows and your system settings, programs, and files. If you don't change the configuration, the system image should only contain one partition. Yes I do understand that it will only choose the windows system, settings … as that is how I or it was configured. (Could have added more drives / partitions) Therefore, it won't give you option to choose one partition. If you saved several system image, you will have option to select one of them. I was thinking of using this method a few days ago but didn’t need to. What I really wanted to know is when you do the restore of the system image, will that image erase ALL data on the destination drive you drop it onto? Meaning I have windows installed on a 250GB partition (which is what the image is based on) and is on a 650GB HDD. I have 3 other partitions on this drive as well but don’t want the ENTIRE drive to be re-imaged just the 250GB drive where windows was once installed on. Please let me know if this makes sense to you. Regarding how to restore the system image, you can refer to the following article. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Restore-your-computer-from-a-system-image-backup Yes I do know how to restore from the image, but thanks for the link. - Unbound237

This was what I meant; As you can see i have 4 separate partitions on one, 650GB HDD. I want to make sure that if I need to restore the windows system image that it will only go back to "Win_7" drive or partition. I don't want it to delete all other drives and make it one HDD. Thanks again

Hi, I know what you meant. It depends on how you create the system image. It seems you are not sure whether the image contains C drive or all drives. I suggest checking the size of the image. If the size is smaller than 250, the image should contain C drive only. It won't delete all other drives. Best Regards, Niki Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, Thanks for your reply Niki.. I do remember at one point windows back and restore did recognized more than the C drive as the system drive which I corrected and now it is only seeing the C drive. However, it does seem that the image it much larger than 250GB which I am not sure why but it is. Its is over 500GB. I would love to test this image restore all the way thru in a test environment. At the time I was thinking I needed to, I was brought to a window asking which drive I want to exclude from the restore and that's when I cancelled the restore. Maybe I should just choose another backup and restore software. Thanks again for your time. - Unbound237

Ok I did find a step by step with plenty of details on the image restore. will look into it more.

please post your the results of your research ... and the link to the resource. Thanks.