Windows 7: Why did windows 7 image destroy my back up drive???

WHY DID WINDOWS 7 IMAGE DESTROY MY BACK UP DRIVE DATA CHANGING IT'S DRIVE LETTER TO C?

I had years of data on a 2nd drive I installed in a new computer as an internal back up drive. I tried to image the new computer's fresh C drive however my backup drive was imaged instead. All my data is gone and the image gives the BSCOD. Why?

WARNING: DO NOT USE WIN 7 BUILT IN IMAGE BACK UP UTILITY VERY VERY DANGEROUS.

Nezello,

Welcome to SevenForums.

I don't know what you did, but Windows 7 Backup and Restore will not let you backup to yourself.

So let's solve your problem.

First, competely disconnect and remove your 2nd drive, the one with all of your life's work on it.


Will you computer boot?

It's known for not being intuitive.

Sounds like you accidentally directed it to restore the image to the wrong drive--instead of C.

The format options associated with Windows restore image can be confusing. Here is my explanation on how to select the options and their consequences.

Format Options Associated with Windows 7 Image Restore

When restoring an image you will be presented with two possible options
A) Format and repartition disks
B) Exclude disks

For option (A) the format option can be:
1) Grayed out and selected.
You are forced to have the whole disk formatted and repartitioned to match the partition structure of the disk the image was made from.
This can occur when restoring an image to a new disk or the original disk with a modified partition structure.
Data on other partitions on the disk you are restoring to will be lost.

2) Grayed out and unselected.
You are not given the option to format and repartition the disk. This will occur if you are restoring Windows from a partition on the same disk.

3) Not grayed out and unselected.
Here you have the option to select format the whole disk and repartition or not. In this case the disk the image was taken from has a matching partition structure to the disk you are restoring the image to. By not selecting the format and repartition option your image will be restored and other partitions untouched such as valuable data partitions.
This is the most common choice to select.

When the format and repartition option is selected then
B) Exclude disks
should be selected to deselect any other attached disks. Otherwise, they will be formatted.

Thank you for your responses. The destroyed drive has been disconnected already. Something had changed my backup drive to C on my new PC. I clearly instructed the software to image the C drive for that was the only option, it showed no other drive letter.

I tried both a win 7 image and a Acronis image to the C drive. You can see the starting windows 7 color swirl and then BSOD??? I aborted the image mission.

I have installed a fresh copy of Win 7. The issue now before me is all of my data is wiped because of the drive letter change. I have used 10 recovery programs and only got a picture or two back.