Windows 7: Restore Image to a Certain Partition?

Hello guys, I am installing Mac on my PC and that requires me to reformat and wipe my partitions. I made a backup of my whole windows partition and am storing that on a separate PC. When I install Mac I will have 2 partitions.



Here is my question:
Is there any way that I can restore my Windows backup (VHD) to a specific partition on my drive without wiping my whole drive? I want to set up a dual boot with Mac. Thank you!

Bump please, any help? I am desperate

Depends. What did you use to make the image.

With Windows imaging, you will have problems. But that can be overcome with some gymnastics as long as you have a good VHD.

If you use another imaging program, e.g. free Macrium, it is possible without gymnastics.

If you haven't done anything yet then for this exercise I agree with WHS. Don't use Windows imaging. Free Macrium Reflect would be good for the job.

There are two points to watch at the outset when you use free Macrium:

The size of the partition that you image must be equal or smaller in size then the partition into which you plan to restore. That may mean that you have to shrink the originating partition first.

I mention that point because your future windows partition will most like by be smaller than the one right now because you plan to take space away for the other system.

Another problem may be the 100MB system partition. If you have that (look in Disk Management), then you should first transfer the bootmgr to C:. That will make your life a LOT easier. Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD

And for good practice I like to alert you that you will be in violation of the OSX EULA if you run that system on a PC.

Thanks. I have the VHD files from system backup and restore. How could I run Macrium? Should I clean install windows on the drive, run Macrium, then restore? Is that how it works? Thanks again!

We can work it either way. We can also start with the VHD. The VHD is apparently from the Windows imaging program - right. Have a look at my tutorial and tell us whether you can deal with that. System Image - Recover a Broken Windows 7 System Image

And have a look at my second post. The size problem does still apply. But we can also shrink the VHD - if required. We would do that before Step 3 of the tutorial.

An extra point to note is that Macrium will not image a mounted system Reserved
Trying to Re Image my computer with problems
If you have a system reserved it would be easier to rebuild the boot files within the OS partition. Simply mark the partition active and run system repair 3 times. You can recreate the system reserved if you wish but this involves a bit more effort.

Even easier is to move the bootmgr to C before making the image. Then you can forget about the 100MB partition.

Back then I was working with the scenario that you had the VHDs already and wanted to recover them when Windows imaging wasn't locating the image. If you are starting with a fully operational system then just use Macrium to begin with.