Imaging Partitions

My guess is that when you do the restore, you will end up with exactly what you had before you created the image. But there are other members here who know more about it than I do. So it would be best to wait till you hear from some of the others.

C and "system reserved" restore fine and keep H as it is. But only if has EXACTLY the same partition layout as before!

Post screenshot of disk management and tell me what you are trying to accomplish

Montmorency said:

Hello.

Some days ago I deleted my HP laptop's recovery (D) partition in order to create a larger one to place files and folders.
I had to do it because I already had 4 primary partitions.
The idea was to be able to imaging C: partition (Windows and programs) and restoring it without having to back up to an external HDD the (many) GBs of videos I keep on the machine and then put them back.
But now I have a doubt: if I use Windows own imaging tool to back up the C: partition and the System partition, when I restore from that image will it not erase my newly created H: (the letter I gave it)?
Will it simply restore C: and System or will it format the whole disk before?

Thanks in advance.

"system reserved" is your boot partition I assume. It should be primary and active. C-drive itself doesn't need to be primary but it's better for recovery purposes... so you can boot from that partition. RECOVERY partition should be primary as well... but that's deleted. What other primary partitions do you have...and why primary?

You can make as many partitions as you wish. Create 3 primary and the remaining logical partitions. logical partitions should be adjacent to each other

Montmorency said:

Hello.

Some days ago I deleted my HP laptop's recovery (D) partition in order to create a larger one to place files and folders.

I wouldn't have done this.
HP have a poor partition structure and only leave the user one partition.
One solution, not good for you now, is to convert C: to an extended/logical partition then you can create additional logical drive partitions.
For others - Method 2 here:
Partition / Extended : Logical Drives

In your current situation as long as you don't change the partition structure AND do not tick the format box when performing an image restore then your "data" partition will remain intact. If the format box is ticked and grayed out then a format will occur and you will lose your data.

You shouldn't rely on an image solely on another partition of your HDD. You really need to use an external HDD.

You might want to go to HP's website. I have an HP notebook. It's a Pavilion g7-1260us. I can go to their website and download the recovery files. I know I can with the computer that I have and I would think that you could, too. It wouldn't hurt to give it a try.

Montmorency said:

ufff... what a mess!
this delete/create partition totally screwed the machine up. I had to use the repair disk to go back to a previous image.
No more partitioning for me.

Thanks to all for your answers.

You should have posted a screenshot of your current situation. And what you wish. Then I had given you advise about what to do and how! Quite easy with partition wizard