Windows 7: Does my system image to a new hard drive make it bootable?

The backup image is an BigDrive (F) isn't it? YES

Did you make an macrium image of C, system reserved and recovery?

I believe I did.=>open the image(s) in macrium reflect and you seee what's in it.

Partition recovery isn't necessary anymore.

Does this mean I don't have to make a partition in the new disc to put the restored image?=>bigdrive has a partition with the image file(s) already on it. It also has a lot of unallocated space. Restore the image(s) to the unallocated space as told you before

• connect new disk to same connector as old disk. (not really necessary I think)

I can do that but why would it not be necessary? You mean just do it when it's connected to the usb enclosure?
=>just to be sure it boots from the new disk after restoration. new disk may not be external if you try to boot from it. Windows 7 cannot boot from usb drive!

• Boot from macriurm recovery CD. Be sure it is the WINPE version!! Only winpe version can resize on restore. And can put it on another place.
  
• reserved" first. Put in in the unallocated space. A 100MB partition appears

I can do all that -- good explanation and thank you.


I'm starting to think though that I want to do a clean install as described elsewhere on this forum. I am just so upset with HP that my 1-year-old computer has a failing hard drive and I don't want any of their software near my computer anymore.



When I called them they said they'd be happy to put in a new hard drive for me if I'd ship my computer to them and pay $350 plus $60 for the hard drive. That's no help at all since with shipping costs I can almost buy a new computer at that price.


As a single working mother I don't have the time or money for yearly computer fixes or a new purchase. This is the first and last HP computer I'll ever purchase.

=> just do the restore.. it's quite simple and fast

I take the hint and I want fast and simple, so it looks like clean install is out for now. I can always format and do it later. I know nothing about the BIOS except not to mess with it so I'm hoping that isn't requiring anything. Wish me luck, and thanks for all the answers everyone.

If you have any further questions, someone will be here to help. Let us know how things go for you.

Not good so far -- the hard drive is not recognized, although it has been recognized as an external drive. Then it asks me to browse 1000s of files to search for a driver to help recognize the hard drive............................aaahhhh

Are you trying to do a Clean Install or Restore a System Image? I couldn't tell what you had decided to do.

Thanks for asking!

Update -- so far it's working now -- it's about half way restored from a system image.

I was trying to restore from a partition on the C drive as suggested above, but that was a no-go. Then I tried the clean install = drive not recognized and it just asked for me to select drivers from among 100s listed......obviously beyond my experience.

Finally I'm doing the image restore from an external device to my new c drive. Maybe it's working this time but we'll see. My external hard drive this time is an ancient Fugitsi (sp?) about 6 years old that I rescued from my time before last computer.

Uh oh, now it's restoring disc D. Was that suppose to be part of the system image?

Is D a partition or a separate physical drive? If it is a partition yes it will be in the image.
Sorry, I misread this.

Is that Win 7 that is being restored to D? If so that is a problem. Win 7 should be on C. Let us know.

D was a different partition on the old hard drive, and I formatted the C drive and installed the system image on that. However, the D partition I didn't format so that was also restored, but it wasn't part of the system image which was restored to the new C drive.

I'm worried that the D partition that was restored was from the old hard drive which was XP.