Windows 7: recovery from image

Was just wondering if anyone has managed to recover using the image file as I am have problems restoring to a new drive.

See Brinks tutorial on how this is done -=> here

I have followed the guide but it will not let me do it. Basically I loaded windows 7 on an old maxtor ide drive to give it a try, loaded up the drive over a few weeks and love it. So then did a backup. Now I want to replace it over my xp which is on a Spinpoint disc. The back is on a 3rd disc.

No.. you cant do it that way... the recovery images are not portable... they are tied to the drive... You will have to do a fresh install ... sorry...

Thanks for that, been at it for a few hours now. So if you have a total harddrive failure then the disc image is pointless then. Is there any other program that i can use that would make it portable. With xp I always xxclone which just made the other drive bootable so I could just swap over in case of harddrive failure.