Windows 7: Will system image restore wipe my hidden OEM partition ? Help

Thanks Colin. Saves me a trip.

Thanks v much Golden.

You should be fine as long as the format is unchecked.
But:
Even though I'm a Windows Imaging troglodyte I definitely use Macrium Reflect as well. Macrium is an excellent product and if I had to use just one it would be Macrium
In your case I would not bother with Windows inbuilt. Why? Because I it looks like Dell have the boot files (bootmgr and BCD) in the recovery partition which appears to be common practice with Dell. This is why Windows imaging insists on imaging your recovery partition. With Macrium I would keep a separate image of the recovery partition but normally just image and restore the main OS partition.

Michael, you are absolutely correct. It was the case on both my Dell systems. That's why I copy the bootmgr to C, then I need to only image C and avoid all problems. Here is how I do it: Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD

Third party imaging programs are easier.

I have used many.

I am using a new free one now:

AOMEI Data Backuper ? free disk imaging and cloning software, backup and recovery for your computer.

Great interface, all the functions most people need, and it will create pe media without WAIK/WADK download.

mjf, thanks for your helpful response. So from your response, my understanding is that given that the OEM partition was not being imaged (hopefully a valid assumption) in the first place, a restoration will not interfere with that partition. !!! So I should be safe using Windows Imaging to restore my system partition. It just means that should my whole drive die, then i wont have a backup of the OEM partition. Thats cool if my understanding is correct. Please correct me if i am wrong. Note that i do have factory supplied recovery disks so in the event of my disk dying, i am banking on the fact that I could recover the OEM partion, as well as the Recovery and System partions to factory condition using these disks. From that point, i assume I could then use the Windows system image to replace the factory image of the System partition with the latest System partion so ultimately end up with all partions, but including the latest System partition.

If on the other hand i were to use Macrium (and admitadly this is starting to sound really good), i could probably do an initial image of all partitions (including the hidden OEM partition), but then just do time to time updates of the System partition only ? Is this a good enough strategy ? I take it if i ever do need to do a full restore of all partitions, the fact that I am not doing concurrent images of the OEM and Recovery partitions concurrently with the System partition will not stuff things up ? Also, would Macrium be able to image the OEM partition (which Windows cant) ?

Sorry for bombarding you with questions. Trying to sort this out.
Thanks for you help

Thanks. Will take a look

Thaks for the link. Will take a look.
When you use Macrium, can you create and image of the hidden OEM partition as well (assuming you wanted to) ?
Regards

Sure, you will see it on the Macrium window. Have a look at this tutorial - I made it special for you, LOL: Imaging with free Macrium

Thanks. Thats great if it does. If i go this way with Macrium, I would first do images of all partitions and archive these. I would only then continually redo the image of the main windows system partition on a regular basis to reflect changes to my windows operating system and software etc. If my Windows files ever get corrupt, my intention is to restore just the windows system partition. However if the whole hard disk dies, then i have the option of restoring all partitions on a new disk. Does this sound like a good plan ?