Partition Sizd

I am going to install W7 on a Dell computer, that came with Vista preinstalled. The computer has Vista on C: drive, Dell restore to factory specs on D, including Vista System Restore. There is, also, a small drive that contains Dell Diagnosis. I plan to keep all of these drives, when I install W7 on C drive. I plan to make another partition for W7's System Image. Any suggestions how large I should make that partition. Space is not a problem? Any other suggestions or comments would also be appreciated. Thanks>

Although imaging to the same physical HDD is not such a great idea (an external disk is better), it will depend how much you will have going on your system. Figure at least 20GB per image (mine run up to 60GB, but I have virtual partitions and my imaging drive is 640GBs).

After you get 7 installed to the first partition and your programs/files all reinstalled, type Backup into the start box and in the Backup and Restore Center click "Create a System Image." Then select DVD radio button just to see what size it says will be necessary to back up the full HDD.

You can then use Disk Management to create a new Primary partition to store your Backup Image for easy detection and access from the Win7 Installer Repair console or System Recovery disk.

However, be sure to back that image up to an external drive in case of HDD falure.

BTW Paragon's new HDD manager disk can compress the image better than ever but you don't need to worry about that with all the space.

By system image do you mean the windows 7 system drive or a backup image of the system.

As WHS has said the backup image would fit into 20-60 GB but I personally allocate about 75-80 GB for the Windows 7 system partition to allow for expansion of the programs etc. over time