Do I need to format HDD before loading system image for best results?

I think you are talking about something quite different. ( .wim files)

An earlier comment I made:
"During Windows reimaging format options are described in Step 2 Point 7 of the tutorial
System Image Recovery"

You may want to look over this tutorial again.
Windows imaging stores and replaces the MBR. The MBR contains the partition table at the time the image was made. It requires the same partition structure and type as defined in the MBR and will force a creation of one if required. Therefore in reimaging Windows can force a full format and disk repartition to occur automatically.

MilesAhead said:

...to format or not to format

There's something poetic about modern computer problems bringing us right back to Shakespeare. :)

Many thanks for all your input, and sorry for the delay in repling

I thought I would just test out 'Backup and Restore' so done a

1. Clean install
2. Installed default apps, like Firewall, Email client etc
3. Adjusted PC settings / preferences like desktop colour, menus and various settings
4. Created an image using 'Backup and Restore'. Saved it to my none system internal drive.
5. Then followed this tutorial System Image Recovery. On step 7a I was not given the option to 'Format and Partition Disk' I guess as it was a straight swap so to speak.

All went very well and only took 10 mins to have system back with all my apps and and settings.

However I did miss a few things before I made the image . I guess I can just re-load the image make the changes, delete old image and make new image.

Many thanks

Axel

Yes you can in fact rename your existing image
WindowsImageBackup
to say
WindowsImageBackup-my_first
(or whatever)
then make your additions and reimage to get a new
WindowsImageBackup

Whatever you rename back to
WindowsImageBackup
in a root of a partition will be seen by Windows as a valid image to reimage.

Good you finally got it going after all of that.