Restore from full image just one drive.. Possible? Windows Backup tool

[vlsi99xx]

Hello: newbie here

I looked but I couldn't find the answer. I had made a full image of 3 drives using Win 7 backup tool. However, since then, I have removed 2 of the disks but I want to restore just one of the drives where the OS was installed (these are physical HDD= 3). Windows restore CD does not let me restore just one drive since the image is for all 3.
Is there any way that I can force windows 7 to restore just one of the drives from the the full image with 3 drives? Unfortunately, the drives that I removed already have new data in another PC and pretty big (2T each). I don't to buy 2 drives just to install the OS image.

thank you

 

[Brink]

Hello vlsi99x, and welcome to Seven Forums.

If the two HDDs that you removed were only data drives and not system drives, then yes you could use step 8 or 9 in the tutorial below to only restore the system drive (step 8 easiest way) or exclude the drives you don't want restored (step 9).

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/675-system-image-recovery.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[vlsi99xx]

Hello vlsi99x, and welcome to Seven Forums.

If the two HDDs that you removed were only data drives and not system drives, then yes you could use step 8 or 9 in the tutorial below to only restore the system drive (step 8 easiest way) or exclude the drives you don't want restored (step 9).

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/675-system-image-recovery.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi thank you for the quick response. I noticed that I do not get the option "only restore system drives" The image says drive G;E;C. C was the drive the OS was installed (there were backups of the OS in the data drives G and E). Do you have an idea why I don't get the option to install "only restore system drives". Is it possible because I have one application that got installed in the data drive?



thanks again (long time reader of this forum by the way).

 

[Brink]

Does it allow you to exclude them using step 9 instead?

 

[vlsi99xx]

No, it only shows the drive that I want to install the OS

thanks

 

[Brink]

Well, unfortunately it appears that the system image backup will require 3 HDDs to be able to restore it. It must have been 3 system drives that were included in the image backup.

If you decide not to restore the image and to do a clean install instead, then you could also use the tutorial below to manually extract any files and folders you want from the image backup afterwards if you like.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24771-system-image-extract-files-using-disk-management.html