Restoring windows 7 after clean install

[matneo]

Hi everybody, I am new at this forum so please forgive and guide me if I unknowingly don't abide by forum's rules.
So now the query: I have created system image of my existing windows 7 installation and what I want to do is install a fresh copy of windows 7 and then restore the whole system with this system image. Is this possible? I don't want to install windows 7 from the system image. I just want to restore the newly installed windows 7 from this system image which means all the programs and drivers get installed automatically from this image.

 

[richc46]

If you install 7 and then install an image, the original 7 is gone. You will have the image. It will be the same as though you have a formatted Drive then install the image.

 

[gregrocker]

If you made a Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup then follow these steps to do a System Image Recovery.

You would either do a Clean Reinstall Windows 7 or a System Image Recovery, not both.

 

[matneo]

Thank you very much all of you for replying. What I understood is that even after clean install if I restore the image then it will format my HD instead of just installing drivers and software on my existing windows 7 installation.
Will the image recovery also format my whole drive that is all the partitions or only the C drive on which windows 7 is installed?

regards

 

[gregrocker]

It depends upon the imaging app you are using. If you use Win7 app it may not give you a choice to exclude some partitions from imaging. This is explained in System Image Recovery.

If you use a more flexible imaging app like our favorite here Macrium Imaging - Windows 7 Help Forums then you can choose what you want to restore and where you want to put it. The Macium app will let you delete the partitions on the target disk you don't want, then drag the partitions from the source disk down to the target disk to fit them where you want them, adjust the sizes in the link below the dragged partition.

Please read the blue links thoroughly to see if your questions are answered.