Will restoring Windows 7 from a different machine's image destroy my partitions?

My coworkers and I were all assigned the same laptop models at the beginning of our project.
On mine, Windows 7 hit a state where I could not boot anything except Recovery Console.
I used a Linux live disk to repartition the hard drive and install Fedora 15 on one of the new partitions.

Now one of my coworkers has offered me a Windows 7 image from her laptop. I would like to have a working copy of Windows 7 on that machine again.

Will using the Recovery Console to re-image my machine from her machine's image give me the option to keep my partitions as they are?

sq33G

Posted 2012-01-16T12:12:41.087

Reputation: 113

Answers

If you use the Recovery Console from the software that comes with the laptop, it will recover the entire hard drive to the default config.

c0n

Posted 2012-01-16T12:12:41.087

Reputation: 21

What do you call default? – sq33G – 2012-01-16T19:04:53.030

Recovery Console? That wipes out the entire hard drive and reinstalls Windows! If you want to keep your partitions, don't use the Recovery Console. It has NO option to keep partitions as they are.

user113907

Posted 2012-01-16T12:12:41.087

Reputation: 162

Depends on what software made the image, and what partitions are included in the image, if you are skilled and have the right image you could just install the C partition image to your C partition without disturbing other partitions, some image software allows you to do just this, and also be able to leave out the MBR from the donor image (preserves your current mbr and customizations). Depends on how flexible the image software is. As always have backups of data you cannot afford to lose.

Moab

Posted 2012-01-16T12:12:41.087

Reputation: 54 203

Examples of software? AFAIK, the image was made with the built-in Windows Backup utility. – sq33G – 2012-01-16T18:53:48.383

Acronis is the one I use that can do what I suggest, The one built into windows is very limited and probably will not restore the image to a smaller partition, and may overwrite the MBR, destroying your linux boot loader. That being said I don't like the new Acronis 2012, I prefer 2011, build 6942. You would need to make an image of the donor PC C: partition with Acronis, them make the Acronis boot CD and use that to restore it to yours. – Moab – 2012-01-16T20:30:18.973

Didn't wait, just backed up the linux things I really wanted and blew it away with the Recovery Console. MBR was intact... but Linux partition was gone, so only the Windows entry in Grub actually does anything. – sq33G – 2012-01-16T23:11:36.923

Ahaha, the Linux partition is still there! I just needed to adjust the entries in Grub a little, and hey presto! – sq33G – 2012-01-16T23:39:46.877