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[orson19]

Hi guys, here is my problem:
On Windows 7 Professional, I set up a back up through the "Back up and Restore" option on control panel.
Everything got backed up to my external hdd including the system image.
So the following day I upgraded my laptop to Windows 8 Consumer Preview.
I was playing around with it and didn't like it so I decided that I would revert back to Windows 7 through the restore option in windows 8. That didn't work because it required that I had both same OS as the system image so then I was left with one option.
To Clean install Windows 7 and restore the image file from there
I ran Windows 7 Professional Setup and deleted the Windows 8 partition and every other partitions.
Then I created a new partition which had the whole drive to itself and installed to it.
After everything went well, I connected my external HDD and lauched windows repair via F8.
Then I went to system image restore and it found my external drive and found the image too.
After clicking the image and then next I get an error.
"The Selected System Image cannot be restored in this recovery environment.
To Restore this system image:
1. Insert a system repair disc or a Windows Installation Disk (x64) Done Both - No hope
2. Boot the computer from the disk
3. Choose Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier, and then select this system image.

None of the above solution work so please can you people guide me the right way and show me what I am doing wrong becuase I don't want to reinstall all my software again + there is important files that I need off that external HDD.

[chason58]

You will have learn't a valuable lesson: a back-up isn't a back-up until you have tested it and found it works. Also it isn't a back-up if you delete the original copy. You will have to reinstall programs and hopefully you will be able to get the data back