Imaging Hard Drive on Dell Laptop - Will Restored Image Have Full Functionality?

[Elliot77]

Hello, when one clones a full hard drive on an OEM system like the Dell I'm using, are items like the MBR retained properly?

I ask because I would like to wipe the HDD and do a fresh install of a different OS. At some point in the future, if I wanted to restore the dell disk image I've created, would it have full functionality (boot properly and have a functional Dell system restore partition as included on the OEM system)?

Thank you

Edited September 7, 2016 by Elliot77

[jaclaz]

The point is how EXACTLY (with which specific tool, under which speciifc OS and with whihc specific command line or GUI options) you "clone" the HDD (and of course you need to be sure that you can revert the process).

If you make a true, dd-like, forensic sound image or clone of the whole disk you shouldn't have problems, of course, but a number of tools may use some "shortcuts" (which usually do not affect the result as you are not actually needing a forensic sound image) so you need to make sure.

See for some further explanation/details:

jaclaz