I created an image of a Dell PC on a USB drive then mounted the drive on another system.  The process of loading SPDT, identifying the source and target went smoothly.  I was presented with the Restore Image Options dialog.  The doc for this panel is described like this (on page 85 of the SPDT manual)

 5. This will bring up the Specify the Restoration Options dialog screen (see Figure 39). All of these
options are important when restoring the system volume on a computer.

Set Partition Active - This will make the restored drive the active partition (the drive the
machine boots from).

Restore MBR - Restore the master boot record. The master boot record is contained in
the first sector of the first physical hard drive. The MBR consists of a master boot
program and a partition table that describes the disk partitions. The master boot program
looks at the partition table to see which primary partition is active. It then starts the boot
program from the boot sector of the active partition. You can restore the MBR from the
image file that was saved with the backup image or you can restore an original Windows
MBR.

Restore disk signature - Restores the original physical disk signature of the hard drive.
Disk signatures are included in Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Advanced Server,
and Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition (SP3 and later) and are necessary before
the hard drive can be used.

Restore Disk Hidden Track - this will restore the first 63 sectors of a drive. Some boot
loader applications require this for the system to boot.

The problem is these instructions describe the feature but don't explain their purpose.  The Dell has a hidden partition with diagnostics.  As far as I know it shouldn't get in the way.  Is the Hidden Track involved with that?  The instructions don't describe under what circumstances to restore the MBR from the image or an original Windows MBR.  Are disk signatures irrelevant in XP?

 I'd be happy to document my experience performing a basic restore (when it's complete!)  Perhaps I could include some additional info on these points.  Or better yet, maybe someone can point me to where I can find what someone else has already written!

 Thanks,

 Kim

 

Generally speaking, it's best whenever you restore an image of an OS volume to check the boxes to indicate that you wish to restore the MBR (which restores the code-section of the MBR - the first 446 bytes) and hidden track sector data, and disk signature, from the backup image file.  I believe these are the default settings.