Image Restoration from one partion to another?

I am interested in purchasing True Image ver. 8 and have the following question:
I have an external 160gig hard drive with two equal partitions...one partition is FAT32 the other is NTFS. I use this drive as my backup drive connected by USB to the computer which runs Win2k.
Now for argument sake...let's assume that I make a regular image file of my internal hard drive, which is FAT32, and save it to the NTFS partition on the external drive. If my internal drive eventually dies, will I be able to simply restore the file image saved on the external drives NTFS partition to the external drives FAT 32 partition, replace the dead internal drive with this external drive and be up and running again in a few minutes? My guess is that if this works, it would wipe the NTFS partition away since the internal drive does not have an NTFS partition or any other partition for that matter. This is OK since I have my system up and running again.
Will what I want to do work?
SAG

 

Hello SAG,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/).

First of all, the image cannot be restored to the partition where this image is stored. So you won't be able to restore the whole hard disk drive cause in the beginning of this procedure Acronis True Image should delete the partition table and create a new one (if there is no partition table -> there is no partitions -> there is no any image file from which the restoration process should continue). Truly speaking you won't be able even to select to restore to the drive the image is stored on.

However, you will be able to restore your system partition to the second partition on your external hard drive and then boot your computer from it.

Thank you.

 

Just to clarify...I did not want to restore the file image stored on a partition to the same partition. I realize that that would not work. What I want to do is restore the file image that is saved on the external drives NTFS partition to the external drives FAT32 partition, and then be able to use this hard drive like the original internal drive. So if I understand what you said...I WILL be able to do this successfully in the event that my internal drive dies, correct?

Also...When I restore the internal hard drives file image from the NTFS partition to the FAT 32 partition on the external drive, will this proceedure wipe the NTFS partition and make the external drive one partition (FAT 32) like the internal drive was?

Lastly...What if the external drive has Win2k and then Acronis TI8 installed on the FAT 32 partition on that drive. If the internal drive dies couldn't I simply replace the internal drive with the external drive, boot the new internal drive (use to be the external drive) into Windows, start Acronis and do the restore from the NTFS partition? I realize that it would replace everything on the FAT 32 partition with the old internal drives installs but that's fine. Would this be easier then running a disaster recovery disk to restore the file image?

 

Hello SAG,

Please see my inline comments.

"Just to clarify...I did not want to restore the file image stored on a partition to the same partition. I realize that that would not work. What I want to do is restore the file image that is saved on the external drives NTFS partition to the external drives FAT32 partition, and then be able to use this hard drive like the original internal drive. So if I understand what you said...I WILL be able to do this successfully in the event that my internal drive dies, correct?" - yes, you will be able to do so.

"Also...When I restore the internal hard drives file image from the NTFS partition to the FAT 32 partition on the external drive, will this proceedure wipe the NTFS partition and make the external drive one partition (FAT 32) like the internal drive was?" - No, the NTFS partition won't be touched.

"Lastly...What if the external drive has Win2k and then Acronis TI8 installed on the FAT 32 partition on that drive. If the internal drive dies couldn't I simply replace the internal drive with the external drive, boot the new internal drive (use to be the external drive) into Windows, start Acronis and do the restore from the NTFS partition? I realize that it would replace everything on the FAT 32 partition with the old internal drives installs but that's fine. Would this be easier then running a disaster recovery disk to restore the file image?" - Yep, you can do it in that way too. I don't think that this procedure is easier to perform.

Thank you.

 

Thanks Andrew. Your replies were helpful.