Reinstalling windows with an image file

[Immaculate]

Hi I want to format my pc and reinstall windows. I have a legit windows cd but unfortunately it is damaged and unusable. I have a the serial number. My question is can i reinstall windows from a windows image file that is burned on a cd? I have this as a back up in case anything happened to the real one but i have never used it before. I want to know if it will work because i dont want to format my pc only to discover that i cant get windows back on. Please help. Thank you.

 

[office politics]

if the machine has the exact or very similar hardware, then reimaging the box shouldn't be a problem.

but if you have different hardware, the image would have different drivers installed which will most likely cause problems. MS provides sysprep for imageing mulitple boxes

How to use the Sysprep tool to automate successful deployment of Windows XP

 

[EricB]

what did you use to backup?