Probably good advice.... although a virtual install is certainly less 'precarious' than perhaps dual-booting or even worse... replacing a functional OS with a trial/buggy/beta ...

okay all i did was repartition my C drive (was 1tb) made a 250 gb partition, then proceeded to to do a clean boot and installed Win 8 CP from burned ISO dvd.  All worked great. i have dual boot to either win 7 pro or win 8 cp.  All is good.

I created a mirror image of C: before trying to install W8. Now all I got to do is figure out how to restore it. Googled it but no luck and Windows help is no help.

You replaced your 'functioning' OS with the beta of 8?

Along with the sign re stepping off a cliff that says "Don't" ....there SHOULD be one for what you did.....

NO! I'm not that stupid. I want to restore the system image to recover all my graphics! Installing Win8 on a separate partition didn't work. I made the system image 'before' doing that. I still have Win7, just not my graphics. If I can't restore them I'll have to ask/beg for replacements. Give me some credit at least.

So you have removed your 'graphics' to an image file...that you are now trying to recover...and you made that image to 'protect' your files before installing win 8.

Now you cannot 'restore' them...so what part of my statement about 'don't' didn't you understand?

I am imagining you cleared your 'graphics' off the machine so you could make a partition...and install win 8.

That's what I mean when I say 'don't'.

You do NOT imperil a mission-critical computer [read 'work'] with a temporary beta OS, no matter how appealing it may seem, not if you don't want to end up with problems...

I can't win.

Uvah.....google is your friend.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/how-to-getting-started-with-vhd-files-in-windows-7/3324

All is right in the world of uvah. The rescue disk I booted into and navigated to the external drive where the system image is. Forty minutes later and................................

Huzzah!

Some useful info for those who are interested: http://www.askvg.com/windows-8-hidden-secret-features-and-useful-hotkeys/ and a plug for Start 8: http://www.askvg.com/start8-download-freeware-to-get-start-button-orb-and-start-menu-back-in-windows-8/

Hehe...that'll be the day....sorry Ross. Couldn't resist...lol. 

Look at it this way. There's no other world like mine. Insanity reigns.

Proud mother at the marching day parade...to other mum..."Isn't my son grand...he's the ONLY one in step..." ...