Restoring data from Mac and Windows Partitions

[phonyreal98]

Right now I am getting my hard drive in my macbook pro replaced (it ended up being faulty) and when I get it back, I'm thinking I will make the windows partition larger than I originally had it. I have a 256 GB SSD, and originally, I had it partitioned ~190 GB for mac and ~60 GB for windows. When I get my macbook pro back, my it will be completely back to factory settings. Now, I have a time machine backup from my machine from the morning that I brought it in and I have a windows image from my machine from just before I attempted to delete my windows partition. What would be the best order for me to restore my backups and reinstall windows when I get my computer back?

I could go in this order-
Restore time machine backup, install windows, restore windows image
...but I've heard you should install windows via bootcamp before doing anything else if you can. What would happen if I restored all my mac data then installed windows via bootcamp?

Another order I could do is-
Install windows, restore windows image, restore time machine backup
...but I've heard that time machine backups do not take kindly to being restored into smaller partitions.

What's the best way to go about reinstalling windows and restoring my data to my new partitions when I get my macbook back?

 

[Superspeed500]

What I do

I do always restore Mac Os X first from Time machine. The next thing I do is to use Bootcamp assistent to add a Windows partition and download a iso with the most recent drivers for Mac. I then install and recover Windows.

 

[phonyreal98]

Thanks...I've installed windows 7 on an 80GB bootcamp partition. However, after restoring my system image, I cannot see any unallocated space in the disk management in Windows, even though when I look in the disk utility in mac, I can see that the bootcamp partition is 80 GB. Ideas on how to expand my partition?

 

[MJL]

Your posts lack detail on how you did your restore. The way to expand your windows partition is to buy Winclone (shareware) and follow the instructions on their website. I never had lasting success using Windows own software for restoring.

PS I am running Windows for business purposes and require extreme high reliability / uptime.

good luck.