You may be unable to completely restore a Windows Vista-based computer by using Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)

When you try to completely restore a Windows Vista-based computer by using Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), the operation may not be successful. This problem may occur if the following conditions are true:

• You try to restore from a backup that was created by using the Complete PC Backup option.
• WinRE is installed on the boot volume that is marked as an active partition.
• The hard disk drive is encrypted by using BitLocker Drive Encryption.

This problem may occur if WinRE is installed on the active partition. OEMs frequently install WinRE as part of the installation image. If a customer purchases a computer that has WinRE installed from an OEM, the customer may mark the WinRE partition as active. However, the customer will then be unable to restore from the backup that was created by using the Complete PC Backup option.

To work around this problem, make sure that you do not install WinRE on an active partition. We recommend that you create a new partition on which to install WinRE. Use the new partition to perform computer backup-and-restore operations.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.