I made a complete PC image a year ago.  I change my computer and even repartitioned it for my needs today.  However, I lost a copy of some critical data that is only on this old image.  I made the image using Complete PC Backup.  When I tried to restore this old image from directly within Windows it told me to use the restore partitian.  When I started the complete PC restore from the restore partition, it allowed me to select my image (stored on an external HDD).  But It wouldn't let me restore my image to my HDD.  It  stated something like, my recovery partition was started from the local hard drive and that I needed to start the PC restore from CD/DVD because I needed to reformat the drive.  This is not exact, but is the content of the message.   Please help me restore from a windows image, even if I need to reformat the drive.

I have an XPS 1730, Windows Ultimate 32 bit OS, 200G Dual SATA HDD in RAID0, A10 BIOS, Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Extreme CPU X7900 @ 2.80GHz, 4G RAM.

I did not install service pack 1 yet.