Windows 7 consists of TWO partitions, a small one of 100-200Mb containing a few system files, and the main partition where the bulk of the operating system is installed. If you are only imaging the main partition, then restoring it to a clean disk, it is not going to work - it will not even boot.
If you make a disk partition, that should maintain the correct relationship between the two partitions required by Win 7.
If that is not the issue, then please detail your errors: when you are getting them, and what they are.
Also bear in mind that modern hardware features SATA hard disks and optical drives these days, and PCDOS is not able to support SATA devices. Some bioses still provide an ATA compatibility mode which can get around this, but in reality, you should really focus on WinPE as the imaging boot system for your requirements and leave PCDOS behind. Therefore you need to ensure that WinPE has the correct Vista 32 bit drivers for your SATA chipset as well as your NIC. Bear in mind that while hot imaging, you are relying on the native operating system to access the hard disk, whereas when you try and restore the image, you are relying on another boot environment to access your hard disk, and this must also have the right drivers for the storage hardware.