I had a similar problem so this might help. I had to restore the PC to the factory defaults as restoring the Full Backup image left me with the same problems my PC had started with. Once the factory default was installed I then entered my upgrade code for Datasafe Premium Edition. The problem was getting Datasafe to see the backup on my external drive as I only wanted certain files & folders off it and not the entire image. So I ran a Full System Backup to my local drive and only then Datasafe would let me browse and choose my external drive backup. From this I could choose only the folders I required for restoring.
I was having hard drive problems with a Studio XPS 1640.  It would not start up in normal or safe mode. Before I did a system restore to factory conditions I did a backup to an external hard drive using the an option in the advanced solutions of startup.  the option was for emergency backup and restore to factory conditions.  selecting that option brought up Data Safe and I directed it to backup to an external hard drive i have connected to the computer.  It backed up about 60GB of personal files and other data, formated the drive and put the basic functionality back on the computer.  The computer now works fine.  But when I went to restore the backup data to the machine it did not recognize a backup.  I checked the drive the backup files are there.  It just cant see them.  Do I need to spend $40 to upgrade the Data Safe to have the option to restore from another drive?  Is there another way to get it back to my laptop with out spending the $40.  it seems weird that it would let me backup to an external drive and not see it after the backup was done.   
restoring emergency backup done with Dell Data Safe