In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| Isn't it better to make images for each partition? Like an image for
| recovery, an image for OS, image for whatever left, etc.? It seems
| easier to manage that way for my setups.
|
| Depends _why_ you're making images. I image (C: & any hidden partition),
| to a single image file (which means when I restore from it, the boot
| sector/master table/whatever get set up for me) so that in the event of
| drive failure, I can restore my system - OS (including activation),
| updates, software, configurations, and tweaks - all in one go. [I backup
| _data_ using just synctoy - basically just a copy.] Some people might be
| doing it so they can restore an as-new condition to sell or give away;
| others might be imaging for other reasons again.
|
| I can't think of a good reason for making separate images for each
| partition, _if_ you're anticipating restoring the original configuration
| anyway.

I put an OS image on one or two DVDs. What you're
describing is basically a disk clone. It may be compressed,
but you're backing up all of your data unnecessarily.
(Assuming "synctoy" is something you use to back up
data seaprately from imaging.)

No. I make a Macrium image - often uncompressed. That's a single file,
on an external disc. Of my C: partition and the hidden ones, so that I
can restore everything in one go, to a new disc if necessary. Sorry, by
"everything" I mean the OS and updates and tweaks and software, _not_
data; data I just copy to the backup drive. (SyncToy is just a
(SysInternals) utility that makes the copying go faster, by only copying
what's changed since last time.)

I don't know how big that ends up being, but it sounds
like you need a 2nd hard disk just to hold your backup.
In that case, why not just copy disk to disk?

Because (a) I keep several images/copies on the backup disk, (b) I have
images/copies from more than one computer on it.

So a big part of the reason to image partitions separately
is to have conveniently-sized backups that don't require
a hard disk or expensive USB stick to store. That's just
wasting space. But it requires a little planning to do itr more
efficiently. If you just install Windows on a 500 GB C drive
and put all of your files in your docs folder then you may
be stuck backing up one giant pile of stuff. Every time you

I don't; I keep all my _data_ - sounds, images, videos, downloaded
installers, genealogy stuff, documents - on D:; more or less all that's
on C: is stuff that needs _maintaining_, and/or would take a _long_ time
to reconfigure as I like it.

want to back up one doc you're also backing up GBs of
system files unnecessarily. Even if you have some kind of
tool to only back up changed files, you're still maintaining
a massive backup that you don't need.

That's always a matter of opinion. _Everybody_ backs up stuff they don't
need backed up, and doesn't back up stuff they later wish they had! (And
that applies to both images and backups.)

I think this also gets back to whether people are
willing to deal with partitioning and disk issues. You
shouldn't need to be backing up restore partitions,
MBRs, or anything like that. If you're using a disk
image program it should be able to make an image
of any partition and restore it to any disk. But that

Yes, but given the small size of the restore partition and MBRs compared
to even just the C: partition, it's negligible extra storage (and time):
and also, after the distressing event of a hard disc failure, many
people don't want to have to mess around restoring individual partitions
when they get the replacement - they just want to set it going, and
leave it to it.

does require getting into more details. For instance,
you need to know about boot config. If you make an
image of Win7 that's the second partition and then
install it to a disk as 1st partition, it won't boot. It
will try to boot the 2nd partition. And even that will only
work if you've set it active. But once you work out
those details you no longer need to be tied to disk
layout with your backups.

On a typical disk I'll have 1-3 OSs and maybe 5

I don't think that makes you a typical user, even here! OK, among those
here, I'm nearer the "user" end of the spectrum - I just want to _use_
the computer, rather than tinker with it, especially as I get older. I
take precautions that enable me to resume if the HD dies, but otherwise
am not trying new (to me) OSs and the like.

data partitions. One of those is changeable data like
business receipts, email, current desktop, programming
work, website files, etc. One is graphics/video. One
is non-changing data like manuals for appliances,
programming docs, Windows SDKs, program installers,
etc.

I also like to use a 2nd disk for redundancy. And
I make disk images of fresh OSs, configured and with
most software installed.

I would, but I use a laptop (despite the fact that I never thought I
would use it as more than a toy, or for its portability, when I got my
first one [one that had been upgraded to Windows 98: I don't think it
was even built for that] - but soon found I was using it as my main
machine), and most don't have more than one drive bay.

With that setup in place, I make occasional copies
of the graphics and non-changing data. I make regular
backups to DVD of the changing data. That comes to
less than 1 GB. I never need to back up Windows
because I already have disk images of a fresh,
configured system.

Again, that's one of the places we differ: I wouldn't _want_ an image of
a _fresh_ system, because I know (or even, I don't!) how long it would
take me to restore such a system - reinstall software, and tweak
everything how I like it. (Even ignoring all the OS updates.) The _only_
reason _I_ would make such an image would be to protect the activation
status of the OS (and any software that was subject to similar, but I
don't have any such). Since my image of my tweaked system also has this,
I don't need the "pristine" one. OK, there's always the chance I might
make some change that "breaks" the OS, and not notice I'd done so until
too late - but having two or more backups/images (taken at intervals of
a few months) protects me from that to _some_ extent (I could go back to
a previous one).

If there are problems I can put back the OS quickly
without disturbing the data. There's nothing important
that I have only on C drive.

With XP the OS+software is about 1.5 GB. I make
the C partition 10 GB. With 7 I make it 60 GB. The
basic OS image is 7-9 GB and requires 2 DVDs to
store.

I think my XP C: was about 25G, to include the OS and all _installed_
software (plus the data from the few badly-behaved softwares that would
insist on using C:; I don't allow many of those). On this 7, it's 100G,
but that's probably too big, just because it's a 1T (actually 931G of
course); only 31.5G of it is currently occupied.

That's also a big part of the reason I like to avoid
bloat. Bloated software is typically a sign of sloppy

You and me both.

or inexperienced programmers. But it also takes up a
lot of space. Many people respond to that by saying,
"Well, these days hard disk space doesn't cost much."
But that misses the point. The same basic software
that used to be 30 MB is now often 300 MB. It's crazy.
It's sloppy. And it's inefficient. (A big part of Vista/7

Yup. The same attitude prevails re processor power. But I still feel
efficient code (like IrfanView, for example) is slicker, even with
modern multicore processors: I think it's in the _mindset_ of the
programmer. (The code doesn't _do_ unnecessary things.)

bloat is that MS forces one to accept a copy of the
whole install DVD on disk, along with a copy of every
single library that happens by during the course of
using the computer. Win7 can grow to 40-60 GB for
one reason only: So that plug and play appears to
be improved. Just in case you end up somehow installing
an Intel graphics chip on your AMD system, you have
the drivers ready to go.

That WinSXS folder they tell us its wisest not to mess with is a big
part of that, isn't it? It accounts for 7.16G of the 31.5G on my C:, and
that's after only a year or two of real use (and not being very
enthusiastic about installing "up"dates).

You might have an attic the size of a football field,
but that's not a reason to fill it with junk. With a little
planning, Windows and data can still be realistically
stored on DVDs and/or inexpensive-sized USB sticks.
I have images for all of our computers, ready to restore,
and backed up to numerous locations. All on CDs or DVDs.

But people are different. There's one category of people
that I can think of offhand who can never have efficient
backup. That's the people who hoard and never weed.
The people who have 100 GB of music and videos,
along with 2 TB of photos. They'll never look

(And probably operate their digital camera at its maximum resolution all
the time. I have mine - which is only 3M anyway! [but has a good lens]
set to 1M most of the time.)

at most of that again. Probably most of the photos are
worthless. But to those people it's their riches and they
want it all backed up. They have no choice but to buy
extra hard disks and copy disk-to-disk. Nothing else is
big enough to back up their football-field-sized attic.
They're the same people who, 30 years ago, would
have had a floor-to-celing bookshelf to store their photo
albums. And when you go to dinner you're careful not
to walk near that room, lest they invite you in: "Did
you ever see the pictures from our 1970 trip to the
Yukon? Oh, you gotta see them. The snow is amazing!
Come on in. Here, sit on the sofa while I find the 4
Yukon trip albums..... Let's see.... I should probably
organize these albums alphabetically, but it's all moving
to a bigger library once we finish building the addition.
Maybe I'll organize it all then.... Oh, here we go! I found
Yukon Trip #2, anyway..."

I guess the computer equivalent is not having - or only having very few
- subdirectories, so you have hundreds (or thousands) of files at each
level. If I have more than a few tens of items in a folder (and that
includes the subfolders too in the count!), I feel it's time to
subdivide (and sometimes weed). But Microsoft themselves are one of the
worst offenders in this respect.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Anything you add for security will slow the computer but it shouldn't be
significant or prolonged. Security software is to protect the computer, not
the primary use of the computer.
- VanguardLH in alt.windows7.general, 2018-1-28