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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows7?
Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7?
When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... |
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#2
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 1:24 AM:
Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7? When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... Win7 compatible Acronis True Image is capable of backing up both...the Win7 created System Reserved 100 MB partition and the Boot partition (the o/s) and including it in the same image *.tib *and* restoring it to the same hardware without the need for repair. Likewise it can image and restore the entire factory created partitions. On Windows 7 with traditional MBR formating the partition table has four 'slots' thus four partitions are allowed. The general rule is 4 primary or 3 primary and one Extended. If the hardware supports GPT then the EFI specification mandates that a GUID Partition Table (GPT), which all modern operating systems support, is capable of containing a minimum of 128 partitions of any size. -- ...winston msft mvp consumer apps |
#3
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
On 7/7/2014 11:33 PM, . . .winston wrote:
mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 1:24 AM: Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7? When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... Win7 compatible Acronis True Image is capable of backing up both...the Win7 created System Reserved 100 MB partition and the Boot partition (the o/s) and including it in the same image *.tib *and* restoring it to the same hardware without the need for repair. Likewise it can image and restore the entire factory created partitions. On Windows 7 with traditional MBR formating the partition table has four 'slots' thus four partitions are allowed. The general rule is 4 primary or 3 primary and one Extended. If the hardware supports GPT then the EFI specification mandates that a GUID Partition Table (GPT), which all modern operating systems support, is capable of containing a minimum of 128 partitions of any size. Thanks for the input. I should have mentioned that I'm using acronis11 and unwilling to fork over bucks for a newer version. And I don't think I have the option to switch to GUID partitions without messing up the system restore capability...maybe...that's what the question is about. I still need input on what happens to the system restore capability when I split C: into C: and D: Assuming I can manage the partition quantity. How does the system get from a hotkey at boot time to running factory system restore? I think I have several options to restore a partition. Problem is that I don't know how to get it linked back into the boot hotkey. |
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
mike wrote:
On 7/7/2014 11:33 PM, . . .winston wrote: mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 1:24 AM: Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7? When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... Win7 compatible Acronis True Image is capable of backing up both...the Win7 created System Reserved 100 MB partition and the Boot partition (the o/s) and including it in the same image *.tib *and* restoring it to the same hardware without the need for repair. Likewise it can image and restore the entire factory created partitions. On Windows 7 with traditional MBR formating the partition table has four 'slots' thus four partitions are allowed. The general rule is 4 primary or 3 primary and one Extended. If the hardware supports GPT then the EFI specification mandates that a GUID Partition Table (GPT), which all modern operating systems support, is capable of containing a minimum of 128 partitions of any size. Thanks for the input. I should have mentioned that I'm using acronis11 and unwilling to fork over bucks for a newer version. And I don't think I have the option to switch to GUID partitions without messing up the system restore capability...maybe...that's what the question is about. I still need input on what happens to the system restore capability when I split C: into C: and D: Assuming I can manage the partition quantity. How does the system get from a hotkey at boot time to running factory system restore? I think I have several options to restore a partition. Problem is that I don't know how to get it linked back into the boot hotkey. You can remove SYSTEM RESERVED partition with a recipe here. I did this and it worked, but my requirements might be different than yours. I went from all four primaries in usage, to only three of them, so I could add another OS. And I did a full backup before doing this, just in case. You can do a backup with "dd", if you have any concerns about how well your regular backup software is working. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 The Windows System Image is inflexible, and should not be relied on to deal with partition table changes. If you "system image", it's with the understanding that the partition table won't change. If you change the partition table, then throw away the old system images (figuratively speaking). The System Image concept still has good copies of files. The partitions are stored in .vhd files. The .vhd files can be accessed with various tools (for example, the latest 7ZIP can navigate inside one). But that doesn't imply easy migration from there, back to some partition table that has changed. It would require a lot of work. For a backup tool, you could try Macrium Reflect Free. Which I like, because it's free. (Lower left corner) http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx ******* And just for the hell of it, I've backed up the laptop before, using "dd" from a Linux Mint USB key and the FTP protocol. I set up an FTP server on my main machine. And did this sort of thing from the laptop running Mint. The block size used here, is a "factor" of the total disk size, which I checked in advance. ftp binary ftp put "|dd if=/dev/sda bs=73728" sda The pipe symbol in FTP allows sending the output of a command (a stream of bytes) to a file. In this case, a file "sda" was created on the FTP server, and it was around 40GB. The only problem with the method, is getting FTP in IIS to work on my main machine, is a large PITA. And not recommended. Use an FTP server that humans can set up, not crap like that. Paul |
#5
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
Paul wrote, On 7/8/2014 12:24 PM:
mike wrote: On 7/7/2014 11:33 PM, . . .winston wrote: mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 1:24 AM: Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7? When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... Win7 compatible Acronis True Image is capable of backing up both...the Win7 created System Reserved 100 MB partition and the Boot partition (the o/s) and including it in the same image *.tib *and* restoring it to the same hardware without the need for repair. Likewise it can image and restore the entire factory created partitions. On Windows 7 with traditional MBR formating the partition table has four 'slots' thus four partitions are allowed. The general rule is 4 primary or 3 primary and one Extended. If the hardware supports GPT then the EFI specification mandates that a GUID Partition Table (GPT), which all modern operating systems support, is capable of containing a minimum of 128 partitions of any size. Thanks for the input. I should have mentioned that I'm using acronis11 and unwilling to fork over bucks for a newer version. And I don't think I have the option to switch to GUID partitions without messing up the system restore capability...maybe...that's what the question is about. I still need input on what happens to the system restore capability when I split C: into C: and D: Assuming I can manage the partition quantity. How does the system get from a hotkey at boot time to running factory system restore? I think I have several options to restore a partition. Problem is that I don't know how to get it linked back into the boot hotkey. You can remove SYSTEM RESERVED partition with a recipe here. I did this and it worked, but my requirements might be different than yours. I went from all four primaries in usage, to only three of them, so I could add another OS. And I did a full backup before doing this, just in case. You can do a backup with "dd", if you have any concerns about how well your regular backup software is working. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 The Windows System Image is inflexible, and should not be relied on to deal with partition table changes. If you "system image", it's with the understanding that the partition table won't change. If you change the partition table, then throw away the old system images (figuratively speaking). The System Image concept still has good copies of files. The partitions are stored in .vhd files. The .vhd files can be accessed with various tools (for example, the latest 7ZIP can navigate inside one). But that doesn't imply easy migration from there, back to some partition table that has changed. It would require a lot of work. For a backup tool, you could try Macrium Reflect Free. Which I like, because it's free. (Lower left corner) http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx ******* And just for the hell of it, I've backed up the laptop before, using "dd" from a Linux Mint USB key and the FTP protocol. I set up an FTP server on my main machine. And did this sort of thing from the laptop running Mint. The block size used here, is a "factor" of the total disk size, which I checked in advance. ftp binary ftp put "|dd if=/dev/sda bs=73728" sda The pipe symbol in FTP allows sending the output of a command (a stream of bytes) to a file. In this case, a file "sda" was created on the FTP server, and it was around 40GB. The only problem with the method, is getting FTP in IIS to work on my main machine, is a large PITA. And not recommended. Use an FTP server that humans can set up, not crap like that. Paul Paul, if I may ask...how does that help the op's desire to use the system restore capability (apparently in reference to the HP created Recovery Partition) ? -- ...winston msft mvp consumer apps |
#6
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 6:23 AM:
On 7/7/2014 11:33 PM, . . .winston wrote: mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 1:24 AM: Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7? When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... Win7 compatible Acronis True Image is capable of backing up both...the Win7 created System Reserved 100 MB partition and the Boot partition (the o/s) and including it in the same image *.tib *and* restoring it to the same hardware without the need for repair. Likewise it can image and restore the entire factory created partitions. On Windows 7 with traditional MBR formating the partition table has four 'slots' thus four partitions are allowed. The general rule is 4 primary or 3 primary and one Extended. If the hardware supports GPT then the EFI specification mandates that a GUID Partition Table (GPT), which all modern operating systems support, is capable of containing a minimum of 128 partitions of any size. Thanks for the input. I should have mentioned that I'm using acronis11 and unwilling to fork over bucks for a newer version. I recall using ATI11 on Vista which had a System Reserved (100 MB) and successfully backing up and restoring though I don't recall if ATI11 like later versions (2010, 2011, and later) specifically had a check box to include System Reserved. I still need input on what happens to the system restore capability when I split C: into C: and D: Assuming I can manage the partition quantity. How does the system get from a hotkey at boot time to running factory system restore? I think I have several options to restore a partition. Problem is that I don't know how to get it linked back into the boot hotkey. I'm not sure anyone has an answer to your question. Using the hp factory restore option may very well return the pc to its original factory created partition sizing. Good luck. -- ...winston msft mvp consumer apps |
#7
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
.. . .winston wrote:
Paul wrote, On 7/8/2014 12:24 PM: mike wrote: On 7/7/2014 11:33 PM, . . .winston wrote: mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 1:24 AM: Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7? When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... Win7 compatible Acronis True Image is capable of backing up both...the Win7 created System Reserved 100 MB partition and the Boot partition (the o/s) and including it in the same image *.tib *and* restoring it to the same hardware without the need for repair. Likewise it can image and restore the entire factory created partitions. On Windows 7 with traditional MBR formating the partition table has four 'slots' thus four partitions are allowed. The general rule is 4 primary or 3 primary and one Extended. If the hardware supports GPT then the EFI specification mandates that a GUID Partition Table (GPT), which all modern operating systems support, is capable of containing a minimum of 128 partitions of any size. Thanks for the input. I should have mentioned that I'm using acronis11 and unwilling to fork over bucks for a newer version. And I don't think I have the option to switch to GUID partitions without messing up the system restore capability...maybe...that's what the question is about. I still need input on what happens to the system restore capability when I split C: into C: and D: Assuming I can manage the partition quantity. How does the system get from a hotkey at boot time to running factory system restore? I think I have several options to restore a partition. Problem is that I don't know how to get it linked back into the boot hotkey. You can remove SYSTEM RESERVED partition with a recipe here. I did this and it worked, but my requirements might be different than yours. I went from all four primaries in usage, to only three of them, so I could add another OS. And I did a full backup before doing this, just in case. You can do a backup with "dd", if you have any concerns about how well your regular backup software is working. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 The Windows System Image is inflexible, and should not be relied on to deal with partition table changes. If you "system image", it's with the understanding that the partition table won't change. If you change the partition table, then throw away the old system images (figuratively speaking). The System Image concept still has good copies of files. The partitions are stored in .vhd files. The .vhd files can be accessed with various tools (for example, the latest 7ZIP can navigate inside one). But that doesn't imply easy migration from there, back to some partition table that has changed. It would require a lot of work. For a backup tool, you could try Macrium Reflect Free. Which I like, because it's free. (Lower left corner) http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx ******* And just for the hell of it, I've backed up the laptop before, using "dd" from a Linux Mint USB key and the FTP protocol. I set up an FTP server on my main machine. And did this sort of thing from the laptop running Mint. The block size used here, is a "factor" of the total disk size, which I checked in advance. ftp binary ftp put "|dd if=/dev/sda bs=73728" sda The pipe symbol in FTP allows sending the output of a command (a stream of bytes) to a file. In this case, a file "sda" was created on the FTP server, and it was around 40GB. The only problem with the method, is getting FTP in IIS to work on my main machine, is a large PITA. And not recommended. Use an FTP server that humans can set up, not crap like that. Paul Paul, if I may ask...how does that help the op's desire to use the system restore capability (apparently in reference to the HP created Recovery Partition) ? You mean restoring to Factory conditions ? It will still restore to Factory conditions, destroying everything in its path. Is that good enough ? My machine (the Acer laptop with the replaced OS), is still prepared for factory restore. Which would ruin all the work I put into setup of the laptop. The option is still there, if passing the laptop on to another person. The current OS on the Acer laptop, is a Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD (X17-24209.iso) downloaded from DigitalRiver. And installed using the COA on the laptop. And that takes the place of the Acer-provided Win7 OS image. If I need to reinstall, I have two options. Push the "nuclear button" and do a Factory restore from the 15GB partition which is still present. Or reach for the Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD and reinstall and activate that. Pick your poison. At the current time, the DVD does less damage. Paul |
#8
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
On 7/8/2014 11:47 AM, Paul wrote:
. . .winston wrote: Paul wrote, On 7/8/2014 12:24 PM: mike wrote: On 7/7/2014 11:33 PM, . . .winston wrote: mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 1:24 AM: Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7? When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... Win7 compatible Acronis True Image is capable of backing up both...the Win7 created System Reserved 100 MB partition and the Boot partition (the o/s) and including it in the same image *.tib *and* restoring it to the same hardware without the need for repair. Likewise it can image and restore the entire factory created partitions. On Windows 7 with traditional MBR formating the partition table has four 'slots' thus four partitions are allowed. The general rule is 4 primary or 3 primary and one Extended. If the hardware supports GPT then the EFI specification mandates that a GUID Partition Table (GPT), which all modern operating systems support, is capable of containing a minimum of 128 partitions of any size. Thanks for the input. I should have mentioned that I'm using acronis11 and unwilling to fork over bucks for a newer version. And I don't think I have the option to switch to GUID partitions without messing up the system restore capability...maybe...that's what the question is about. I still need input on what happens to the system restore capability when I split C: into C: and D: Assuming I can manage the partition quantity. How does the system get from a hotkey at boot time to running factory system restore? I think I have several options to restore a partition. Problem is that I don't know how to get it linked back into the boot hotkey. You can remove SYSTEM RESERVED partition with a recipe here. I did this and it worked, but my requirements might be different than yours. I went from all four primaries in usage, to only three of them, so I could add another OS. And I did a full backup before doing this, just in case. You can do a backup with "dd", if you have any concerns about how well your regular backup software is working. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 The Windows System Image is inflexible, and should not be relied on to deal with partition table changes. If you "system image", it's with the understanding that the partition table won't change. If you change the partition table, then throw away the old system images (figuratively speaking). The System Image concept still has good copies of files. The partitions are stored in .vhd files. The .vhd files can be accessed with various tools (for example, the latest 7ZIP can navigate inside one). But that doesn't imply easy migration from there, back to some partition table that has changed. It would require a lot of work. For a backup tool, you could try Macrium Reflect Free. Which I like, because it's free. (Lower left corner) http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx ******* And just for the hell of it, I've backed up the laptop before, using "dd" from a Linux Mint USB key and the FTP protocol. I set up an FTP server on my main machine. And did this sort of thing from the laptop running Mint. The block size used here, is a "factor" of the total disk size, which I checked in advance. ftp binary ftp put "|dd if=/dev/sda bs=73728" sda The pipe symbol in FTP allows sending the output of a command (a stream of bytes) to a file. In this case, a file "sda" was created on the FTP server, and it was around 40GB. The only problem with the method, is getting FTP in IIS to work on my main machine, is a large PITA. And not recommended. Use an FTP server that humans can set up, not crap like that. Paul Paul, if I may ask...how does that help the op's desire to use the system restore capability (apparently in reference to the HP created Recovery Partition) ? You mean restoring to Factory conditions ? It will still restore to Factory conditions, destroying everything in its path. Is that good enough ? My machine (the Acer laptop with the replaced OS), is still prepared for factory restore. Which would ruin all the work I put into setup of the laptop. The option is still there, if passing the laptop on to another person. The current OS on the Acer laptop, is a Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD (X17-24209.iso) downloaded from DigitalRiver. And installed using the COA on the laptop. And that takes the place of the Acer-provided Win7 OS image. If I need to reinstall, I have two options. Push the "nuclear button" and do a Factory restore from the 15GB partition which is still present. Or reach for the Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD and reinstall and activate that. Pick your poison. At the current time, the DVD does less damage. Paul Thanks for the links. I have a much greater understanding...well...let's say I have a greater appreciation for the complexity of the problem. I tried to focus the discussion with a specific example. But my issues are far wider. I buy all my computers at garage sales. This particular one had a busted display and I was able to do a factory restore, and create the restore DVD set. Usually, I'm not so lucky and the disk has been dropped or wiped or... Gettin' win7 installed the way I want is absolutely trivial... except that drivers on the system may not be available for download on the vendor site. The windows part is not technical, it's legal. I haven't read all the docs, but my working summary sez, "if you sneeze within 50 yards of a windows system you violate terms of service or license agreements or DMCA or something equally actionable." I try hard to keep everything exactly the way it came out of the box and 100% compliant with everybody's fine print. The major stickler is that virtually every system comes with one user partition. That's a real pain for backups. When someone asks me to help them fix a crashed computer, I smile and tell 'em to just restore a backup. Of course, they don't have one. Why? Because they didn't have any place to store it...because there's only one partition on the system and they'd need a huge offline drive to store a backup image. I do tech support for my neighbor. Right now, we have no clean way to backup/restore his shiny new Win7 system. If I do nothing, I'm not at fault. If I try to help and break something, I'm the bad guy. No good deed goes unpunished... I know how to fix it. I just don't know how to do it in compliance with all the fine print and maintain the factory restore option. I hadn't considered the issue that the built-in factory restore or system image backup might try to duplicate the partition sizes. That's really bad news. Unless it's a warranty replacement drive, I can't imagine anybody buying exactly the same drive as a replacement for a failed drive or upgrade. It's still an option for restoring the system to factory status if I'm gonna sell it. But I still haven't resolved the issue of moving partition pointers. Even if I did have enough partition slots, I'm still not sure how adding one in the middle doesn't trash the pointers to the one on the end and make factory restore fail. Looks like the simple fix of splitting C: into C: and D: is not an option without doing something more invasive, like deleting the system partition. Backups are one of those chicken-egg issues. Kinda like, "keyboard not found, press any key to continue." OR, "Would you like to search online for a network driver?" If you're gonna experiment with backup methods, you really need to start with a working backup method. ;-( I've been building systems from scratch and testing...but there's always that nagging feeling that what worked on my test machine might not work on my neighbor's shiny new OEM-configured machine. |
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
mike wrote:
On 7/8/2014 11:47 AM, Paul wrote: . . .winston wrote: Paul wrote, On 7/8/2014 12:24 PM: mike wrote: On 7/7/2014 11:33 PM, . . .winston wrote: mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 1:24 AM: Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7? When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... Win7 compatible Acronis True Image is capable of backing up both...the Win7 created System Reserved 100 MB partition and the Boot partition (the o/s) and including it in the same image *.tib *and* restoring it to the same hardware without the need for repair. Likewise it can image and restore the entire factory created partitions. On Windows 7 with traditional MBR formating the partition table has four 'slots' thus four partitions are allowed. The general rule is 4 primary or 3 primary and one Extended. If the hardware supports GPT then the EFI specification mandates that a GUID Partition Table (GPT), which all modern operating systems support, is capable of containing a minimum of 128 partitions of any size. Thanks for the input. I should have mentioned that I'm using acronis11 and unwilling to fork over bucks for a newer version. And I don't think I have the option to switch to GUID partitions without messing up the system restore capability...maybe...that's what the question is about. I still need input on what happens to the system restore capability when I split C: into C: and D: Assuming I can manage the partition quantity. How does the system get from a hotkey at boot time to running factory system restore? I think I have several options to restore a partition. Problem is that I don't know how to get it linked back into the boot hotkey. You can remove SYSTEM RESERVED partition with a recipe here. I did this and it worked, but my requirements might be different than yours. I went from all four primaries in usage, to only three of them, so I could add another OS. And I did a full backup before doing this, just in case. You can do a backup with "dd", if you have any concerns about how well your regular backup software is working. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 The Windows System Image is inflexible, and should not be relied on to deal with partition table changes. If you "system image", it's with the understanding that the partition table won't change. If you change the partition table, then throw away the old system images (figuratively speaking). The System Image concept still has good copies of files. The partitions are stored in .vhd files. The .vhd files can be accessed with various tools (for example, the latest 7ZIP can navigate inside one). But that doesn't imply easy migration from there, back to some partition table that has changed. It would require a lot of work. For a backup tool, you could try Macrium Reflect Free. Which I like, because it's free. (Lower left corner) http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx ******* And just for the hell of it, I've backed up the laptop before, using "dd" from a Linux Mint USB key and the FTP protocol. I set up an FTP server on my main machine. And did this sort of thing from the laptop running Mint. The block size used here, is a "factor" of the total disk size, which I checked in advance. ftp binary ftp put "|dd if=/dev/sda bs=73728" sda The pipe symbol in FTP allows sending the output of a command (a stream of bytes) to a file. In this case, a file "sda" was created on the FTP server, and it was around 40GB. The only problem with the method, is getting FTP in IIS to work on my main machine, is a large PITA. And not recommended. Use an FTP server that humans can set up, not crap like that. Paul Paul, if I may ask...how does that help the op's desire to use the system restore capability (apparently in reference to the HP created Recovery Partition) ? You mean restoring to Factory conditions ? It will still restore to Factory conditions, destroying everything in its path. Is that good enough ? My machine (the Acer laptop with the replaced OS), is still prepared for factory restore. Which would ruin all the work I put into setup of the laptop. The option is still there, if passing the laptop on to another person. The current OS on the Acer laptop, is a Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD (X17-24209.iso) downloaded from DigitalRiver. And installed using the COA on the laptop. And that takes the place of the Acer-provided Win7 OS image. If I need to reinstall, I have two options. Push the "nuclear button" and do a Factory restore from the 15GB partition which is still present. Or reach for the Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD and reinstall and activate that. Pick your poison. At the current time, the DVD does less damage. Paul Thanks for the links. I have a much greater understanding...well...let's say I have a greater appreciation for the complexity of the problem. I tried to focus the discussion with a specific example. But my issues are far wider. I buy all my computers at garage sales. This particular one had a busted display and I was able to do a factory restore, and create the restore DVD set. Usually, I'm not so lucky and the disk has been dropped or wiped or... Gettin' win7 installed the way I want is absolutely trivial... except that drivers on the system may not be available for download on the vendor site. The windows part is not technical, it's legal. I haven't read all the docs, but my working summary sez, "if you sneeze within 50 yards of a windows system you violate terms of service or license agreements or DMCA or something equally actionable." I try hard to keep everything exactly the way it came out of the box and 100% compliant with everybody's fine print. The major stickler is that virtually every system comes with one user partition. That's a real pain for backups. When someone asks me to help them fix a crashed computer, I smile and tell 'em to just restore a backup. Of course, they don't have one. Why? Because they didn't have any place to store it...because there's only one partition on the system and they'd need a huge offline drive to store a backup image. I do tech support for my neighbor. Right now, we have no clean way to backup/restore his shiny new Win7 system. If I do nothing, I'm not at fault. If I try to help and break something, I'm the bad guy. No good deed goes unpunished... I know how to fix it. I just don't know how to do it in compliance with all the fine print and maintain the factory restore option. I hadn't considered the issue that the built-in factory restore or system image backup might try to duplicate the partition sizes. That's really bad news. Unless it's a warranty replacement drive, I can't imagine anybody buying exactly the same drive as a replacement for a failed drive or upgrade. It's still an option for restoring the system to factory status if I'm gonna sell it. But I still haven't resolved the issue of moving partition pointers. Even if I did have enough partition slots, I'm still not sure how adding one in the middle doesn't trash the pointers to the one on the end and make factory restore fail. Looks like the simple fix of splitting C: into C: and D: is not an option without doing something more invasive, like deleting the system partition. Backups are one of those chicken-egg issues. Kinda like, "keyboard not found, press any key to continue." OR, "Would you like to search online for a network driver?" If you're gonna experiment with backup methods, you really need to start with a working backup method. ;-( I've been building systems from scratch and testing...but there's always that nagging feeling that what worked on my test machine might not work on my neighbor's shiny new OEM-configured machine. I just erased the stuff I composed, after having an evil thought. There is nothing really special about SYSTEM RESERVED. 1) It doesn't have a drive letter. It doesn't have a drive letter, so System Restore and Restore Points won't be stored on the volume. That's why it remains incognito. If you add a drive letter, then it should be resized so it doesn't "overflow" due to restore points. My assumption is, the user doesn't know how to turn Restore Points on and off, and eventually they're turned on. So why not plan for them, to avoid a later headache. 2) SYSTEM SESERVED has the boot files on it, but those won't interfere with user files. They're in places like /boot. You could give SYSTEM RESERVED a drive letter and resize it. It's NTFS as far as I know. Don't know if the permissions at the root level would be a problem or not. Now, on the down size, when Service Packs come along, they don't tend to be compatible with moved user directories. If you move the pointer that points to the user directory, and put it on "D:", there is evidence the Service Pack installer doesn't take that into account. If you wanted to create a "Downloads" folder over there, and the user moves things over manually, I don't see a problem with that. I'm just not clear on the issues with doing an actual user move off C:. And anyone I help in the family with computers, gets the standard lecture on owning at least one backup drive. And now that Macrium Reflect Free is available, that's one item off the shopping list. Now all you need, is a good sized drive. Preferably USB so it can be disconnected when not in use. Having it disconnected is for Sality and Cryptolocker, and having a means to recover when you come back to restore things :-) Paul |
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
Paul wrote, On 7/8/2014 2:47 PM:
. . .winston wrote: Paul, if I may ask...how does that help the op's desire to use the system restore capability (apparently in reference to the HP created Recovery Partition) ? You mean restoring to Factory conditions ? It will still restore to Factory conditions, destroying everything in its path. Is that good enough ? My machine (the Acer laptop with the replaced OS), is still prepared for factory restore. Which would ruin all the work I put into setup of the laptop. The option is still there, if passing the laptop on to another person. The current OS on the Acer laptop, is a Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD (X17-24209.iso) downloaded from DigitalRiver. And installed using the COA on the laptop. And that takes the place of the Acer-provided Win7 OS image. If I need to reinstall, I have two options. Push the "nuclear button" and do a Factory restore from the 15GB partition which is still present. Or reach for the Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD and reinstall and activate that. Pick your poison. At the current time, the DVD does less damage. Paul It would appear that the op now understands the impact that factory restore can have (restore everything to what it was) when changing partition sizes regardless of what one does later with System Reserved, C: etc. It also doesn't sound like the op (I'm willing to be corrected if indicated otherwise) is planning on providing a Win7 DVD of whatever flavor the Recovery partiton has to whomever receives the repaired unit ("if I'm going to sell it"). I.e. what I or you might do on our own (remove System Reserved, resize, etc.) might not be of any value if the repaired and sold unit is ever factory restored in the future. -- ...winston msft mvp consumer apps |
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Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backupWindows 7?
On 7/8/2014 4:40 PM, Paul wrote:
mike wrote: On 7/8/2014 11:47 AM, Paul wrote: . . .winston wrote: Paul wrote, On 7/8/2014 12:24 PM: mike wrote: On 7/7/2014 11:33 PM, . . .winston wrote: mike wrote, On 7/8/2014 1:24 AM: Dealing with hidden partitions, recovery, ms stuff etc backup Windows 7? When I build a windows 7 system, I use gparted to create C and D partitions. C is small and easy to backup with Acronis...life is good. If I let win7 partition the drive, it adds a 100MB one that messes up the ordering and confuses the Acronis backup system so the restore won't boot without jumping thru some repair hoops...so I don't do that. I bought a used HP laptop. Had one visible C: partition, but it was so locked down that I gave up and did the factory restore. Now, it has four partitions. 199MB System NTFS hidden 238GB C: NTFS 14GB Recovery with D: label NTFS 103MB HPTools.. at the end. FAT32 hidden What I'd like to do is hide the recovery partition, split C: into 20GB C: 118GB D: AND NOT LOSE THE LINKAGE TO THE RECOVERY PARTITION so I can use the boot hotkey to restore the new C: using the system recovery partition. AND FIX UP THE PARTITION POINTERS SO ACRONIS CAN BACKUP/RESTORE THE PARTITIONS AND THE SYSTEM WILL BOOT. Google finds me lots of info on shrinking/adding partitions. I'm finding nothing about how to keep the linkages to the system factory restore process. Then, there's the problem that I already have 4 primary partitions. Is that still the maximum? Have to do something about that. BUT I have other situations where this is not a problem, so still need a solution that splits partitions without screwing up the drive ordering and confusing the backup/restore/recovery programs. Need some freeware or tutorials or something... Win7 compatible Acronis True Image is capable of backing up both...the Win7 created System Reserved 100 MB partition and the Boot partition (the o/s) and including it in the same image *.tib *and* restoring it to the same hardware without the need for repair. Likewise it can image and restore the entire factory created partitions. On Windows 7 with traditional MBR formating the partition table has four 'slots' thus four partitions are allowed. The general rule is 4 primary or 3 primary and one Extended. If the hardware supports GPT then the EFI specification mandates that a GUID Partition Table (GPT), which all modern operating systems support, is capable of containing a minimum of 128 partitions of any size. Thanks for the input. I should have mentioned that I'm using acronis11 and unwilling to fork over bucks for a newer version. And I don't think I have the option to switch to GUID partitions without messing up the system restore capability...maybe...that's what the question is about. I still need input on what happens to the system restore capability when I split C: into C: and D: Assuming I can manage the partition quantity. How does the system get from a hotkey at boot time to running factory system restore? I think I have several options to restore a partition. Problem is that I don't know how to get it linked back into the boot hotkey. You can remove SYSTEM RESERVED partition with a recipe here. I did this and it worked, but my requirements might be different than yours. I went from all four primaries in usage, to only three of them, so I could add another OS. And I did a full backup before doing this, just in case. You can do a backup with "dd", if you have any concerns about how well your regular backup software is working. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409 The Windows System Image is inflexible, and should not be relied on to deal with partition table changes. If you "system image", it's with the understanding that the partition table won't change. If you change the partition table, then throw away the old system images (figuratively speaking). The System Image concept still has good copies of files. The partitions are stored in .vhd files. The .vhd files can be accessed with various tools (for example, the latest 7ZIP can navigate inside one). But that doesn't imply easy migration from there, back to some partition table that has changed. It would require a lot of work. For a backup tool, you could try Macrium Reflect Free. Which I like, because it's free. (Lower left corner) http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx ******* And just for the hell of it, I've backed up the laptop before, using "dd" from a Linux Mint USB key and the FTP protocol. I set up an FTP server on my main machine. And did this sort of thing from the laptop running Mint. The block size used here, is a "factor" of the total disk size, which I checked in advance. ftp binary ftp put "|dd if=/dev/sda bs=73728" sda The pipe symbol in FTP allows sending the output of a command (a stream of bytes) to a file. In this case, a file "sda" was created on the FTP server, and it was around 40GB. The only problem with the method, is getting FTP in IIS to work on my main machine, is a large PITA. And not recommended. Use an FTP server that humans can set up, not crap like that. Paul Paul, if I may ask...how does that help the op's desire to use the system restore capability (apparently in reference to the HP created Recovery Partition) ? You mean restoring to Factory conditions ? It will still restore to Factory conditions, destroying everything in its path. Is that good enough ? My machine (the Acer laptop with the replaced OS), is still prepared for factory restore. Which would ruin all the work I put into setup of the laptop. The option is still there, if passing the laptop on to another person. The current OS on the Acer laptop, is a Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD (X17-24209.iso) downloaded from DigitalRiver. And installed using the COA on the laptop. And that takes the place of the Acer-provided Win7 OS image. If I need to reinstall, I have two options. Push the "nuclear button" and do a Factory restore from the 15GB partition which is still present. Or reach for the Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium DVD and reinstall and activate that. Pick your poison. At the current time, the DVD does less damage. Paul Thanks for the links. I have a much greater understanding...well...let's say I have a greater appreciation for the complexity of the problem. I tried to focus the discussion with a specific example. But my issues are far wider. I buy all my computers at garage sales. This particular one had a busted display and I was able to do a factory restore, and create the restore DVD set. Usually, I'm not so lucky and the disk has been dropped or wiped or... Gettin' win7 installed the way I want is absolutely trivial... except that drivers on the system may not be available for download on the vendor site. The windows part is not technical, it's legal. I haven't read all the docs, but my working summary sez, "if you sneeze within 50 yards of a windows system you violate terms of service or license agreements or DMCA or something equally actionable." I try hard to keep everything exactly the way it came out of the box and 100% compliant with everybody's fine print. The major stickler is that virtually every system comes with one user partition. That's a real pain for backups. When someone asks me to help them fix a crashed computer, I smile and tell 'em to just restore a backup. Of course, they don't have one. Why? Because they didn't have any place to store it...because there's only one partition on the system and they'd need a huge offline drive to store a backup image. I do tech support for my neighbor. Right now, we have no clean way to backup/restore his shiny new Win7 system. If I do nothing, I'm not at fault. If I try to help and break something, I'm the bad guy. No good deed goes unpunished... I know how to fix it. I just don't know how to do it in compliance with all the fine print and maintain the factory restore option. I hadn't considered the issue that the built-in factory restore or system image backup might try to duplicate the partition sizes. That's really bad news. Unless it's a warranty replacement drive, I can't imagine anybody buying exactly the same drive as a replacement for a failed drive or upgrade. It's still an option for restoring the system to factory status if I'm gonna sell it. But I still haven't resolved the issue of moving partition pointers. Even if I did have enough partition slots, I'm still not sure how adding one in the middle doesn't trash the pointers to the one on the end and make factory restore fail. Looks like the simple fix of splitting C: into C: and D: is not an option without doing something more invasive, like deleting the system partition. Backups are one of those chicken-egg issues. Kinda like, "keyboard not found, press any key to continue." OR, "Would you like to search online for a network driver?" If you're gonna experiment with backup methods, you really need to start with a working backup method. ;-( I've been building systems from scratch and testing...but there's always that nagging feeling that what worked on my test machine might not work on my neighbor's shiny new OEM-configured machine. I just erased the stuff I composed, after having an evil thought. There is nothing really special about SYSTEM RESERVED. 1) It doesn't have a drive letter. It doesn't have a drive letter, so System Restore and Restore Points won't be stored on the volume. That's why it remains incognito. If you add a drive letter, then it should be resized so it doesn't "overflow" due to restore points. My assumption is, the user doesn't know how to turn Restore Points on and off, and eventually they're turned on. So why not plan for them, to avoid a later headache. 2) SYSTEM SESERVED has the boot files on it, but those won't interfere with user files. They're in places like /boot. You could give SYSTEM RESERVED a drive letter and resize it. It's NTFS as far as I know. Don't know if the permissions at the root level would be a problem or not. Now, on the down size, when Service Packs come along, they don't tend to be compatible with moved user directories. If you move the pointer that points to the user directory, and put it on "D:", there is evidence the Service Pack installer doesn't take that into account. If you wanted to create a "Downloads" folder over there, and the user moves things over manually, I don't see a problem with that. I'm just not clear on the issues with doing an actual user move off C:. And anyone I help in the family with computers, gets the standard lecture on owning at least one backup drive. And now that Macrium Reflect Free is available, that's one item off the shopping list. Now all you need, is a good sized drive. Preferably USB so it can be disconnected when not in use. Having it disconnected is for Sality and Cryptolocker, and having a means to recover when you come back to restore things :-) Paul My philosophy is different. The root cause is microsoft antipiracy stuff. Makes it nigh impossible to backup stuff without doing a full image backup. My C: is 25GB. Has windows and office and a lot of small stuff. Anything that requires activation or calls home is on C:. Restore points are enabled on C:. I can do an image backup or restore in 15 minutes. I turn off hibernation and pagefile on c:. I sometimes put the pagefile back on d: Windows is refusing to let me run a third concurrent instance of virtualbox. Pagefile isn't needed often. Most of my systems never do that. D: contains the big stuff and all the stuff that can be restored by copying or easily reinstalled without a lot of configuration/customization. Databases. MSDN. Streets. virtualboxes 200GB of TV I ain't got around to watching yet. Many gigabytes of music and video. All that stuff is archived, possibly compressed on external storage of various kinds. It rarely changes or needs re-backingup. C: gets imaged to compressed files on D: which get copied to external archives. The external USB drives stay off until I need to copy something to/from them. As long as the backup system can restore the backup to the correct partition and configure the boot process, life is good. Acronis 11 can't unless I don't let the OS create the hidden system partition. Then, it works fine. Contrast that to the typical installation where you have a terabyte of stuff on C: with 975GB of stuff rarely changing or transient and not in need of backup. Takes forever to back it up. And where do you put that first backup...let alone the third one? And that's why people don't backup their systems. One big partition is a bad idea. |
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