Converting From 1 TB to 2 TB via Macrium Reflect Re-Image: Partitions?

VanguardLH wrote:

Ed Cryer wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:

When you set up a brand new OEM PC, it takes you through account
creation before you can do anything (even install Macrium).
Your solution would restore that account.

Not a clue what you are talking about. WHAT account is forcibly
established when you "set up" a new OEM PC? The pre-built (OEM) PC is
already setup before you even get it. I've gotten stuck working on
several pre-builts and don't remember ever being forced to create some
"account" before the PC is usable nor after starting to use it.

The OEM uses a sysprep image (by family line and model within family)
and ply a sticker on the case whose product key won't match the volume
license for the sysprep image they put on that computer and why you
should use Magic Jellybean or similar to record the product key for the
actual sysprep image on the HDD.

We're in the Windows 7 newsgroup. Maybe you were thinking of Windows 10
that has you create a Microsoft account; however, that is optional - you
don't have to create an MS account to complete the install but that
assumes YOU are doing the install and it isn't a pre-built PC. Even if
a pre-built, the OEM obviously cannot predefine an MS account for you.
They're reusing the same image to prep all the same model they're
selling to every customer, so they cannot create an account.

Enlighten us what account you speak of.


You're right about Win10. I use Win7 but I haven't done an OEM setup on
ones for decades. Win10, OTOH, many.

I must enlighten you about "account". An account is necessary; that's
the "a" in UAC.
Are you overlooking the fact that that "a" can be a "local" one?

And now you bring up UAC as though it were referenced before.

Oh, a Windows account aka user account. Okay, so why not either boot
using the Macrium CD and do an image of the drive (all partitions)
before you load or login to Windows to create an account, or you can
delete user profiles; however, deleting a profile only removes it from
the registry. You still have to delete (better to permanently wipe) the
userprofile folder for each account you have logged into.

Despite your mention that lots must be changed in the BIOS to boot from
the CD drive, if there is one, or from a USB drive, most PCs that I've
worked on already have those as the default boot order. Else, most
users wouldn't have a clue why they cannot boot from those sources. For
a PC to be configured to list the HDD first and then the other sources
or no other sources means someone went into the BIOS to change away from
the defaults in an attempt to lockdown that PC. How would users even
install Windows from a CD if the BIOS didn't boot from the device before
trying the HDD? While the CD or USB drive may be bootable before the
HDD, I've seen some that timeout. The BIOS/UEFI presents a prompt
asking the user to hit some key if they want to boot from those other
sources. If the user doesn't hit the key in, say, 5 seconds then the
BIOS/UEFI skips those boot sources and move on to the next one in the
boot order list.

Oh, an even if you want to argue that users have no bootstrap from their
prior PC to be creating a bootable Macrium rescue CD to do a whole-drive
image before loading Windows to create a user account, ANY image of all
partitions made at ANY time will include the recovery partition. So, if
you have no Macrium boot CD to start with, and later when you want to
get rid of the PC onto someone else, restore using that Macrium image
which has the recovery partition and run the recovery to lay a default
Windows image onto the drive. Probably want to wipe the OS partition
(and all others except the recovery partition) to make sure no personal
data gets left behind in clusters used before but not allocated in the
fresh recovered image.