Images are more important than ever

fafhrd · 19 Mar 2011

To return to the original theme of the thread, the use of disk images to make sure that you have a working system, the very neat feature of native boot from VHD has not had much of an airing here.

With only a few percent drop in performance it is possible to use a Virtual Hard Disk copy of your system that boots directly from the Windows 7 bootloader. Now we are talking files, not partitions.

The disk2vhd utility from the Sysinternals Suite of tools can create the VHD from your Windows 7 system, and EasyBCD can load the .vhd file as a bootable image that is accessed as an entry in the boot menu. Of course, this file can readily be cloned, and run on real hardware, unlike a .vhd in Virtual PC, VirtualBox or VMWare hypervisors.

Is anybody here doing this?

Bare Foot Kid · 19 Mar 2011

fafhrd said:

Is anybody here doing this?

I have in the past but not at present.

Create a Windows 7 VHD at Boot to Start with from Boot

click to enlarge

Images are more important than ever-boot.jpg

kado897 · 20 Mar 2011

kado897 said:

I will make a decision in the next few days.

As promised decision made.

I have decided not to do it at this time as I don't think the risks outweigh the benefits.

Plan B.

I have been thinking for a while that a Desktop would be a good idea. The laptop can then revert to being a test machine for any "experimentation" I might want to do. I guess it will be a few months before I can get the necessary cash together for that but planning is starting now.

I will open a new thread when the time comes.

Bare Foot Kid · 20 Mar 2011

Hello Keith.

I hope our long-winded discourse didn't dissuade you from having a go.

You would be better served with a thread of your own in the Installation sub-forum.

My apologies and if you need further assistance you can PM me and I will do what I can.

whs · 20 Mar 2011

You figure on building the desktop yourself or buy one?

Btw: did you have a look at my post #48. This was a follow-up on what SIW had suggested. That method would be very risk free and simple to do.

kado897 · 20 Mar 2011

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello Keith.

I hope our long-winded discourse didn't dissuade you from having a go.

You would be better served with a thread of your own in the Installation sub-forum.

My apologies and if you need further assistance you can PM me and I will do what I can.

Not at all. I very much appreciate the advice given. It is better to understand the views and concerns of of everyone up front.

kado897 · 20 Mar 2011

whs said:

You figure on building the desktop yourself or buy one?

Btw: did you have a look at my post #48. This was a follow-up on what SIW had suggested. That method would be very risk free and simple to do.

I had sort of missed those in the general mix. I wasn't aware that the recovery partition couldn't be used for a repair install since SP1. It doesn't change my decision though. I now have my heart set on a desktop.

BTW does SP1 affect anything else like recovery disks etc?

whs · 20 Mar 2011

Yeah, desktops are a lot nicer than laptops. I only use the laptop when I have no other option. But some people prefer laptops - e.g. my wife. Just make sure you get a nice big screen (22" minimum). If you install an SSD or a Revo drive for the OS, then you really only need a midrange processor. This one is the best beat for the buck ( Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDE00ZFBGRBOX ). I am not a gamer, so I use midrange graphics which come a lot cheaper. But if you do modern games, you can spend a fortune on a graphics card. The rest is pretty stock - a nice big box with good ventilation, a reliable PSU (I like Antec) and a mobo that matches the CPU. I would not look for USB3, but an eSata port is nice.

mjf · 20 Mar 2011

kado897 said:

I had sort of missed those in the general mix. I wasn't aware that the recovery partition couldn't be used for a repair install since SP1. It doesn't change my decision though. I now have my heart set on a desktop.

BTW does SP1 affect anything else like recovery disks etc?

Kado897,
I don't believe SP1 has any affect on the recovery partition (how could it). I thought the issue was with system restores hence the title of the thread.

I had a vested interest in changing my Acer Boot/system partition to logical and it simply didn't work. My intention was to present a fact not promote "long-winded discourse".

I'll be buying a second desktop soon and I will look out for your new thread on the topic. I'm having a computer shop assemble it (cheaper for me) based on my specs which are yet to be determined.

kado897 · 20 Mar 2011

mjf said:

kado897 said:

I had sort of missed those in the general mix. I wasn't aware that the recovery partition couldn't be used for a repair install since SP1. It doesn't change my decision though. I now have my heart set on a desktop.

BTW does SP1 affect anything else like recovery disks etc?

Kado897,
I don't believe SP1 has any affect on the recovery partition (how could it). I thought the issue was with system restores hence the title of the thread.

I had a vested interest in changing my Acer Boot/system partition to logical and it simply didn't work. My intention was to present a fact not promote "long-winded discourse".

I'll be buying a second desktop soon and I will look out for your new thread on the topic. I'm having a computer shop assemble it (cheaper for me) based on my specs which are yet to be determined.

I don't know but SIW2 is pretty knowledgeable in this area. I havn't yet finalized my thoughts on the new desktop yet.