Save Backup - To HiGrade Hidden Partition

Hello guys , Today i thought it was time to upgrade the missus's laptop to a more user friendly and versatile Operating system. So as any normal person would do , i placed windows 7 onto her Higrade m760s. Now theres a few teething problems , but nothing major.

Now what i would like to do is. The Laptop Came with X86 Vista, And a 13gb Hidden Partition with all the recovery information on it.

Now seen as i have windows 7 ultimate on the laptop now it would make sense to have a nice Backup / recovery partition so if she does anything wrong its a simple fix to get back to how ive set it up. Problem being i would like to wipe the 13gb partition and have this install replace it.

So tbh what im asking is

: What software is useful for cloning a system backup / restore
: can you overwrite a factory restore with your own
: Can you have an option like 'Press f7 to recover your system' on the load menu like it used to have Pre Win7.

Thanks for looking - Ive kept EVERYTHING standard atm. Bar the neccessary programs / drivers so the image is as clean and true as possible.


** Small Edit ** I can see the 13gb Partition in the Disc Management ection but cant do anything with it obviously.

Correct me if I've misunderstood but here goes.

1) You cannot restore win7 from a vista recovery partition. Also, since you've wiped vista OS, you cannot use the existing recovery partition to restore even vista (unless you made factory restore disks earlier). It may be possible to copy the complete recovery partition to an external drive and then maybe use the wim, if required.

2) If you want to be able to restore the win7 install, create an image using the inbuilt win7 backup restore utility or Macrium free or Acronis (not free).

3) You can delete the factory recovery partition, either through the OEM's recovery manager or disk management or a 3rd party tool like partition wizard. The freed space can be used normally. Theres no straight forward way to create an OEM like recovery partition and load it using F7 or whatever.

Bill2 said:

Correct me if I've misunderstood but here goes.

1) You cannot restore win7 from a vista recovery partition. Also, since you've wiped vista OS, you cannot use the existing recovery partition to restore even vista (unless you made factory restore disks earlier). It may be possible to copy the complete recovery partition to an external drive and then maybe use the wim, if required.

2) If you want to be able to restore the win7 install, create an image using the inbuilt win7 backup restore utility or Macrium free or Acronis (not free).

3) You can delete the factory recovery partition, either through the OEM's recovery manager or disk management or a 3rd party tool like partition wizard. The freed space can be used normally. Theres no straight forward way to create an OEM like recovery partition and load it using F7 or whatever.

I dont want to restore from a vista partition , i want to erase the vista and replace with my win 7 image

So it looks like im going to be Deleting the recovery partition , and making a new one for my image

I dont mind if it isnt straight forward , just is it possible.

Thanks to you both for the outstandingly quick responses. Already in the process.

** Ok that worked a treat , thanks to you both :)

Deleted the old partition
Created a new one and formatted in NTFS
Backed Up System (c) to the new partition after giving it a path.

Now just one more question , Is it possible to remove this drive as in Drive letter so she or the kids DO NOT put things in there? But have it still be accessed by the Win7 Recovery Disc i made.

Orbital Shark said:

You can delete the hidden partition using

Partition or Volume - Delete

then create a new 1 to store the backup onto

Partition or Volume - Create New

You can then use the following if you need to recover the data

System Image Recovery

Precisely what i did , The lovely CMD Prompt window and DISKPART i forgot all about.

Thanks guys made my day , Sorry for the lack of finding these using the search button. Im not the fastest tool in the shed anymore

I have the 148MB Part of the Windows 7 Recovery on a CD ready.
Think ill be doing the same on my gaming rig as soon as i get a new Motherboard after mine died :S

Well i guess this is 'closed' Within 30 minutes of it being posted. Think ill be hovering around these forums a lot more.