Thanks for the information! It makes more sense now
So the name of the game is: always test your images, but never write over the main C: drive.
Just one more questions, how do you actually partition a hard drive? My 1TB is all formated but as 1 drive so far.
Thanks
I don't know of any way to "test" images other than by restoring them. But that will overwrite whatever is on the target drive. So I don't restore them as a test.
I guess you could restore an image to something other than your C drive as a test.
On a PC, you can partition a drive during the Windows installation. Look for a choice called "drive options, advanced". That will drop you into a screen where you can delete any existing partitions and make others of whatever size you want.
Do NOT, I say DO NOT, DO NOT accept a choice for "dynamic" drives if it is ever offered. It shouldn't be, as long as you have no more than 3 partitions.
Lingo note: your drive is partitioned. It has to be partitioned before it can be formatted. You just have 1 partition.
You can also make partitions using the Diskpart command, which is accessed by hitting Shift F10 early in a Windows installation, when you come to the screen asking you to choose a language. There are tutorials on this site about Diskpart.
Normally, there's no reason not to just do it later on, when you come to "drive options, advanced".
In your case, you now have 1 partition. You would delete it, which would turn that 1 TB drive into "unallocated space". You then would immediately make a new partition of say 100 GB from that unallocated space. And then most likely another one taking up the entire remainder. That would be about 831 GB. A 1 TB drive has about 931 GB usable, so 931 minus 100 is 831.
Cheers, well if I get that far as in actually make an image I will certainly test it on anything other than the C: drive.
So far I have only installed Marcrium, and had a go at making a partition and I have provided a screen grab to see if I have done it correctly. I deleted the volume it had then used the simple volume wizard...
I'm not sure whats going on with the unallocated spaces of 127 - 128mb that seem to be popping up on all my drives in the picture...
You are on a Mac as I understand it, so I'm not sure what you should see. Those HFS file system partitions are not normally seen on a PC.
What program did you use to make the partitions? How did you make them?
Disk 5 looks OK--2 healthy primary partitions. You could put Windows on the 100 GB partition.
I have no idea why that Disc 4 has 127 MB unallocated on the right side. On a PC, you would normally be able to add that space to the drive immediately to the left (G) using Windows Disk Management and a couple of mouse clicks.
Exactly what is that a screen shot of? It looks similar to Windows Disk Management.
Disk 4 just has a back up of my dvd to mkv rips, that are on my C: drive so I will get rid of them volumes and reformat as all my films and other media will be on disk 5's 900GB partition hopefully, and the 100GB Windows as you say. Yes the hfs drives are always visible in "My Computer" and everywere else. But they can only be read and not written to.
I went to control panel/system security/admin tools/computer management
Then right-clicked, deleted the 1000GB volume, then ran the simple partition wizard. I take it there are different ways and methods to achieve partitions?
P.s is it worth running an anti virus scan before imaging?
Cheers
I assume you could have taken a screen shot of the E, F, H, I and Bootcamp C drives by scrolling up a bit in that window? Those drives appear in the upper part of your screenshot, but are not seen in the bottom part.
You should be able to get to that same window by typing Disk Management into the start button search box.
Yes, there are various ways to make partitions. If Windows is already installed, Disk Management is the standard method, but it has some limitations---particularly regarding moving space from one partition to another.
The best third party partitioning tool is Partition Wizard bootable disc.
Then there is Diskpart, built into Windows.
Yeah--you might run antivirus before making an image. If you have bugs, the image file will have bugs, and they would therefore exist in any restored image.
Since you are on a Mac, that 1 TB drive shows as 1 TB, rather than 931 GB.
Whoa, you guys are fast writers!
Except for the Mac complication, looks like you've got it under control.
I agree - don't restore an image as a test on your only working system drive.
Taking an initial image or 2 before shrinking the partition on the working drive is a precaution in case something goes wrong in the shrinking.
Again, you can't be too safe when you're doing this type change.
But to clarify, I don't test images unless trying new imaging software.
I simply always restore my previous image before making system changes that I've already tested. Then I make my changes, do updates, and immediately make a new image. Housekeeping so to speak.
I've never had a restore fail, but since data corruption or HD failure is always a possibilty, I make 2 and sometimes 3 images, to different drives.
A million ways to do it, and that's just my method.
Cheers for the guidence so far guys! You have been most helpful!
I'm still in the middle of ripping my final set of dvd's for my network drive then tommorrow I'll make a start tomorrow and let you know how I get on as I will have to let my AVG free virus software do a scan, move all my media to the 900GB partition then I'll be ready
Thought I would post some more screenshots to let you guys see what everything looks like through my pane!
Although some hard drives are connected externally via eSATA and usb, plus there are 4 hard drives inside the MacPro, whereas some are partitioned also.
Quote