What backup & relocation strategy for User profiles and Program Data

adri123 said:

Kari said:

adri123 said:

Hello,

In a configuration with a single HDD with 2 partitions (one for OS+Progs and one for data), how do we properly back up the OS and progs given the fact that the ProgramData and Users folders have been relocated to the Data partition ?

If you have used sysprep to relocate your system folders Users and ProgramData (as described in this tutorial), you need to include those in your image, too.

They are both system folders. If you leave them on C:, they would automatically be included in system image anyway. If they are relocated you need to be sure they are included.

I've used the sysprep method for years now on every Windows computer I have. As it is a one time procedure taking a minute to do and does not involve any manual folder location changes in folder properties or changes in library settings, one by one, but is instead done by changing the value of one Windows internal environment variable, it easily beats every other relocation method and makes changing settings manually obscure.

Both Windows' own Backup & Restore and third party tools like Macrium have no issues in creating images when these two system folders are moved from their original place.

Kari

Hi and thank you fo your reply,

I don't understand though, say I use the method in the tutorial and do relocate these two folders. Will the backup program create only one image? containing the whole OS partition + these two folders?

Second question: Given the fact that these two folders are on another partition, how will they be put to the right place again since that partition would have evolved over time? Will the present-time files in these two folders be overwitten? (that would be ok actually).

We are over thinking things here; it doesn't need to be this complicated. Just drag the data folders only from the C: partition to the data partition. Everything else stays on the C: partition and that is all that is needed for an image. Keep it simple.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

adri123 said:

Thank you both again :)

So you don't burn DVDs for every OS image you make right?...

Ohmigosh no! That would take too long and too many disks!

adri123 said:

...If I store the image on an external hard disk, will Macrium FREE be able to restore it ?...

Absolutely. I do it all the time. If you don't already have one, you will need a rescue CD or USB stick.

adri123 said:

...And a third question: I don't seem to have a boot partition. Is that possible? I have :
- factory recovery 25GB
- C (os) 100 GB NTFS
- D (data) 500 GB NTFS
- unallocated space 73GB - in case i'd like to install another OS

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Jeannie (apologies to Lewis Carroll). It's possible but a bit unusual with those figures. Where did you get those figures? My Computer or Disk Management? Can you show us a screen shot?

Attached is my Disk Management screenshot.
It says that the C partition is also boot.

Is or could that be an issue?

[QUOTE=Lady Fitzgerald;2597976]

Kari said:

All I did when I set up my computers was to drag the data folders to the new location on the other drive. Easy peasy and it works just fine for me.

You mean you dragged and dropped the CONTENT of the data folders? or the fodlers themselves?

For example,
did you dragged and dropped the whole My Music folder?
Or only its content to another folder (called Music-2 for example, as whs did) and kept the original My Music folder on the OS partition?

adri123 said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

adri123 said:

Thank you both again :)

So you don't burn DVDs for every OS image you make right?...

Ohmigosh no! That would take too long and too many disks!



Absolutely. I do it all the time. If you don't already have one, you will need a rescue CD or USB stick.

adri123 said:

...And a third question: I don't seem to have a boot partition. Is that possible? I have :
- factory recovery 25GB
- C (os) 100 GB NTFS
- D (data) 500 GB NTFS
- unallocated space 73GB - in case i'd like to install another OS

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Jeannie (apologies to Lewis Carroll). It's possible but a bit unusual with those figures. Where did you get those figures? My Computer or Disk Management? Can you show us a screen shot?

Attached is my Disk Management screenshot.
It says that the C partition is also boot.

Is or could that be an issue?

No issues. My boot partition is called System Reserved and you don't have that anywhere so yours is apparently incorporated in the C: partition. All you need to image is just the C: partition to back up your OS and Programs. The D: partition would get its own image to backup your data.

I'm curious what that empty 25GB Primary partition is doing there. It's not hurting anything but you might want to look into getting rid of it and adding that space to your D: partition. That would be a topic for another thread after you are comfortable with getting your backups working. Or, you could keep it for a test partition.

Kari said:

adri123 said:

Hi and thank you fo your reply,

I don't understand though, say I use the method in the tutorial and do relocate these two folders. Will the backup program create only one image? containing the whole OS partition + these two folders?

Second question: Given the fact that these two folders are on another partition, how will they be put to the right place again since that partition would have evolved over time? Will the present-time files in these two folders be overwitten? (that would be ok actually).

Using Windows Backup to create a system image, they are or rather the partition or drive where they are located is automatically included in your system image.

Using a third party imaging tool, you need to include the partition or drive manually:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

We are over thinking things here; it doesn't need to be this complicated. Just drag the data folders only from the C: partition to the data partition. Everything else stays on the C: partition and that is all that is needed for an image. Keep it simple.

The comment above just shows how little knowledge brings you easily to wrong conclusions. Using the sysprep ONCE to change a value of an environment variable versus dragging and dropping several folders and changing library pointers, it's obvious which method I choose!

One more reason why I most definitely do not agree with Lady's comment: In todays SSD era, quite a many users have relatively small SSD as system / Windows installation drive. The AppData (a hidden subfolder of Users) and its subfolders can really fill the SSD too fast. Running a simple answer file with sysprep and the whole Users fiolder, with everything it has and will in the future have is moved and will never be an issue again regarding space on C:.

Here, a fairly normal, quite new installation on my laptop. Not much installed but yet the AppData is almost 30 GB. At least for me it's a big deal to have this, and everything else on Users, relocated on in my case E:. Simply and fast, with one command:



Lady, you cannot drag AppData to another drive. You need Sysprep.

Kari

Kari, I see, it keeps the SSD not too full. BUT, as I wrote in my first post, I don't want to have to image my whole data partition just because the users folders are located there. If I properly understood your post, both Windows Backup and third party programs will have to image the whole data partition too ?

[QUOTE=Lady Fitzgerald;2597998]

adri123 said:

I'm curious what that empty 25GB Primary partition is doing there. It's not hurting anything but you might want to look into getting rid of it and adding that space to your D: partition. That would be a topic for another thread after you are comfortable with getting your backups working. Or, you could keep it for a test partition.

The 25GB is the ASUS factory restore partition. Somewhere I read that it's not being given a name so that it's "unusable". Meaning, accessible only for the recovery.

[QUOTE=adri123;2597991]

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Kari said:

All I did when I set up my computers was to drag the data folders to the new location on the other drive. Easy peasy and it works just fine for me.

You mean you dragged and dropped the CONTENT of the data folders? or the fodlers themselves?

For example,
did you dragged and dropped the whole My Music folder?
Or only its content to another folder (called Music-2 for example, as whs did) and kept the original My Music folder on the OS partition?

I dragged and dropped the entire folder; more specifically, I dragged My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, and Public Recorded TV from the C: drive to my E: drive. My Videos was dragged and dropped to my F: drive. Considering that you have a bit over 60GB on your C: partition, it would be interesting to know how large your AppData folder is unless you have data also stored in the data folders still on the partition.