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Creating duplicate installations of Windows 7 on one PC
I posted about this in another thread, but it was in the middle of other stuff, a bit off the thread topic, and didn't really get addressed, so I am starting a new thread to ask for advice. (The only other threads I have found on this subject are more about creating duplicate installations across multiple PCs)..
My O/S is on a 128GB SSD. Having just had a total failure of the other SSD (Corsair 128GB) in my setup, I want to create an exact duplicate of my current SSD Windows installation on my SSHD drive. It's a long time since I tried any form of multi-boot (in the early days of XP), so just want to run this past folks here..
Actually, I don't exactly want a multi-boot of course. I want the second installation just to be there as an emergency copy, so that I can still boot up if my remaining SSD fails, taking my current boot drive with it. I already have an up-to-date image of the Reserved Partition/C Drive. Can I just install that to a suitably sized primary partition on my SSHD drive (new, empty so far) via Recovery Options? If the Hard Drive boot order still has my SSD as first boot priority, there shouldn't be a problem I am guessing? Windows isn't going to get confused about which active boot partition to use??
On the other hand, maybe having two active boot partitions is risky? Should I get Partition Manager to hide the emergency installation rather than just leave it? And if I run the 'Recovery' operation via the Windows DVD, should I unplug my SSD first, to avoid any problems?? Or is there a better way of achieving this?
If doing this is going to produce unforeseen problems, I could I suppose just create the SSHD partition and install into it from the current boot drive image only if/when the SSD gives up the ghost one day.
What do any gurus here recommend as the best/most user-friendly option?
Thanks,
Martin