100 Mb Boot Partition

OldMX · 09 Mar 2012

Why you guys keep messing with that 100mb MSR partition is beyond me, Macrium, Acronis, Paragon etc handle it without issues, so no real reason to not allowing windows to create it while on setup.

IcarusII · 09 Mar 2012

OldMX: So for an easy(er) life you are suggesting I just let windows 7 create the MBR partition during installation on a new HDD. I understand that.

The bit im far less certain of is what i need to do therefore when I amage my drive and then when I want to restore it. Im trying not to be spoon fed so having read some tutorials is this summary correct:

I can set acronis or macrium to image 2 partitions at once: my os partition and my 100mb MBR partition. Whenever i do an image it copies them both. I agree that 100mb is nothing to be concernd over. I dont yet know how to do this in either programme but im sure ill figure it out.

in the event that the OS needs a reinstall (virus, just gone mad, corrupted, i want to revert to an earlier point in time) i only need to re-image the OS partition becasue its fair to say that the 100mb MBR partition dosnt change from one month to the next?

In the event of a full HDD fail, and i have to buy a new one (which will inevitably be bigger - but potentially of a different manufacturer) i would just boot with the recovery DVD and then create the 100mb MBR partition and then the os partition.

Do i have the general gist or has my reading confused me further?

Matt

OldMX · 09 Mar 2012

Yes bro, I understand your concerns, but theres nothing to worry about.

Lets say, you have a single disk computer, with a MSR, and 2 partitions (100mb, c:\ and d:\), in Macrium, you simply select to backup partitions required for windows to work, in this case, the MSR and the first primary a.k.a. c:\, if something goes wrong, boot off the macrium rescue disk and just select restore your backup, and the utility will restore just the 2 partitions previously backed up, your d:\ partition will remain intact.

Its even better if you have multiple disks, like me, i have 2 drives, one for msr and c:\ and a secondary drive just for d:\, in macrium, the backup contains the msr and c:\ and is stored on a folder on my d:\ drive.

IcarusII · 09 Mar 2012

Very helpful thanks.

Whilst waiting for your response I happened upon an amazingly simple little tutorial by WHS which shows how to move the 100Mb partition into C:\ using easy BCD.

i might do my clean install.....then image as it is and then have a play with both options and i can practice restoring at the same time!

Thanks guys

gregrocker · 09 Mar 2012

See if you lose F8 Advanced Boot Options due to using EasyBCD to move boot files to C.

I believe it requires running Startup Repair 3 Separate Times to restore the hotlink to F8 from WinRe which is broken when boot files are moved.