W7 install - partition query (long)

Hi all,

Last night I installed W7 64bit and all seems well. I want to ask a few questions.

I installed W7 onto a clean/formatted 25GB partition, and it used about 13GB of the space.

I then deleted Vista from the original system partition, and formatted that partition again, and now labeled this partition as "Program Files" (I want to 'install' all of my program files onto this partition). This partition is 30GB.

Finally, the remaining unallocated space, about 408GB, I formatted and labeled "media" (for my iTunes, movies, pictures, etc.

Everything works a-ok, and here are my questions:

1. I noticed that when I installed W7 onto the clean/formatted 25GB "OS" partition, the install disk "created" a new and tiny (100MB) partition (25MB used) called something like "System Reserved." Can someone explain what this tiny partition is, and should I be worried?

2. As per above, I used the old 30GB Vista OS Vista partition (after formatting it), for my "Program Files" partition. I moved over the two "Program Files" and "Program Filesx86" folders from the W7 OS folder/partition to my new "Program Files" partition; I am installing 3rd party apps (firefox, etc.) onto this partition.

Basically, I want to keep as much crap out of the OS Partition as possible. Is this a logical strategy, and can I now delete the "Program Files" and "Program Filessx86" folders from the W7 OS directory?

3. The final partition, about 408GB, has been formatted and is strictly for "media" (space hog) files. Here I put my iTunes library, photos, etc.

So, all in all, I have 4 partitions:

1. "System Reserved" (100MB) - created by install disc;
2. "OS" (25GB) (14GB used) - contains W7
3. "Program Files" (30GB) (2GB used) - contains my program files; and
4. "Media" (408GB) (40GB used) - contains my media files; the disk storage tool calls this partition a "logical drive" and I have no idea what that is but it still seems to work.

Is this above scheme insane or logical?

Finally, I have recently heard of HD imaging in case of HD failure. Can someone lead me to a link or program for doing this?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts this site has been invaluable!

Wally:

Here are a couple of well-regarded imaging programs:

Acronis True Image; available through the standard retail sources. A couple of the major hard drive manufacturers are offering free copies for download. The only catch is that if you want to RESTORE an image after a failure, you MUST restore to a drive made by that manufacturer. Western Digital offers this download and I think Seagate does as well.

Macrium Reflect Free Edition. This is available at no charge direct from Macrium.

The only thing I'd say about imaging is that I think you would be foolish to rely on it to bail you out. It usually works and sometimes doesn't.

thanks schaft and igna for the tips;

i still sit here positively astounded at the improvements of W7 compared to how Vista "worked" on my system...i am in a happy place now!

ignatzatsonic said:

Wally:

Here are a couple of well-regarded imaging programs:

Acronis True Image; available through the standard retail sources. A couple of the major hard drive manufacturers are offering free copies for download. The only catch is that if you want to RESTORE an image after a failure, you MUST restore to a drive made by that manufacturer. Western Digital offers this download and I think Seagate does as well.

Macrium Reflect Free Edition. This is available at no charge direct from Macrium.

The only thing I'd say about imaging is that I think you would be foolish to rely on it to bail you out. It usually works and sometimes doesn't.

How do these compare to the new Win7 Backup Imaging? It is working fine for me on my computers, where I've created a primary recov partition backed up externally.

The only thing missing is more compression, which I do see in the new Paragon HD manager but it costs.