Solved System Reserve in image backup question

Hi;

Newbie here with Windows 7 x32 Ultimate. I often do image backup using Acronis True Image Western Digital edition in XP. Now with Windows 7 I see a System Reserve in the checkboxes for the "partition to backup". It usually is the partition only and the MBR but now in Windows 7 it's 3 actually.

Is there a need to select that to be part of the image backup or it's okay to not include it...?

Also is there an alternative freeware for system restore...?

Just asking..

Thanks

Hi damien76,

System Reserved is the partition that stores among other things, the BCD (Windows Boot Manager) and Bitlocker Encryption data. (if you have Ultimate)

Personally speaking, I see no harm in including System Reserved in the backup, In fact I place it into the backup myself, as it is only 100MB it doesn't really add to the size very much.

From a purely technical standpoint though, honestly there is little reason to do so beyond the first image. It is highly unlikely that the partition will change at all, unless you are in the habit of messing with your Boot manager every couple of days. As 80%+ of users don't even realise that they CAN dual boot, let alone actually do it, then no, there is little reason to do it.

Hope this helps.

Hello severedsolo,

Thank you for the reply. That was fast huh.

Well, I am dual-booting with XP SP3 as the primary master hdd (primary slave hdd is with Windows 7 --just started just 2 months..) Yes I seem to see that it's 100mb. Does it need defragging...? Okay I will include it in the next image backup I will do. I plan to change firewalls (from CISver5 to Outpost Firewall Pro --got a lifetime license recently) so I'll do a system image backup just in case system get's borked.

"Also is there an alternative freeware for system restore...?"
-- any comments on this question....I sometimes see my settings for system restore going back to zero% and "Turn off protection"..I'd have to confirm this again but just earlier I saw that it's like that after using CCleaner v3.5 and Auslogics defrag..

If the "System" boot files are stored on the Windows 7 System Reserved partition and you don't include it in the image/backup the system will not boot when the image is used.

@Bare Foot Kid;

Will keep that in mind. Thank you

damien76 said:

@Bare Foot Kid;

Will keep that in mind. Thank you

Click to expand...

My pleasure, glad I could help.