Creating duplicate installations of Windows 7 on one PC

[martinlest]

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

 

[Golden]

Hi Martin.

It sounds like a clone of the existing SSD is the way to go. However, I would leave the drive disconnected to avoid potential issues with boot managers.

An alternative is to store the image of this SSD on an external USB drive, which can then easily be restored to a new SSD when required.

Not sure what your preference is, but I would recommend Macrium Reflect for both options, since it's ease of use and reliability is well regarded here.

 

[martinlest]

Hi. Thanks.. I can't leave the drive disconnected (I assume you mean the one with the backup installation on it, once I've created it, rather than what I meant - disconnect the SSD boot drive while installing the backup instance of Windows and use the Windows disc to put the boot image onto the SSHD), as the spare Windows install would be on a small (say 80GB) partition at the start of this SSHD. The rest of the drive (1TB) would be divided into two logical partitions and used for other stuff.

The idea is, should the SSD fail, I can simply switch HDD boot order in the BIOS from the SSD to the SSHD at boot.

I do have Macrium Reflect but don't think I have ever used it.. would have to have a look at it. Is the native Windows restore option not sufficient for this?

 

[Golden]

Ok. I understand. I've never kept a fully functional 2nd bootable OS on a 2nd drive (apart from a Linux distribution) so I can't with confidence say whether there would be conflicts or not, but I expect not since the boot order will be controlled by your selection in the BIOS.

As far as Macrium is concerned, many find that easier to work with, and some people report issues when using the native Windows imaging functionality, although there are a few people here who do use it exclusively. I only use Macrium hence that tends to be my preference.

 

[AddRAM]

I would install each OS 1 at a time while you have each hd/ssd unplugged, that way you can connect them both and control the boot from the bios.

Sounds like you`ve worked it out fine.

I don`t know if I`d use a backup program to do it, I`d just get 1 install done then work on the 2nd til you have them both where you want them, what are you gonna do about activation ? You`ll need keys for both installs.

 

[whs]

The big disadvantage of cloning the system today to the SSHD is that if your SSD goes belly up in 6 months from now (which is sort of rare for a SSD), your cloned system is completely out of sync with the system on the SSD at that time.

I would suggest that you make weekly images to an external disk. Also hold an empty primary, active partition ready on the SSHD to where you can dump the latest image any time. That dumping takes only 20 minutes on average. Make sure the SSHD empty partition is large enough to accomodate C from the SSD.

For the imaging and recovery you use, of course, free Macrium. There is no better imaging program.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I

 

[Ranger4]

I would certainly agree with whs. Having a duplicate or cloned copy will very soon get out of date, unless you keep on regularly making a cloned copy. A duplicate copy will suffer from the same problem. Things like Windows Updates will soon get along way behind. Also as mentioned is the problem with licenses.

Doing a weekly image using Macrium Reflect as suggested is definitely the best way to go. I use Macrium & run a weekly image to an USB 3.0 external HD. In my case, the imaging of my Samsung 250gb SSD takes less than 5 minutes & about another 5 to verify it.

The other advantage with imaging is you can keep more than 1 weeks image at any time. So you could have say 2 or 3 images stored in case the latest one failed. Also you can make more than 1 image if you are worried about how safe the storage of them is. For example you can have one on one of your internal HD's & perhaps a second one on an external HD.

Just some food for thought.

 

[martinlest]

The fact that the backup O/S partition would become out of date did occur to me of course, but as I make a new C drive image every few weeks (this is a PC used almost solely for Microsoft Flight Simulator and I don't think, Windows updates apart, the content of the C drive changes all that much over time: FS9/FSX and associated programmes are installed on their own dedicated partitions) it could easily be updated with my latest image if I needed to use the backup as my main boot drive.

I think the best option really, as I said at the end of my post (and as whs said), is the simplest: just leave a suitable empty partition at the start of the SHDD into which I can copy my latest RP/C drive image if necessary.

The only problem I have had in the past with the native Win7 restore function is that if the image I want to restore is not the one that was last created, Windows won't find it. (I too create the images on an external HDD). Is that a known issue?

SSD failure may be rare, but having just had one go (with all my FS9 installation on it), I want to be prepared in case the other one (with O/S) follows suit. Luckily I back up my FS9/FSX folders via 'one-click' batch scripts almost every day, so when I get my new drive installed I should be good to go pretty quickly. That's the theory, anyway!

 

[whs]

just leave a suitable empty partition at the start of the SHDD into which I can copy my latest RP/C drive image if necessary

That's the way to go. And don't use Windows imaging (that really sucks). Use free Macrium. that will never let you down.

And copy the bootmgr from the 100MB system partition to C. Then you have to only deal with image/restore of C.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/209885-bootmgr-move-c-easybcd.html

 

[martinlest]

And copy the bootmgr from the 100MB system partition to C. Then you have to only deal with image/restore of C.

I did that once, on advice from these forums, using exactly the link you posted, and it made such a mess of my PC I could have wept - it went immediately from taking just 45 seconds to reboot completely to taking some five minutes: the boot process used to wait for ever at the 'Starting Windows' screen. Spent days trying to get things back to how they were - even an image restore from before the change did nothing to help. As far as I can recall, I had to completely reinstall to get things back to normal. I dare say the thread, full of my tears, is still here!

Would never try that again and although many may do this with no problem, I would very strongly advise others to beware of doing any such thing. The process went exactly as in the thread you reference, but it was a disaster for me.

Why do you say the Win7 native imaging restore sucks? I've never had any problem with it at all. I'll look at Macrium though, I do have it on a DVD somewhere.

As for the backup installation - that's what I will do; it's risk free...

 

[whs]

Hmm, I have copied the bootmgr to C many times and never had a problem. I am sorry to hear that it messed up your system.

If you can deal with Windows 7 imaging, go ahead. I hope you are not going to be one of the many where we have to recover the Windows 7 image from the VHD.

 

[Viscon]

First of all having a copy of OS on second physical drive is safe since I have this kind of configuration for the same reason as OP. It is also convenient for trying hotfixes, new apps and drivers to see if they might cause issues, conflicts etc.

Now, here's my scenario, how I did it.
1) I installed OS on drive 1
2) partitioned drive 2 the same way as drive 1
3) used norton ghost v11.5.2 (ghost.exe on bootable USB) and made an image of partition C: with OS on it
4) booted to drive 1 and used norton ghost but this time ghost32.exe which runs under Windows, to restore an image to primary active partition on drive 2
5) copied the content of partition D:\ from drive 1 to the second partition of drve 2 (I did this because in my setting C:\ is only for OS with drivers plus some most important applications like antivir... other applications go to D:\
6) now I have exact copy of two crucial partitions (C:\ and D:\ of drive 1 on drive 2
7) I can choose the drive to boot with thanks to boot menu of my motherboard, just need to press F8 when PC starts, of course you can choose a drive to boot from BIOS as well, no need to have any boot managers if you don't switch drives too often.

There are no conflicts with volumes - when I boot with drive 1 the system partition is C:\ and the programs partitions is always D:\ - the same when I boot from drive 2 but this time C:\ and D:\ are the first partitions of drive 2.
That's all. You don't need to use ghost of course, I think Macrium can do the same job as well as Active Disk Image or Paragon HardDrive Manager. I use ghost since it never failed on me and I just got used to it, it's simple just two small files (ghost.exe for DOS and ghost32.exe for Win) plus another one ghost exoplorer to open image files, no need to install.

 

[martinlest]

Thanks for the most recent posts. Will follow them up as soon as I get my new SSHD..

 

[gregrocker]

Martin, there should be no problem using Win7 backup imaging if you prefer that.

What I would do is a test run with your latest image applied to the new SSHD when you get it. Unplug all others but the SSHD, boot the Win7 DVD to do System Image Recovery from image you've stored on external.

Afterwards unplug the external, reboot. If ever a recovered Win7 doesn't boot, confirm that 100mb (if you have it) or C is Partition Marked Active then run Startup Repair - Run up to 3 Separate Times which is always the best way to repair or move the System boot.

Once you confirm it boots then plug back in the primary HDD, set it first to boot and ignore the clone until the time you need to fall back to it. You can also schedule Windows Backup to save a new image every week or so to your external - just keep it plugged in. I would rename the current baseline image in case the latest one fails, since you'll know for sure it works after test. You only have to change its name back to WindowsImageBackup to have it detected.

A good secondary method is to install Macrium and save its backup image to external. When I've done this as a secondary to Windows Backup Imaging I've never even had to make the Macrium disk since it was never needed.

 

[Sardonicus]

And copy the bootmgr from the 100MB system partition to C. Then you have to only deal with image/restore of C.

I did that once, on advice from these forums, using exactly the link you posted, and it made such a mess of my PC I could have wept - it went immediately from taking just 45 seconds to reboot completely to taking some five minutes: the boot process used to wait for ever at the 'Starting Windows' screen. Spent days trying to get things back to how they were - even an image restore from before the change did nothing to help. As far as I can recall, I had to completely reinstall to get things back to normal. I dare say the thread, full of my tears, is still here!

Would never try that again and although many may do this with no problem, I would very strongly advise others to beware of doing any such thing. The process went exactly as in the thread you reference, but it was a disaster for me.

Why do you say the Win7 native imaging restore sucks? I've never had any problem with it at all. I'll look at Macrium though, I do have it on a DVD somewhere.

As for the backup installation - that's what I will do; it's risk free...

I've made some backups with Windows backup and sometimes I got an error and couldn't do the restore. I've been using Macrium and it has been more reliable. They update their software with fixes, from time to time. I'm not sure if Microsoft does that on a regular basis, if at all.

But you should test them, as some people have not come across any problems with either.

 

[martinlest]

When I get my PC up and running and as I want it with the new HDD, I'll try using Macrium Reflect instead of Windows' native imaging. My disc boots fine, so why not? My nightmare, yes, would be having Windows restore telling me is can't restore the image file I made with Win7.. Not unthinkable at all, I know. If MR really has better reliability from that point of view, I use it of course.

M

 

[martinlest]

Why can things not just work for me first time? Decided to make a new image of my laptop boot drive, so booted with the Macrium disc (I assume I need to back up partitions this way and not whilst still in Windows, as I can with the Win7 imaging tool?), my USB drive, where I want to store the image, connected.

Macrium says I don't have USB drivers loaded (or Ethernet or Network, but I don't need those). No idea exactly where the drivers are so I let it scan C:/Windows and after almost ten minutes it says all the drivers are loaded. But when I search for the USB drive as the target for the image, it's not there as an option.

Googled this and looked at posts for quarter of an hour or so, but I haven't got the time (or right now, patience, to be honest!) to investigate this further, so will use Windows 7 (which sees the USB HDD) to make the image.

 

[gregrocker]

Why can things not just work for me first time? Decided to make a new image of my laptop boot drive, so booted with the Macrium disc (I assume I need to back up partitions this way and not whilst still in Windows, as I can with the Win7 imaging tool?),

Did you even read the last sentence in my last post? You wouldn't have had to wonder or even bother with all of that if you'd read it.

 

[martinlest]

No, missed it. But that means, whatever, I can't use the Macrium boot disk I have, as it won't recognise USB drives? I have to install the programme to the internal hard drive?

 

[gregrocker]

No I offered this as a matter of convenience so you didn't need to burn the disk until it was needed as a secondary backup method which is almost never.

If Windows imaging fails then you can deal with using the disk then. There are several methods to build the PE disk and experts here like SIW2 who can even build it for you.