Thanks for the tip. Actually i already follow the same arrangement u suggested. I have the folders like My music, video, downloads etc already moved to my Data partition.
I have another concern though. My current HDD is 320 gigabytes. So how much space would the system image take? I need to know so i can get a good sized external hdd.
DaRonRon,
The image will be considerably smaller. Image size will depend upon how full your current partitions are.
An example, for a ~150 GB drive divided between system and data, the full system image backup with full data backups is less than 20 GB but I also don't have that much data on the drive. I'll do a backup here in a little bit on a system with a SSD of 120 GB with only ~31 GB in use. Won't really help much but I'll run it in a little and let you know what I use with system image.
The word image is misleading when talking about Win 7's Backup & Restore since the "system image" is written to the backup media as a VHD file and any additional data backups are generated as .zip files.
With Win 7 Backup and Restore, your best approach is to a System Image backup, being sure to select both the C and the D in your case.
Be sure to make yourself a "system repair" disk which you will use to do the "restore" to a fresh disk.
You boot from the system repair disk and use it to "restore" the system image.
After restoring the system image, you will have your previous C and D on your new monster disk.
Now if after this you decide that you would like to change partition sizes, add partitions, etc. you can still use only Microsoft software.
You use a combination of Windows Backup & Restore and Disk Management.
This works real slick. I have just spent the last two days playing with different permutations and combinations of Backup & Restore and Disk Management. I have never used Partition Magic, Partition Wizard or any other programs when backing up, restoring, growing, shrinking, deleting, creating, moving partitions on a Windows 7 system.
When you finally have your new drive and get ready for the nitty, gritty of the steps involved and want to go with exclusively Microsoft software, let me know.
The only nuances that I've not tried out under Windows 7 is using XCOPY and/or RoboCopy to accomplish the backup and restore portion.
DaRonRon,
After analyzing the results from new backup, suggest you do system image of only C: and do a data backup on D: (both using Win7 backup & restore).
Let me know if you have any more questions.
hi karlsnooks,
thanks for the long and informative post! However, after some thought, i think it will be best for me to perform a fresh install of windows after i get my hdd. I realize this renders most of the previous discussion moot but i feel its best since there's a few things i want to change which i cannot do now.
I will use the external hard drive to copy over all my files that i need, install the new hdd, install windows fresh, and then just copy over the files from the external hdd.
I definitely find windows inbuilt disk management too to be useful, but it doesnt allow to resize a partition of it has another partition in front of it though. That's why i use partition master which is excellent. But it wont be necessary i suppose because when performing the windows install i can specify my partition setup.
I will let you know how it goes once my hdd comes in the mail.
DaRonRon,
doing a fresh install is an excellent idea and will simply matters.
Incidentally, you can make a partition bigger or smaller no matter where it is, however, you need an external disk, Windows Backup&Restore, and Disk Management. The products from other parties designed for this specific task are normally easier to use than the procedure which I use.
the best thing for anyone who is concerned about back up instead of getting a tb you should just got with something smaller then buy a external back up that you can store on just a data drive use it to store you can take it with you anytime and hook it up to other systems
i do this myself and i sugggest anyone looking to keep data backed up and not on one main drive on the system should go this rout cause if you whole machine gets fried including the hdd you have that little monkey you bought to get you back to where you where before you had a melt down
I agree with you. 1 tb is only for those with truly massive amounts of video, movies, or pics. You should never put your os and important stuff on such a monster.
Also decreases things such as defrag time, backup time, virus scan times.
There's nothing wrong with installing an OS on a TB or larger HDD, but I would recommend partitioning 100GB for the system and use the rest for media and personal files. It will be much faster if all the system files are confined to a smaller partition instead of being allowed to scatter across your entire HDD, plus you have the advantage of being able to reinstall windows anytime something goes wrong without having to worry about losing your music collection.
I bought a 640 GB hard drive which i will fit in my laptop, and a 500 GB external hdd for backup. The 1 TB ones were a little pricey.
On a 640 GB HDD, I would still set it up with a 100GB system partition for the same reasons. Even on smaller HDDs than that it still pays off to keep media on a separate partition from program files
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