Changing the System Partition?

[rogerfour]

Hi Greg, hows things?
Okay - I downloaded successfully partition wizard at last and booted from the cd - it showed me the map of my setup and it shows Win Xp as the active primary drive with Win 7 as a logical drive but not active?? So if it is not active how come it works and boots okay? Do I have to change Win 7 to active (it gives me that choice) or just leave everything as it is. Maybe I should just be satisfied as it is, as long as it is working - right?
Anyway this is not a life saving decision here. It was just an observation. I am really quite happy with how everything is working.
Oh... the windows 7 backup works great and it is now scheduled for once per week - if anything happens I can recover the image from the recovery cd - right? I really keep all my files outside of the Operating System "my documents" folders so in case of anything they are safe on the other drives and wont get lost in a system shufflle.
Regards

 

[gregrocker]

It's not the greatest to have an OS on logical drive since it can't be marked active, but it will run fine.

There are often complications with converting to Primary from logical so I wouldn't do that, unless you want to remove XP and need to mark 7 active - but a clean reinstall would be best then anyway.

If you need to recoup either OS or lose your hdd, just boot into the Win7 installer or Repair disk's Repair console and choose "Recover Using an Image" which will locate the image if it is located in its original named folder on a primary formatted partition, or in its original named folder on an external backup, then walk you through steps to choose where you want to reimage it to, and what you want to reimage.

You can cue it up to try it now. I did that several times to make sure it was functional, even once hitting "continue" too many times to where it reimaged my HDD flawlessly in 15 minutes. So now is the time to test it, or cue it up to final step to see if it locates the image correctly and see the options it presents in various menus.

 

[SIW2]

It shouldn't give the option to set a logical drive active.

If you are happy with the way it is - then may as well keep it that way.

Making regular images is a good idea.

You should be able to restore an image from the boot disc.

I Much prefer 3rd party imaging apps. to the Windows one.

More flexibility and options, more speed, more compression - and proven reliability.

Personally, I wouldn't rely on Windows System Image.

You might give Macrium free a try :

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

 

[gregrocker]

SIW2, do you have bad personal experience with Win7 backup imaging?

I ask because I have an image stored in a primary partition on each of my 7 computers, backed up in separate folders on an external drive (which only need to be moved into the root for discovery when reimaging).

I have tested reimaging on each machine, and had to reimage a half dozen times besides, and experienced no failures except once due to unknown bad block on external which was only the backup.

So I have no reason not to recommend the backup imaging built into Win7 until someone gives me a good reason. Compression isn't it when Paragon Disk Manager 2009 only offers to compress my 90g image to 72g.

 

[SIW2]

No, because having looked at it - I realised it simply did not fulfill my needs. Therefore I don't use it.

However, there are plenty who have had trouble - often seems to be with locating the image.

There are free apps. with much greater flexibility - not just in terms of speed and compression - but also allow you to store an image anywhere and restore it from anywhere - move it around, change the name , doesn't matter. Even restore to a smaller partition than the original, if required.


That is not a criticism of MS for putting it in there.

MS include an app. called Paint. Fine. No one is pretending it is as good as Paint.net (free), or Gimp (free).

Why not use something better?

I suspect the inclusion of Windows System Image will be useful to many. Those millions who have no idea what it is - will go ahead and make one anyway. Probably save a lot of people's bacon.

That is good for the 3rd party mfrs as well. They will benefit as more people realise what it is and how important it is. Some of them will want something better - starting with the free versions - then moving to the All dancing paid apps.

Dunno what's going on there:

when Paragon Disk Manager 2009 only offers to compress my 90g image to 72g.

I just did a small 11.7 gb o/s partition - 9.3gb after skipping auxilliary files - image was 5.22 gb. One would expect yours to be 50gb or so. Unless it is composed of already compressed files.

That is just on Normal compression. Unless you selected Fast - which is very little compression?

 

[rogerfour]

Hi again
I guess I am open to all ideas I like to experiment which is why I got into trouble in the first place haha... - I did try SIW's suggestion on Macrium but unfortunately I am not able to install it correctly for some reason or another. It installs okay with no error msgs, but when I execute it tells me fatal error !? I have tried this 3 times and downloaded the file 3 times but same thing happens. Maybe it's my hardware or something I don't know.
Greg, I know I should try the re-imaging to prove that it works - I am afraid what might happen if it doesn't work?? I will have to go through the complete cycle and re-image the hard drive. I guess I have to know if it works anyway, so I will try it... but not tonight - I have to enjoy my working system for at least another 24 hours
I might have a go at the paragon thingy so that I will have 2 backups to work from.... just in case.

 

[SIW2]

Weird error with Macrium - I haven't come across that before.

What do you mean, try to execute?

 

[rogerfour]

SIW - I didn't say try to execute, I executed the program (from the shortcut that it created on the desktop) to run and it comes up fatal error. I uninstalled and re-installed 3 times and also downloaded from your link twice, but same thing happens - fatal error and the program does not start. I even installed with administrator privileges. So I ended up dumping the download - I didnt see any point in doing it again ??

 

[SIW2]

Very odd.

You are supposed to rt click and Run as admin when you install it - and again when running it from the shortcut?

Curious - have never seen that fatal error before.

 

[gregrocker]

Hi again

Greg, I know I should try the re-imaging to prove that it works - I am afraid what might happen if it doesn't work?? I will have to go through the complete cycle and re-image the hard drive. I guess I have to know if it works anyway, so I will try it... but not tonight - I have to enjoy my working system for at least another 24 hours
I might have a go at the paragon thingy so that I will have 2 backups to work from.... just in case.

Just test to see that reimaging utility finds and cues up the WindowsBackupImage. No need to actually reimage unless you want to direct it to a spare HDD.

Boot into Win7 installer Repair console, choose Recover Using an Image and see if it finds your stored image. You can then look at next two menus to see what choices you are given, to compare to other imaging programs. Only if you do a final commit will it reimage HDD you have selected by S/N.

I suspect the inclusion of Windows System Image will be useful to many. Those millions who have no idea what it is - will go ahead and make one anyway. Probably save a lot of people's bacon.

I recommend Windows 7 Backup Imaging because it works well for me so far, plus it is built in: Most users would ignore the suggestion as too technical if it weren't right there included for them to sample.

I use Acronis to back up Vista computers, and like Paragon's Partition Pro and HDManager2009 but not enough to recommend people pay for them when Windows Backup Imaging is free and built in.

 

[rogerfour]

Hi Greg, Well I just booted from win7 repair disk and it found the image that I created last night on Drv E which is where I put it..... so it is going well I guess. I will just make sure to re-image at regular intervals as it does not take very long - I put it on a regular backup schedule so I don't have to worry about forgetting.
Meanwhile I will research other available options - who knows..... but if windows imaging is working I guess that is all I will (never) need hopefully. Imaging seems a much better option than copying partitions etc which takes up so much more space and has a greater risk of something going wrong?
So I have settled in and having some peaceful nights sleep.
Thanks again for your support and suggestions from others.