how to partition HDD like retail PC's

[DeaconFrost]

Not having it just because the hard drive may fail some day seems short sited to me. Thats not meant as a dig, flame or insult, I do respect your opinion, thats just my spin on it.

I understand what you are saying, especially in the remote support sense. I just wouldn't feel comfortable if that was my only means of repair. In my years of experience, two things die on a laptop most often...the screen and the hard drive. If that's your only method of recovery, you are toast. Maybe what I should say is...the recovery partitions aren't for everyone, but if you want to have one, so be it...just don't make it your only method of recovery. I would say this especially since many OEMs don't ship with any kind of discs, and they charge you for new discs, if they make them available at all.

 

[gregrocker]

For the first year with Win7's built-in backup imaging I saved a backup image to a HD partition and copied it to external, and used both for reimaging. Gradually I stopped saving the one to partition and have them all on my external now.

I've also taken to using Acronis more than Win7 backup imaging for it's added flexibility including Universal Restore to any other hardware easily.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Universal Restore to any other hardware easily.

Is that like a combination of an imaging program and Sysprep built in one? If so, I should look into it for work. I use mainly the same software on all sstems, but I keep separate images for the towers and laptops.

 

[gregrocker]

Yes it offers Universal Restore in Acronis 10+ versions whenever the hardware appreciably changes.

You then get a page where you can point it to drivers - which only really needs the SATA controller to get it started, but I'll normally also link System 32/drivers+driverstore from a previous install on the target hardware of the same bit version.

Just as good is Paragon Adaptive Restore CD which is booted and pointed at the new Win7 installation on the new hardware. It will also reimage Win7 backup images while adapting them.

 

[wanchoo]

Many manufacturers (I think Dell and LeNovo are two such) ship Computers without bloatware and supply retail installation CDs/DVDs with their Computers. That is why for my Office I usually stick to these two brands for Desktops and Laptops. For Home use I prefer custom built and assembled Desktops with the retail DVD/CD purchased separately.

Something surely needs to be done like shunning manufacturers that fill there machines with bloatware by making the customers aware. It is a pity that most customers neither understand this nor care.

I don't know, it seems to me that its always nice to have options. It might make sense to some people. Lets say you like having the recovery option but don't like all the factory included bloatware. Making a new image without the bloatware and all the latest drivers might be nice. I wouldn't mind doing that on my daughters netbook which doesn't have an optical drive.

 

[gregrocker]

Something surely needs to be done like shunning manufacturers that fill there machines with bloatware by making the customers aware. It is a pity

We have helped tens of thousands of users clean up their bloatware or clean reinstall to get the native performance of Win7:
Reinstalling Windows 7
Clean up factory bloatware

The key step in cleaning up factory bloatware is shutting off the freeloaders in msconfig>Startup. Our tutorial on doing this has over a million views: Startup Programs - Change

 

[wanchoo]

Helping tens of thousands of users to clean bloatware is really yeoman service and is certainly laudable but no amount of cleaning can remove the orphans left behind in the Registry and the File System. In addition the poor user is saddled with additional work. Only a clean install with a retail CD is the way out.

Three of my friends (+/- 80) consulted me before purchasing Laptops. I explained to them the bloatware problem and told then to tell the vendor to include a retail CD and a Drivers CD instead of the usual recovery partition. I told them that I can help them out if they want, by locating proper vendors.

What did they do? Told their sons to go and buy the Laptops and got the usual bloatware. When their machines started giving trouble two of them again contacted me. I made them buy retail CDs, then help them create fresh partitions and reinstall Windows from scratch. The graphics, audio and Ethernet drivers were not on the CD so you know how it was.

The vendor refused to give them a CD of the drivers and told them to get lost. I had to go to the manufactures web-site to download all the drivers. It was quite a whammy and involved a lot of labour but everything was OK in the end. The third friend took out a maintenance contract and in addition to paying a hefty retainer has sometimes to be without his machine working for days.

So much for the average user here in India.

Something surely needs to be done like shunning manufacturers that fill there machines with bloatware by making the customers aware. It is a pity

We have helped tens of thousands of users clean up their bloatware or clean reinstall to get the native performance of Win7:
Reinstalling Windows 7
Clean up factory bloatware

The key step in cleaning up factory bloatware is shutting off the freeloaders in msconfig>Startup. Our tutorial on doing this has over a million views: Startup Programs - Change

 

[gregrocker]

Going to the manufacturer's Support Downloads webpage to get the few drivers which are not in the Win7 installer or quickly updated via optional Windows Updates is the preferred method. A disk contains drivers which are almost always outdated.

There is no reason to pay for a retail Win7 installer when you own a copy for the life of the OEM machine. Just download it from the web, burn to DVD or write to flash stick and you're off to the races Reinstalling Windows 7.

 

[wanchoo]

Quite right that often the drivers on the vendor supplied CD are outdated.

But the point is which should be the preferred route. Get a Driver CD from the vendor, use it to install the drivers and then upgrade to new drivers or get no driver CD then find after installation that audio, video, Internet etc. are not working and run around trying to get at least the Network Adapter driver from a friend's machine on a floppy/CD/USB stick to install and connect to the Net and then download install the other missing drivers.

I admit that it is the user's choice but I as a user would go for the first option.

 

[gregrocker]

I would put the ethernet/wireless adapter on flash stick or CD so that if they are not in the installer you can get online quickly to update your drivers via optional Windows Updates. Then there should only be one or two drivers which need importing from the manufacturer's Support Downloads webpage.

 

[alphanumeric]

I have all the driver Cd's that came with any hardware I ever bought. Sometimes I shake my head and wonder why, they are all outdated before I even removed them from the sleeve they came in. I have to admit though, having them, especially if it was a NIC driver you needed, might bail you out of a bind. Me I always download the latest drivers and save them to a thumb drive. If I had to pay for them that would be the last time I ever bought anything from that manufacturer again. But thats just me, for some people that might be an option. Having a CD that autoruns and guides you though the installation of say your motherboard drivers is something my father would want. Everybody has their way of doing things and thats cool. Windows 7 does a good job of having and installing drivers for hardware. A lot better job than XP ever did. The one thing I see though is these basic drivers often don't have all the functionality that the manufacturers drivers do. As an example the basic windows driver will lack the manufactures custom Audio Control Panel for your sound card that lets you switch jack functions etc. Personally I prefer the manufactures driver over the Windows supplied drivers. Its still nice that they are there, especially if it gets me INTERNET access to download the ones I want.