Is my C partition and F partition combined?

[seekermeister]

I have moved since then, but people are the same everywhere...overall.

 

[TheTalker]

I have always passworded my computers, even though no one normally has access to them accept me. The one time that I didn't was with a computer that I had when I had a stroke and got evicted from my home, and wasn't allowed to remove the computer. My personal belongings were left in the house when it was resold, supposedly to be stored until I later removed them. When I was finally able to try to do so, and I met with the new owner, he claimed that house was broke into, and the computer, TV and window AC/heat were stolen. It might not have prevented the PC from being stolen anyway, but if it had been passworded, maybe the new owners (who I believe were the thieves) wouldn't have been so tempted to take it. The moral of this is that someone that you don't expect, may access your computer if it is easy.

I'm sorry to hear that. Terrible people. I understand. Thank you for sharing that.

 

[karlsnooks]

SeekerMeister,
I'm in agreement. I once had a laptop stolen. I'm thankful that I'd taken several security measures, including password protecting. I carefully watched to see if any critical info had been compromised. Fortunately not, but I do not use outlook and also use Roboform for password protection. My new laptop has the necessary hardware and bios such that I use Lojack in case of another theft.

 

[seekermeister]

At one time, I considered using a program called Dead Man's Switch, which is designed to execute orders at a set interval, if not overridden on time. I thought about having it perform a format on the harddrive, or call the police to report itself stolen, but then reconsidered, because of how bad my memory is, and figuring that I would forget to reset it. I kind of like the idea using Lojack, but that would find better use in a portable, than my PC network. Besides, I'm sure that service is not free, and I'm tight.

 

[karlsnooks]

SeekerMeister,
Service is not free but not expensive - $40/yr Absolute Software - LoJack for Laptops | Track, Locate, and Recover Stolen Computers | Absolute Software Corporation

 

[seekermeister]

If I ever get a REAL laptop, I may consider that. As things are, the only laptop that I own is an old IBM 380Z that doesn't work and is collecting dust in the closet. Anyone that stole it would be very disappointed.

 

[whs]

Even more important for Netbooks. My BroIL looses one per month - fortunately he can usually retrieve it. But one stayed in China. And then LoJack would not have helped either.

 

[seekermeister]

With the apathy that I have found in the local police, I doubt that it would matter if one had a pinpoint location of a stolen computer, they would probably not be able to find it, or claim that they had no way of knowing whether it was stolen or not.

I had a car stolen from me a few years back, which I reported, and the police never found, despite the fact that I spotted it driving around town twice over a year later. I gave it chase, but lost it.

Another pickup was stolen from me, which was never found, despite the fact that the thieves also stole my ID and opened a telephone account in my name (which they never paid), and the police wouldn't even go to the address given on the account to investigate.

 

[whs]

With the apathy that I have found in the local police, I doubt that it would matter if one had a pinpoint location of a stolen computer, they would probably not be able to find it, or claim that they had no way of knowing whether it was stolen or not.

I had a car stolen from me a few years back, which I reported, and the police never found, despite the fact that I spotted it driving around town twice over a year later. I gave it chase, but lost it.

Another pickup was stolen from me, which was never found, despite the fact that the thieves also stole my ID and opened a telephone account in my name (which they never paid), and the police wouldn't even go to the address given on the account to investigate.

You live in the wrong country. In my country I would drag the police into court for inactivity and lack of exercising their duties. Then they have to make an hour by hour report of what they are doing.

 

[Zomby88]

You should never do backups on the same physical disk.

 

[whs]

You should never do backups on the same physical disk.

That is, of course, completely correct in the general sense. But on my laptops I have a backup partition on the same drive (because there is only 1 drive) where I make daily images when I log on. That is just to keep me safe during the day. Then I image once per week to an external drive to be prepared for a drive failure.
I found this the most practical setup where I do not have to attach the external disk every day.

 

[gregrocker]

I thought I was all self-contained on my laptop by storing a Win7 backup image in a primary partition where it is autodetected by reimaging app.

Then one day I am out on the beach and lock up, hard restart, won't start, F8 into 100mb Sys Reserved WinRE to run SysRestore (won't work) and Startup Repair x3. Nothing works.

So I am almost giddy that I get to use my home-made Recovery partition, boot back into F8 "Recover Using An Image" - immediately getting a message that Win7 cannot reimage from WinRE on the HD (as it is) and I must reboot from DVD or Repair CD.

Even the best laid plans....

There might be a way around this which was posted here a few months ago. Guy added WinRE to stored backup image and set it to Dual Boot using EasyBCD. We need to find and test it for sure, then make it a tutorial.

 

[whs]

Greg, that does not sound very good. Makes you think about the Windows facilities. But I use Macrium and do not have that sort of problem. As long as my image on my private recovery partition is not corrupted, the recovery works 100%. Macrium is very rugged and robust.

 

[gregrocker]

But you still gotta use the rescue CD to run the reimaging app, which I thought I had cut out of the picture using WinRE supplied by 100mb Sys Reserved partition.

Turns out the Repair My Computer at F8 may list "Recover Using a System Image" but you cannot actually do it unless you use the disk, since I guess WinRE cannot run from the same HD it is reimaging.

Only WileyCoyote can erase and then redraw himself.

 

[whs]

Only WileyCoyote can erase and then redraw himself

LOL

 

[karlsnooks]

Greg,
I'm trying to understand. I have used a WinRE CD that I made using the WinRe.WIM and WAIK. I have used a System Repair Disk. Oh yes, I do not have a recovery partition. I eliminated that since I don't need it.

I change the bios to boot from the CD. I put the the CD into the drive, power down the unit. Power up the unit. WinRE loads into a ram drive (X, thus I can remove the cd from the drive at this point if I desire. I choose system restore from the system recovery menu and everything runs like clock work. I've also put the RE onto a USB stick, booted from the USB stick.

It is true that you can't erase yourself from the harddrive by booting from harddrive and trying to recover that way, but I've never had any problem running anything and everything from the ramdrive created either by the PE or the RE. I've put utilities onto my PEs and REs.

But like I said, maybe I've misunderstood.

 

[gregrocker]

Wasn't using a DVD or CD, Karl, just the WinRE placed on F8 Advanced Boot Options menu when the 100mb System Reserved partition is installed.

I had assumed since it was in the Recov Tools list, that it could "Recover Using an Image" but it prompted me to restart with DVD or Repair CD which was the surprise.

 

[karlsnooks]

I just noticed that x colon ) put a smiley in. I was trying to indicate drive X.