Recovery Partition and Repair Reinstallation

[buggaby]

I make a daily image of my system and data partitions at boot-up. I have set Macrium to do that automatically. It takes only 9 minutes from my SSD to the internal HDD. Every Sunday, I copy the Sunday image to an on-line external disk into a "weekly folder". Every first of the month I also copy the last image to an external disk "monthly folder" that usually stays off-line. That way I have a whole history all the way back to the initial installation.
In addition I have two 16GB sticks to which I copy my data every 3 months and put it into my bank safe. 3 months later I retrieve the first stick and deposit the latest data copy on the second stick, and so on.

I guess that's why you're a "Gold Member"...

 

[Jonathan_King]

A Gold Member is one who has reached 2000 posts. See this thread: http://www.sevenforums.com/chillout-room/79106-reputation-badges-2-a.html

 

[buggaby]

Thanks for the link. I didn't know that. But, I was also making a little joke about the extent to which whs goes to backup his data. I assume it's ok to poke a little fun at people on here...

 

[whs]

Thanks for the link. I didn't know that. But, I was also making a little joke about the extent to which whs goes to backup his data. I assume it's ok to poke a little fun at people on here...

Better be safe than sorry. And for the 5 minutes it takes me per week I can sleep quietly. Last time I reinstalled (a 3 year old Vista which was all buggy), it took me 3 days until I fought my way thru the 400 updates, all the program installations and system and program settings. No need to do that more frequently.

 

[SIW2]

Hi whs,

You might want to give this a whirl How to use DiskRestore to restore a disk image

 

[whs]

Thanks SIW2. Another to do - LOL. It may come in handy when I transfer Vista to my 80GB Intel SSD on one of my laptops when I am back in Germany. Although I have to find out whether it can move a 150GB partition to an 80GB disk. If not, I'll just use Ghost Copy. That can adjust to size.

 

[SIW2]

To restore macrium image to a smaller drive, use Roborestore - it does a file level restore and recreates the hard links and updates bcd .

64bit Download

32 bit Download

You can run it from within WiPe as well.

It does take quite a while - maybe 4 times as long as normal macrium restore.

There is a much, much easier way:

I assume you have a lot less than 80gb data on your 150gb drive?

Use Disk Management to shrink the 150gb drive to just under the size of the 80gb disk ( 75gb will do ).

Then make a macrium image.

Use Disk Management to extend the 150 gb drive out again .

The macrium image will now restore to the 80gb drive in the normal way.

[ If Disk Management won't allow that much shrink - then use Partition Wizard or Paragon to shrink it. I have done it plenty of times without the slightest problem. You have a backup image anyway. ]

 

[whs]

Sounds like a good idea. Let me study it - I still have 4 weeks. And thanks again.

 

[SIW2]

You'll have to watch the alignment restoring to an SD - I don't think Ghost would get it right.

You might want to run Paragon Alignment tool after restoring . I just realigned all my o/s partitions with it.

 

[whs]

You'll have to watch the alignment restoring to an SD - I don't think Ghost would get it right.

You might want to run Paragon Alignment tool after restoring . I just realigned all my o/s partitions with it.

I know. That's no problem. I will align and quick format the partition before I transfer the system. But thanks of reminding me.

For anybody reading the thread, here is how you do the alignment:

1. diskpart (in cmd)
2. list disk
3. select disk X (being the SSD)
4. clean
5. create partition primary align 128
6. active
7. exit

 

[SIW2]

If you do that first, then restore Macrium image to it - it should retain the alignment - I don't know if Ghost will.

 

[whs]

If you do that first, then restore Macrium image to it - it should retain the alignment - I don't know if Ghost will.

I would assume so since you restore to the partition. But I will ask the Symantec people. They are usually knowlegeable.