User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation

SHPWin7 said:

Couple of things. First, Britton, RAID 0 is actually a bit of a misnomer. There is no "redundancy" (ie no mirroring). So, you get speed but you actually increase your data loss risk (because if one of drives go, you're screwed). That's why I've never used it. I want speed for my OS and programs and will use a smaller, faster (pricier) drive for that. For my data I'm all about protection over speed.
Melting, again, I think you'll be fine. I've restored images of my OS to a new drive and it still booted and found the D partition on another drive. I've also restored both images to a new drive and also cloned a drive split into 2 partitions per Kari and it worked.
Good luck.

Yeah, I realise there lack of redundancy with RAID 0, I just didn't want to loose the extra 1.5TB. I have offline backups for my data already, so that seemed like a waste of a drive.

I've just found a new issue with this. With My C: drive on the SSD, and the D: drive (with user profiles) on the RAID0, I tried to do an image of the D: drive by itself with Windows backup, and was unable to. It will only let me image both the C: drive and the D: drive together. So I did that, then booted from the repair disk, to see if the restore would let me select individual drives to restore. That was a little ambiguous. There was a checkbox that allowed me to re-partition the disks as per the backup, and that opened up an interface which allowed me to select the disks to be re-partitioned. But it wasn't clear as to whether that would prevent those drives from being restored.

Is there a better way to take an images of the raided disk only, without needing to image the disk that the C: drive is on? Perhaps a third party application? I should point out that the RAID disk is GPT, not MBR.

As far as backups are concerned, I believe it is a known issue that you cannot use the Windows backup utility. I would recommend that you take a look at either Acronis or Paragon. I've used Acronis for years. While it doesn't do everything it's supposed to, it does do reliable image backups.

On my latest computer, I've got an SSD dual booting Mac OS Lion and Windows 7. My data files are on a regular HDD. Acronis can't deal with Apple (although it will recognize and backup from a GPT drive). I discovered Paragon Backup & Restore 11. It does images of the entire drive and has already saved my bacon a couple of times. I'm very impressed with the software. I'm pretty sure you can find a free verson as well. Look for Paragon Backup & Restore 11 Compact.

Obviously, I recommend that you find one and TEST IT right away.


Good luck.

Hi Kari and Britton30,

Further to my posts #243 and #246.............done some follow-up tests which I would like to share with you FYI and comments.

Test 1
Used the ISO (W7 Home Premium x64 bit) previously mentioned in my earlier posts to do a completely clean install and activate the OS by using the OEM product key supplied with the laptop.................once again followed the tut to the letter and bingo, as expected all was well and the new location of "Users" and / or "ProgramData" was exactly as per the tut.

Test 2
Used exactly the same laptop, wiped the HD, used the rescue disks previously created by me at Day 1 from the original OEM install, re-installed the OS from the rescue disks, and at the appropriate stage followed the tut instructions once again, and boom, as expected no error messages, but nothing was moved whatsoever.

Test 3
Repeated Test 2 but at the appropriate stage, this time inserted the ISO mentioned in Test 1, and then followed the tut instructions once again, and boom, as expected again no error messages and again nothing was moved whatsoever.

Conclusion
So, all tests carried out on a clean HD, and the only test that resulted in success was where there was no OEM input. I think Test 3 is enlightening...........even if in Test 2 "install.wim" was not present (which in truth it must have been) and that was the cause of the failure of Test 2, "install.wim" was certainly present in Test 3 via the ISO, and the failure still occurred nevertheless.

On the face of it, we would appear to be no further forward in solving my particular problem, except we do know for sure now that:

• failure is not due simply to the OS being W7 Home Premium x64 bit on a laptop.
• failure does have something to do with the OEM install setup.
• your theory of a service (or process) being the culprit is still on the table, but if correct, it seems that any such service (or process) must be as a result of the OEM install setup procedure itself.

I wish I had the answer!! :mad2:

Request for Information
I would be most grateful if there is anyone at all out there who has successfully achieved this tut via an OEM install / re-install OS W7 Home Premium x64 bit on a laptop, then please post the exact circumstances of how you managed to achieve it.

Thanks.

Amicus.

No worries Kari....

Cheers,

A

SHPWin7 said:

As far as backups are concerned, I believe it is a known issue that you cannot use the Windows backup utility. I would recommend that you take a look at either Acronis or Paragon. I've used Acronis for years. While it doesn't do everything it's supposed to, it does do reliable image backups.

On my latest computer, I've got an SSD dual booting Mac OS Lion and Windows 7. My data files are on a regular HDD. Acronis can't deal with Apple (although it will recognize and backup from a GPT drive). I discovered Paragon Backup & Restore 11. It does images of the entire drive and has already saved my bacon a couple of times. I'm very impressed with the software. I'm pretty sure you can find a free verson as well. Look for Paragon Backup & Restore 11 Compact.

Obviously, I recommend that you find one and TEST IT right away.


Good luck.

When you say it is a 'known issue' that you cannot use the Windows backup, What do you mean? That you cannot use it when user files are located on another drive? If so, I was not aware of that prior to me going through all of this.

I have successfully used the TUT on a clean install of Win7 to a new SSD and to relocate the user files to a seperate HDD D but now when I try to make an image of C Windows backup is forcing me to include the D drive. Why? I want to image only C with my known good OS and programs in case of a reinstall.

Kari said:

rtmeek said:

I have successfully used the TUT on a clean install of Win7 to a new SSD and to relocate the user files to a seperate HDD D but now when I try to make an image of C Windows backup is forcing me to include the D drive. Why? I want to image only C with my known good OS and programs in case of a reinstall.

In case of a reinstall, backed up programs can not be restored, at least not so that they are fully functional. You need to reinstall your programs, too.

On the other hand, if you want your image to work, the system to be fully functional after image recovery, it has to include all system files and folders. Because ProgramData and Users folders are essential to a functional system, you need to include them in your image. This automatically means you need to include the drive where any system folders are located to your image, in your case D:.

Kari

This confuses me a bit as I am in no way an expert on how Windows 'works'. But I would have thought that if I had a good image of C (with only OS and Programs) and needed to install the image back to C -due to something being corrupt in windows- that I could simply install the image to C to fix the OS problems and that windows would still know that the user files and ProgramData was still located on D and all would be well. But you're saying that's not the way it works?

Ted