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General discussion

How to make disk from restore partion after upgrade to 7

Jul 8, 2010 2:39AM PDT

Wasn't sure where to post this one. I originally had Vista Home 32-bit on my Acer Aspire PC. I upgaded to 64-bit Windows 7 Pro, which basically was a clean install, but kept my old files (in a windows.old folder) and Restore partion. The restore partition has no drive letter and is about 9.7GB. I remember always getting a message to make a backup or disk with Vista, but never did it. My question is, is it too late to make a restore disk or restore image of the Vista partion after upgrading to to 7?

I never did it because I didn't know how, nor did I want to have multiple DVDs to install. I have since purchased a 320GB external specifically for backups and images. I want to just image that partition to that drive where I could go back to Vista if necessary - and then reinstall the 7 upgrade. I'm not sure which method to use to accomplish this. And I'm not familiar with how to use images to resore an OS.

I thought I lost the recovery partition when I upgraded to 7. I just realized that it's still there. Any advice on the best way to ensure I can recover if/when my HD fails?

Discussion is locked

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Hidden partition.
Jul 8, 2010 5:22AM PDT

Usually that partition becomes available early on in the boot up sequence. For example on my system I am offered "Press F11 for Recovery", or similar. If I did that, then the process would begin to return my computer OS install back to factory state.

If the upgrade to Windows 7 did not remove that partition, nor remove access to it through the boot up process, then I assume it is still available to you.

But note, if you do that, you will lose everything on the disk, and will be taken back to where it was when you first started using it. However, if that works, then you can create those recovery disks as given by the instructions you had then.

Any recovery DVD's you create should not be more than 2 DVDs. One for the OS and software, and te other for drivers.

Mark

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I think I've got this all wrong
Jul 8, 2010 11:53AM PDT

I think the hidden partition isn't ment to be moved to a new drive. Once the dtive fails, you restore from your image, but the hidden partition dies with the old drive.