Can I use an image to restore my PC, without deleting the hidden partition?

ShimSham

My PC has a hidden partition (instead of a restore disk), that can be used to reset the computer back to its original state. My PC is acting up and has been infected by viruses so I am going to reset it.

If I make an image of my PC hard drive,(when it is, in what I consider a perfect state) with software such as Acronis and if I were to restore that image, would my hidden partition be deleted?


The reason I ask is because my PC is old, and the company the put it together went bust some years back, and I'm afraid if I balls up the imaging, I would be unable to find all the necessary drivers that are on the hidden partition.

daily_2

Yes.

You can either image a partition, or the whole disk, the latter is better, but it will be twice the size. If you store the image on DVD's or external hard disk, it won't affect the existing restore partition

andy2004

ShimSham wrote: »

My PC has a hidden partition (instead of a restore disk), that can be used to reset the computer back to its original state. My PC is acting up and has been infected by viruses so I am going to reset it.

If I make an image of my PC hard drive,(when it is, in what I consider a perfect state) with software such as Acronis and if I were to restore that image, would my hidden partition be deleted?


The reason I ask is because my PC is old, and the company the put it together went bust some years back, and I'm afraid if I balls up the imaging, I would be unable to find all the necessary drivers that are on the hidden partition.

If you make a image using Acronis NO the hidden partition would not be deleted if you only selected the partition to back up aka C drive
I use acronis once a week to backup my C partition< aka windows onto the same harddrive but different partition E.
However if you selected the Entire drive to backup then YES it would also wipe over the orginial image, i would suggest you select the partition when creating the image file, note: with acronis you have 4 compression modes, no compression and 3 other modes,
depending on the data to be compressed you can get a 50/50 ratio,
my current windows xp pro with service pack 3 is 8gb and gets compressed to just under 4gb using the default mode.
Also remember when restoring the image to tell it to only restore the C: drive,
as a side note when you install acronis you dont need to create a bootable recovery disc as you can actually reboot from windows.
load windows, run acronis, select recovery, choose image file, choose partition, click finish, will tell you it needs to reboot, click ok, computer will reboot into acronis and do the recovery.
I would still create the bootable cd just in case of a power outtage.