Windows 7 Installation Question.

Aiadi

Hi, here is a question to the W7 experts out there. I know how to do a clean install of W7 without the dreaded 'system reserved' partition that is about 200mb. You may say that there is no problem having this partition but it actually conflict with Acronis True Image drive backups big day as well as being useless (for me at least). I use this method:

http://www.bizzntech.com/2010/01/08/how-to-delete-windows-7-system-reserved-partition

Now my question is that as I have an image (Norton Ghost one) of an installation that actually contains the 'System Reserved' partition as well as the main Windows partition, is there a way to restore this image combining the two into one single partition or is this just impossible?

Thanks in advance to anyone who could offer some advice.

John_Gray

Aiadi wrote: »

my question is that as I have an image (Norton Ghost one) of an installation that actually contains the 'System Reserved' partition as well as the main Windows partition, is there a way to restore this image combining the two into one single partition or is this just impossible?

What you are asking is whether you can combine these two partitions into one? The answer is clearly no, and, even if you could, Windows would want to see the System Reserved area as a separate partition.

I can't believe that Acronis TrueImage is so crass as not to be able to cope with a/the standard Windows 7 partition organisation! Do you have a recent version which alleges Windows 7 support? I have no trouble at all with Shadow Protect...

Aiadi

John_Gray wrote: »

What you are asking is whether you can combine these two partitions into one? The answer is clearly no, and, even if you could, Windows would want to see the System Reserved area as a separate partition.

I can't believe that Acronis TrueImage is so crass as not to be able to cope with a/the standard Windows 7 partition organisation! Do you have a recent version which alleges Windows 7 support? I have no trouble at all with Shadow Protect...

Thanks John, I thought it would be difficult if not impossible and I am using the latest version of Acronis. It copes well imaging all the partitions on a disk and with restoring individual partitions. The problem starts when you want to restore them all on a clean drive and that is when Acronis messes it completely out and assigns the letter C to the reserved partition (probably because it is the boot one) and another letter to the main partition which completely ruins the system for me. There are also other well documented problems with the system reserved partition and Acronis (or other backup methods) from my searches on the net. As I don't have a recovery CD and my recovery disc is a backup image with the two partitions then it seems I can only recover using the original structure.:mad:

Richie-from-the-Boro

The only really safe way with TI is to tick both box's when asked by Acronis and put both back, it's a long time ago now but I found the restore to be flaky with TI 9 times out of ten it was ok [ yes Win7was only Beta at the time and it was an older version of Acronis ] but anything less than 100% is no good so I reluctantly became a Bill Gates convert.

From the early days of the Beta programme I experimented with Win7's own backup and it works fine. It was not the extra partitions that bothered me it was that after two decades I was going to move away from my rock solid belief in DOS based backup / restore. I back up every Fri, takes only minutes and is rock solid on the restore using Win7's own restore disk.

I use a second SATA for weekly backups, and an additional to my NAS every couple of months or so for insurance. Last point I have never needed to restore Win7 - ever!

kwikbreaks

This is covered in the Acronis knowledge base...

http://kb.acronis.com/content/3648

Are you saying that this procedure doesn't work?

I am an Acronis user and if it doesn't then that means I need to look for an alternative which would be a shame as I've used this product for a long time.

Aiadi

kwikbreaks wrote: »

This is covered in the Acronis knowledge base...

http://kb.acronis.com/content/3648

Are you saying that this procedure doesn't work?

I am an Acronis user and if it doesn't then that means I need to look for an alternative which would be a shame as I've used this product for a long time.

Yes I have tried exactly that but for some reason

"After the restore the System Reserved Partition will be hidden and the system partition will have the correct drive letter"

is not happening for me and I get the partition letters all mucked up. I may be doing something wrong but I just don't like being forced to having this 'system reserved' partition.

Richie-from-the-Boro

kwikbreaks wrote: »

This is covered in the Acronis knowledge base...

http://kb.acronis.com/content/3648

Are you saying that this procedure doesn't work?

I am an Acronis user and if it doesn't then that means I need to look for an alternative which would be a shame as I've used this product for a long time.

kwikbreaks :beer:

I don't know mate at the time I used v9, and for the reasons I gave in #4 I never migrated to the newer version

The page you quote appears to me to be a whole~other~question. That page appears to be a wallkthrough on restoring a Win7 made backup with Acronis.

I've only had a cursory glance at it I will however have a proper look later.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Looking inside the physical backup folder on my backup hard drive it contains a further 3 folders and one file, as follows :

- Backup 2010-08-14 204822
- Catalog
- SPPMetadataCache
- MediaId

The main folder [ Backup 2010-08-14 204822 ] does indeed contain two *.vhd files for the C: and its Win7 created hidden other partition

Going back to my #7 comment that the link "" appears to be a walkthrough "" I would now describe it as a workaround where the v10 Acronis uses a Win7 created backup file to restore with.

If I was to review my [ non ] use of Acronis I would need to do a lot more reading on this and certainly do more than one trial before I would be prepared to risk my data. I have discussed this hidden partition / backup system with others in the past on this forum, but it was some time ago.