backing up recovery partitions of Acer laptop?

backing up Acer laptop?

Hello there... This is my first post, hoping someone could help me.

I recently purchased an Acer Aspire 4937G with 500GB. I wanted to try out Windows 7 but I didn't want to delete Windows Vista so I wanted a dual boot.

However, I can't install Windows 7 coz I already had 4 partitions, as seen here.



From what I gathered so far, Acer makes recovery partitions which I need if I'm going to use the recovery DVDs.

I intend to delete one partition and I plan on deleting drive D and replacing it with another where I could place Windows 7. I want to create a backup / image of my HDD such that when something goes wrong i could use the backup to restore my HDD (esp the recovery partitions) so that my recovery DVDs would work.

Here are my questions:

1. should I use Acronis True image or Acronis Disk director to do this?

2. which would be more appropriate, cloning or image backup?

3. If I clone my HDD with less than 100GB used space, would the result be 500GB or 100GB?

4. If I use backup, could I use this image to regenerate those recovery partitions and thus be able to use the recovery DVDs when problems arise?

5. If I use backup, should I make a separate image of each partition then an image of all partitions, or would an image of all partitions suffice?

6. Could Acronis true Image or disk director back up Acer MBR?


Sorry if I'm asking too much, i don't know much about these stuff. Advanced thanks guys

 

Just a follow up question, could Acronis back up only 3 out of the 4 partitions?

 

dknight178,

Lots of questions, but that's OK. If you are interested in multi-booting and keeping your current partitions I suggest BootIt NG. You can have up to 200 primary partitions and that makes running several OS easy. With BootIt NG you have a boot manager, partition app and image/restore program, all in one. Have a look at some of the videos on this web site to see what can be done.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/index.htm

I'd move your data files (video, photos, music, email) from the C: drive to the D: drive so that you can backup the OS separate from the data files. Then you can resize the C: drive smaller.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.htm#note13

A lot of study is needed before you make any decisions.

 

Thank you for the reply. Does this mean I could exceed the limit of 4 primary partitions? And would doing this not affect my previous partitions esp. the PQSERVICE partition? And is this safe?

 

Also, will installing bootit and Acronis true image not result into conflicts?

 

BING is installed to a 8 MB FAT partition and doesn't run in Windows. It won't conflict with any other imaging app.The first version was released in 1995 so it's established technology.

You can have over 200 primary partitions but only 4 primary partitions can be in the MBR for any one booted item. For example, say you had 4 OS, call them A B C D. Say you also had 4 data partitions, call them E F G H. In your Boot Menu you could have these combinations...

A E F G or
B E F G or
C E F G or
C F G H etc

Only your chosen 4 (or less, 3, 2 or 1) will be seen in Windows/Linux for that booted OS. You don't include other OS in the 4 so other OS are hidden.

I can't answer your question about the PQSERVICE partition as I'm not familiar with Acer computers. I know with Dells, if you do any partitioning, with any app, the restore partition may stop working. But that shouldn't be a problem if you have your own imaging software.

 

Okay, I'll read more about this software...