Sector-by-sector backup necessary for Vista?

I have Vista Ultimate 32bit installed on a logical drive (not on the primary partition). Is it necessary to check sector-by-sector when backing up using the bootable cd to ensure a 100% working restored partition later (since Vista is far more paranoid about protection than XP)

 

S01:

Welcome to the forum. No, Vista does not require a sector-by-sector backup. This backup technique is usually only needed for file systems that TI does not understand. NTFS is definitely understood by TI.

Which version of TI are you using? If version 11 or version 2009 then you should not have any problem restoring your logical Vista partition. Be aware, however, that if you have Vista installed on a logical partition then its boot files are elsewhere on another primary partition. You will need both partitions to get Vista to boot after a restore; i.e. don't restore only the current logical partition to a new disk and expect Vista to boot without its boot files.

 

Thanks Mark, glad to here it doesn't require "sector by sector". Its version 2009 btw.

One more thing: I know it depends on the primary partition's boot files, I wonder though in which cases "MBR and track 0" should be (safely) checked when restoring.

 

The "Track 0 and MBR" option in TI only restores the master boot loader code. A lot of users confuse this with restoration of the disk layout, which it has nothing to do with. The disk layout information is stored in the partition table, which is unaffected by a Track 0 and MBR restoration.

If you are a Windows only user then it usually won't matter whether you restore the MBR or not. The option is present mostly for people who have a different boot manager installed to the MBR so that they can recover their boot manager after a Windows install disk wipes it out. Or, for Windows users whose MBR got damaged somehow.

 

Just be aware that using TI will destroy your partition alignment. Vista uses as 2048 sector (1024KB) offset for the fist partition, which TI does not respect. Your restored (first) primary partition will be offset to an old-school 63 sector (31.5KB) offset.

If you only use a single hard disk, this is just a cosmetical issue. If you are running a striped RAID, or an SSD, this will cause performance degradation.

 

Thanks for your replies!
About partition alignment, I didn't know that -fortunately its just one HDD for OSs and one for image backup. Is there an alternative that does "respect" it?

Actually, I know very little about file systems but I'm sure that -at least Microsoft, has done a very poor job in these areas.
For example, [off topic] I can't believe that indexing is not integral to the file system!!! They make lame search utilities (like "search v4") to try indexing huge disks of hundreds of GBs in parallel, with all imaginable (and unimaginable) consequences! How stupid is that? [end of -off topic]

 

Update:
Just did a restore of a Vista partition on a new drive (replaced a faulty drive on the same system) with the same partition configuration, sizes etc and when started, explorer crashed and prompted me to restart it and then to reboot. I also see in System that it needs re-activation.
I don't know if that is the only cause, but it seems that sector-by-sector might still have its advantages.

 

Using an imaging tool that does not touch partition information has it advantages, too. Other imaging products are discussed here at Wilders in another section:https://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48

 

Thanks!

 

Hello S01,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image

You don't need the sector-by-sector approach.

First of all, please make sure that you are using the latest build of Acronis True Image. If the build number differs from the latest one, please download and install the latest build. You can learn more on how to download the latest build here.

Also, if you performed the recovery under Windows, please use Acronis Booting Rescue Media for the same purposes.

Thank you.

--
Oleg Lee