W7 64bit partitions backup

Hi All,

I have just installed W7 64bit on my pc, and I have realized that during the installation process it creates 2 partition for its use. The first one is around 100Mb, the other is the remaining space on the HD.

My original plan was to have W7 on a partition and MyData on onather partion and use Paragon HDSuite to create a partition copy of the w7 system.
However since I have now discovered that W7 requires two partition, in case
i need to restore my system what do I need to do?

Do I need to back up the two partition separately and restore them back?
Any clarification would be appreciated

Thanks

 

Actually, W7 works just fine from a single partition, but if you let it set itself up, it will create two, as you found out.

You can avoid this by starting over and partitioning the drive yourself, with Paragon or any other utility you care to use, including Windows Disk Manager. I prefer Paragon's free Partition Manager, because in Vista and above, Windows Disk Manager wastes about a megabyte between the MBR and the first partition, and between any subsequent partitions. XP's Disk Manager also works great.

So, if you don't mind going through the install process again (and it really only takes about a half hour, unless you've already made a lot of tweaks, in which case first run the Transfer Settings utility that's built in and save your settings on another drive), delete all the partitions on your new drive, create the OS and data partitions the size you want, make sure your OS partition is set as active (Paragon's PM or XP's DM can do all this for you), and then reboot from the install disk and tell it to install into the OS partition, and it will just use that one partition. Your life will be much simpler thereafter.

 

Yes , you would normally only need to restore the main partition. Image the 100mb separately, just in case.

If you want to get rid of the 100 mb, In Disk Management, rt click the main 7 partition and mark it active.

Boot the 7 dvd and select "Repair my computer " ( It's at the bootm of the "Install Now screen ).

Run startup repair 3 times.

Restart and the main 7 partition is now the "system" partition - you don't need the 100mb one anymore.

I have written a tiny app. to change system partitions in a few seconds - it saves all that running of startup repair.

 

Hi,
When I installed W7 on the pc. I had a single big partion of my HD. Despite that, W7 created the 100MB and the 2nd system partition.
I don't mind to set it up allover again.

Are you suggesting that if I partion the HD with HD Management Suite, W7 will not make any additional partion on installation?

Thanks

 

>"When I installed W7 on the pc. I had a single big partion of my HD. Despite that, W7 created the 100MB and the 2nd system partition."

Apparently you did not have the partition marked as active. If it's formatted NTFS and marked active, Win7 should not create the 100MB partition. You can read a fairly comprehensive account of what happens with various combinations of partitions and free space here:

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/articles/windows_seven.html

The important thing is to have your partitions set up and formatted, and the first one marked active, before you start the install. WRT the extra partition, it doesn't really matter what program you use to make your partitions as long as you don't do it during the install itself. The reason I avoid using Win7's DM for partitioning is because of a different quirk, namely it leaves about a MB between partitions instead of having them right up against each other. You can read about that at the same website:

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html

That article is about Vista, but Win7 does it the same way.

Hope this helps.

 

If you already have an Active partition on the hard drive - 7 will use that as the system partition, and will not create it's own 100mb partition.

 

Hi,
Thanks to all of you.
The problem was that I had partitioned the harddrive using W7 installation CD, so probably it did not mark it as active.