What to select when backing up entire hard drive

I want to do a complete hard drive back up of a new Dell computer right out of the box. When using the wizard, I need to check the box that will backup the entire hard drive. With that window open under wizard, which box should I check, it offers me the following under MY Computer....Basic Hard Disk, First Hard Disk Tract, MAster Boot Record, Local Disk, Recovery Disk (D, and OS (C.

Any other information would be greatly appreciated!

 

Select Basic Hard Disk.

This should include First Hard Disk Track, Master Boot Record (MBR) and the three partitions in the disk. "Local Disk" is the diagnostics partition, Recovery Disk is the partition with the image to restore the factory configuration, and OS is the boot partition that contains Windows. Verify that all this is checked.

If you eventually restore this image, the diagnostics partition (first partition) may not work.

 

Curious, as to why the diagnostic partition would not work?

... Bill

 

Robin,

Your Statement "If you eventually restore this image, the diagnostics partition (first partition) may not work." How can I then do a backup so that I can restore my computer to it's original state? I am backing up to an Ext. hard drive(Maxtor).

 

Oem recovery partitions will sometimes use odd partition types/structures to hide/protect them.

The oem might have an app. to update the CHS values in the partition table after restore if you need it.

 

It is not very important to have an operating diagnostic partition. Diagnostics can be run from a boot CD.

But if the program used to create the image identifies corectly the partition, it should work after a restore. I thought the the diagnostics partition was "special" but maybe this is not so, it is a FAT 16 partition.

In previous Dell models there were also problems with the Recovery partition, but this has apparently changed in the recent models.

 

Well I did get an email back from Paragon and here is what they recommend...

Private communication removed per the TOS. Feel free to use you own words for the recommendation.