Should I restore my operating system drive from CD or with windows running?

I have made a backup image of my operating system partition (c and want to restore it. Should I use the BartPE bootable DVD for this or can it be done while my PC is running under windows. Can the system be restored while running?

 

When you restore an Active partition Windows cannot be running from the partition being restored because one of the first things TI does is delete the partition being restored.

If you try to run TI under Windows to an active partition restore, after it collects the data concerning the restore it will boot into the regular TI Linux rescue environment which is the same as on the TI CD.

Non-active partitions will restore while TI runs in Windows.

 

SeekForever,
Thanks for the information.

So, my choice would seem to be either use the ATI Linux rescue disk (or its equivalent by trying to restore an active partition under windows) or use my BartPE with the Acronis plug in. Since reports in this forum indicate restores can be much faster using BartPE that uses windows drivers etc. then it would be the preferred method. Would you agree?

 

You are correct as far as the choices.

Try the Linux environment and see if it's fast enough for you and restores correctly. It's easier to make a new Recovery CD when you upgrade to a new build of TI than it is to make a new BartsPE disk. So, unless the BartsPE disk has advantages, the Recovery CD is my preferred restore environment.

 

I agree. I use the TI recovery CD rather than the BartPE CD even though I have both. IMO, the TI CD boots up a little faster and my restores are fast since my primary backup is a second internal HD in the PC.

 

Thanks - I will follow your advice.

 

Use recovery CD Mike. Stay out of our storm today!

 

Mike,

The recovery cd does boot a lot faster than the BartPE cd. However, depending on where your backups are stored, it may be time well spent booting BartPE. On my computer, BartPE performs about 2 times faster on USB and 3 times faster on interal operations. Depending on the image size, this can save a lot of time. Also, I have my RAID, network and cd drivers installed in my BartPE cd which give me options that the TI rescue cd doesn't. Another thing I like is being able to switch between DD and TI as needed without rebooting when I'm adjusting partitions and changing setups.

 

Tests on my system revealed that backup/restore operations using BartPE and the Acronis CD were about the same speed when applied to my second internal HDD. However, I also have a USB drive and here BartPE is the clear winner. So.... I guess I will keep them both around.

Time to test at home and inside - thanks winter storm!