Creating A Media Less Recovery / Installation Partition
Nov 2, 2009
After purchasing my new Student Version of Windows 7 Professional I was keen to do a full system format, and start fresh. I no longer had a need for the Dell Recovery Partition which contained Vista (and a decent amount of bloatware), so I removed all partitions from my disk to start with a blank 180GB HDD.
I thought to myself, if I am going to start fresh I might as well do things right and mimic Dell’s setup with a recovery partition of my own. Now to be fair, this isn’t an extremely wild idea as there are plenty of manufacturers and software companies who provide such solutions very simple and easy. Everyone knows that Norton Ghost is fantastic, and Acronis TrueImage is right there with them. Of course you can simply run-up Imagex along with WinPE and sysprep a WIM to re-image your HDD at anytime for a free solution.
However, all these solutions require that you have some sort of recovery media for boot time operation, and the Imagex solution isn’t for the faint of heart. Now I do a lot of travel, and I wanted a solution that didn’t require me to look after a bootable DVD or USB stick, and because I am working with a laptop I didn’t have second disk which I could boot from via BIOS settings. My recovery solution had to be a Primary Partition on my only HDD with boot time options (in case my system is completely rooted.)
This turned out to be quite the challenge, as Windows 7 / Vista no longer support the simple easy boot.ini file that allows you to manually adjust boot time parameters. Instead Windows 7 / Vista have moved onto some fancy form of bootsect / BCD (Boot Configuration Data) which is very difficult to edit manually. Thankfully all of my hard work paid off and I now have a self sufficient system with all the diagnostics and re-imaging tools I could ever need. And thanks to Windows 7’s new Backup and Restore options, I was also able to include a system image which contained all of my settings and applications so that I don’t have to sit through 10 hours of Windows Update again.
What I ended up with is a Primary partition on my HDD that is a full and complete bootable version of the Windows 7 installation media. When I choose this partition at boot time it is exactly as if I have inserted the Windows 7 Install DVD into my disk drive! I can utilise all of the tools in the Windows Recovery Console (which includes the option to restore from a previously created system image), or I can simply re-install Windows 7 from scratch - without affecting my restore partition or boot menu variables!
I recently upgraded my Acer 722 netbook to an 265GB SSD and installed Windows 7 on it. I was wondering if there was a way to create a partition for a recovery environment (just in case something happens). I have a system image of this pc saved, however I feel it would be best to also create a recovery partition.
I've created the recovery DVDs, but unbeknown to me at the time - you're only allowed to create one set. What i'd like is to put this onto a USB stick.Currently i have:DVD #1 - Boot Media: (312mb)The boot DVD containing "BOOT" folder, BootMgr file which is quite small & Winre.Wim at about 300mb.DVD #2 - Data DVD #1: (4.03GB)factory recovery folder, recovery folder & Autorun fileDVD #3 - Data DVD #2: (3.87GB)factory recovery folder & recovery folder (NO autorun file)DVD #4 - Data DVD #3: (3.04GB)factory recovery folder, recovery folder, LenovoQDrive file, qdrive icon file.My USB stick is 16GB capacity.So basically i'd like to make the USB stick the recovery media. I can't do this from the laptop as Lenovo only let you create one ......... so how can i do this
I am not sure if this is possible however is there a way of installing Windows 7, ctivating it with my OEM key and then created a recovery partition just in case I am ever in the situation where I need to run it using a hot key during boot?
I have a computer with the F10 option when I first turn on the computer. The hard drive failed so I have replaced it and installed windows 7. I am wondering if I can create a recovery partition when I turn on the computer and use the F10 option to restore back to when I first installed windows 7?
I want to do some partitioning of my hard drive and ideally would like to reclaim the space used by the recovery partition. If I copy my recovery partition (20GB) to an external HD or other media and restore it later if necessary will that work? Is there some hidden something I should know about that will come bite me in the a** if I do that?
My boot menu originally consists of Vista (C:) and recovery partition (D:). To install Windows 7, I shrank C and made a separate partition (W:)
Now I have 3 partitions: Vista (C:), New Simple Volume (W:), Recovery (D:).
I installed Windows 7 to the (W:), and it reboots a few times during installation. My situation goes as follows:
Initial installation---Reboot (1 of 3)---bypasses the boot menu and continues installation---Reboot (2 of 3)---boot menu shows up and I can choose to continue the installation of Windows 7, or go to Vista. When I choose Windows 7, it finishes installation---Reboot (3 of 3)---No boot menu is shown. Computer boots into recovery partition.
Why is this happening? Repairing Windows 7 or Vista using recovery partition doesn't help either. It basically just forms a loop by booting to the recovery every time.
Interestingly, the only way I can start Vista again is by reinstalling Windows 7 and wait until the boot menu screen show up after the reboot (2 of 3).
I tried to break the disk on several parts with Partition Manager, but at the middle of the process it froze and I forced the computer to restart. After resetting it says to "Insert the Recover Disk or other Recovery Media". After it I put the disc with the Windows 7 and at the menu where you have to choose to move (by keyboard arrows) to installation, the keyboard does not work, so I can't move to the installation and it jumps directly to the Local Disc. I also tried Windows XP disc and the same problem - there is no chance to reinstall the system. The keyboard is working in the BIOS, but after does not work.
I installed Windows 7 on a formerly Vista Business computer. Now I would like to know, does a clean installation of Windows 7 automatically create a recovery partition or backup? Or do I need to format the Recovery Drive D(from the Vista installation) and make a backup on that drive (D)?
No install disks, no manual just letter telling me to protect customer data entire drive was wiped clean including Recovery partition. Checked disk management it shows all 4 primary partitions used: 200mb (boot), 169gb (C drive), 281gb (D drive), 16.5gb Recovery partition. I tried F9 when booting (nothing) just boots into OS. This setup is completely useless to me. Called Asus ($50.) for install disk they said call Microsoft, call Microsoft ($99. new disk) they said call Asus, I've already paid for Win 7 once and i'll be damned if I pay for it again. Typical corporation bullshit.What I want to do is install Win 7 on 1st part, 2nd (shared NTFS part), Ubuntu on logical partitions.
Trying to create the 3 recovery discs for my new computer with Windows 7. It keeps asking for a clean disc even though I am putting in new formatted disc. I was able to create the System Recovery Disk with no trouble.
I have Unallocated space at the very end of my hard drive, even after the 25gb Recovery Partition, this is due to copying my old hard drive onto this new one via Clonezilla, and it automatically keeping the unallocated space at the end. Can I either move the unallocated space around the Recovery Partition, or delete the Recovery Partition altogether? Sorry if I am being a little unclear.
I've gotten to the point where I need to just reinstall windows completely on my Asus G74SX (too many problems, I want to start fresh.). I encounter an error 1029 with Asus's recovery disks that I made when I had windows working: it says it is recovering all the way to 100% then doesnt work. I am in the process of trying it again so I'll see if it actually managed to wipe my hard drive like it said it was doing, and maybe if it did actually work and reinstall windows.However, I'd like to be able to get into the recovery partition because I would prefer restoring it with Asus as they recommend me to. However, when I hit F9, their target to get there, it doesn't do anything and just reloads the boot screen, with the Asus logo on it. I don't have an actual Wndows recovery CD so that's not an option, and at this point since my hard drive has likely been wiped by these recovery DVDs, I don't think going into Ubuntu and fixing the MBR will do me much good anymore.It may be worth noting that before I last restarted, I marked the Windows partition as active because of a tutorial here, making it so that recovery partition isn't active anymore.
I installed 7 on my Dell laptop that has no CD-ROM drive. I created a partition (D and set it to Active, installed from that partition, doing a quick format over Vista (C.
All was fine and dandy, but I was getting some boot option, I'm assuming because the Active drive had the install files on it. No problem, I'll set the C: partition to Active.
Reboot, should go away right? Wrong. "Bootmgr is missing."
No problem, there has to be a way to fix this. I'll put the CD in and recover... Or not!
What I have is a 2 gig USB thumbdrive, is there anyway to fix this problem with that? If not, what are my options.
Using the factory Dell restore to get Vista back won't work, I bought the laptop secondhand and they screwed that up.
Today I wanted to create a partition on my WD 3 tb hard drive, so i opened disk manager and shrunk the current partition creating unalcolated space when i right clicked on it to create the new partition all the options were greyed out so i use partition magic to create the partition shortly after BOSD with error 0x00000078 or 7b not sure happened too fast and i have no clue how to get my computer working again, start up recovery has proved useless. i tryed the drive on my old computr and it worked just fine the new partition was there and useable. so can someone please explain how to fix this or if thats not posable please explain a way to get the inportant data(pictures word documents ect.) off my computer so i can reset it to factory settings without looseing anything?
I have recently purchased a new Samsung NC110 netbook with Windows 7 Starter installed. However, I find it runs fairly slowly so I intend to install XP on it from an old installation disc.However, when I first started my netbook I set up a partition with 40Gb allocated to the C drive and the remaining 240 to a D drive. Not being that computer savvy I got confused and despite having a portable hard drive for back up and the computer having a separate hidden restore partition, I went ahead with this.My question is that if I start again with XP can I reset the partition to a single C drive with separate restore area?
I'm thinking of installing Windows 8 on my second hard drive. I'm downloading it right now.
I would like to create a new partition for it so that it isn't on the same volume with my data files. I've done this often using 3rd party software but never using Windows 7 disk manager.
I have my D: drive backed up and will update it before I try anything but is this reasonably straight forward or are there pitfalls I should look out for?
I could always format the disk create the partition and then after installing Windows 8 restore all my data to D: again, but I'd like to keep it as simple as possible. There's over 500 gigs of stuff on my 1TB drive.
I'm having a few issues with a second computer I have and want to reformat. Sadly I don't have an installation DvD laying around anywhere. So I need to make one so I can re-install after cleaning it out. I've tried to find some info on this, and perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places, but I can't find anything of use on it.
I have a new desktop computer with Windows 7. How might I create a DOS partition in the unused portion of the new hard drive. I would like to be able to use QuickBasic v4.5, and able to share the files I create in the DOS volume with the primary NTFS 64bit OS volume.
I want to install a Linux Distro on my laptop. I will post as much details as possible so that you can guide me about how to free up some space so that I can create new partitions for my Linux Distro.I currently use the Linux VM images in VMWare Workstation, however there are certain tasks I need to perform which require, Linux to be installed as an OS instead of running as a VM.I have an HP Laptop which came installed with Windows 7 Home Premium OS.
There are 2 partitions:
C: Drive (Windows Installed on this one) D: Drive (Recovery)
DiskPart output:
Code: DISKPART> list volume Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 0 E DVD-ROM 0 B No Media Volume 1 G DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
[code]....
The column alignment is not proper, but hope it's clear that which is is the System Partition and which is the Boot Partition.Now, how do I free up some space on my HDD to be able to install a Linux Distro?I need about 25 GB of Hard drive space for linux including the swap partition.
My friend got a Dell laptop without any OS. I have a Win 7 disk but during the installation, the PC cannot find hard disks at all. I need help in creating a local disk C. The size is 640gigs and I want to use all of them.
I have used a DOS utility called copywipe 1.14 to wipe a hard drive for a clean installation of windows 7. However, the utility has not only removed all data from the hard drive, it has also deleted the primary partition and master boot record as far as I am aware. create a primary partition on the hard disk and get it active and ready to accept an installation of Windows 7. I have a bootable USB stick with the windows 7 installation files and prefer to use this for the install as the DVD drive is working inconsistently.However, I think that I need a bootable USB stick with the FDISK and FORMAT programs on it before using the other USB stick with the windows installation, or at least that is my understanding? If my understanding is correct, how do I get a bootable USB stick with the FDISK and FORMAT programs onto it?
I'll make this one short. I had some time ago a GX623 laptop that had a hidden partition from where I installed win7. If anything went wrong, i just asked the laptop on startup to run the recovery manager, and boom, factory settings in 20 minutes flat (cleaned HDD). Now I am planning to get myself a reduced version of the 780DX MSI laptop (normally 2 hdds in raid 0), and i want to get a SSD as boot and a fw extras drive. The problem is i wanted to have that hidden partition on the SSD (and i plan to buy it apart and put it in myself once i figure out the laptop is stable). How to create your own hidden OS install partition...
is not empty - it is almost 80% full but when i click on it there are no files. Tried - to the extent of my knowledge - to see if the files are hidden but didn't reach anywhere. Tried a restore point but that didnt work either.
Not sure if this is in the appropriate area, sorry about that but i am having said error when trying to install/repair/remove anything with windows installer ?
I have a workstation on a gaming rig. I work and play games on it. I wanted to ask if I could separate my work files and GAMES setups (installed files) so they don't harm my work data.I do play games with cheats/hacks and they mostly contain malicious files which can damage my operating system. I want to create a seperate DISK image like Vmware in which I can run games without being worried about any harmful files accessing my work partition.
I have started the installation process of windows 7 on a clean 1 TB hard drive. In order to ensure expediency of the read time of my primary drive, I choose the custom installation. When I did I partioned the drive as 250GB & 700GB. Hoever it also created a 100MB system partition on its own. It never did this in Vista. Is it suppose to do that?
I have my HP Laptop which came with Windows Vista as the OS. I want to upgrade to Windows 7 so I bought Windows 7 from my local store.I entered the disc and did boot from CD. It reached to the page where it shows the disk partition. I deleted the partitions and created new one. However, whenever I create the partition, it creates a primary one and gives me error saying Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition.
