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Win7 Professional 64-Bit and Full Backups

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Looking for some advice. I have just completed installing all software on a new PC (ASUS P6T 64-bit) except True Image Home. All SATA and USB drives are recognized. Currently I am creating only full backups (no RAID) using a True Image version 2010, build 6053 Rescue Media CD. Actually I'm waiting for the next build before installing it, having read about potential issues with Win 7 64-bit systems which I cannot confirm at this time. I have noticed that windows 7 installs a hidden 100 MB NTFS partition named "System Reserved." My question then is should this partition be backed up when creating only full backups? It would seem to make sense to back it up but I don't know the answer. I believe I have read in other postings that this hidden partition cannot or shouldn't be mounted. I have no way to test it as True Image Home 2010 is not installed and Windows 7 doesn't recognize a .tib file which is understandable at this point. Any comments or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Bruce

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Yes, you should select both the "System Reserved" and Win7 OS partitions when configuring your disk/partition backup. If/when you ever need a complete restore, treat this pair as a unit, and you should be fine.

The System Reserved partition contains Win7's boot manager, boot loader and boot configuration data, so your Win7 OS partition is basically "dumb as a stump" without it, when it comes to booting.

If you want to assign a drive letter to it, you can, but since it's so specialized and small, there's not really much point in it.

Edit: BTW, I also am running Win7 64-bit, and have TIH 2010 installed. For the most part, it has been working well for me, though I do not use the Non-Stop or One-Click features.

If you ever want to install Win 7 fresh, if you format the hard drive first, that 100mb partition will not be created. The boot file will be on the main C drive like all previous Windows versions. I don't know what the intent was that the developers built that feature in, but personally I like the way the previous Windows handled the boot process - everything on the C partition.

It's a necessity if you ever intend to use the BitLocker filesystem encryption that's available in the Business & Ultimate editions, as the boot process must start from an un-encrypted partition.

Personally, I have no reason to use BitLocker at this time, but I like the idea of the System Reserved partition. For me, it makes sense to keep boot configuration separate from an OS installation.

But if you already have it, trying to rid yourself of it after the fact is probably more trouble than it's worth. If Win7 is your only OS and you ever have to do a complete restore, and you *don't* want System Reserved any more, you can restore the OS partition (be sure to mark the partiton as "Active" on restore) and then run the Win7 system recovery environment. It should be able to locate the OS and patch things up, taking System Reserved out of the picture.

I wish to thank you all for your comments. I have set up my desktop so that it looks like it did using WinXP so my wife should like it but behind the scene I find it very different and it will take some time to get used to it. So far I like it.

One of the last steps to try is installing TI 2010. I have been hoping that a new build would be released soon as it has been several months since build 6053 was posted.

One thing that I have noticed on the registered products page is the ISO file has been updated but but the release date was not updated. I find this very strange.

Thanks again,
Bruce

garryj wrote:
It's a necessity if you ever intend to use the BitLocker filesystem encryption that's available in the Business & Ultimate editions, as the boot process must start from an un-encrypted partition.

Personally, I have no reason to use BitLocker at this time, but I like the idea of the System Reserved partition. For me, it makes sense to keep boot configuration separate from an OS installation.

But if you already have it, trying to rid yourself of it after the fact is probably more trouble than it's worth. If Win7 is your only OS and you ever have to do a complete restore, and you *don't* want System Reserved any more, you can restore the OS partition (be sure to mark the partiton as "Active" on restore) and then run the Win7 system recovery environment. It should be able to locate the OS and patch things up, leaving System Reserved behind.

Thanks for the explanation - I knew there was a "method to the madness". I don't intend to use BitLocker either.

In addition to garryj's comments, having a separate boot partition for a computer is an excellent idea if you are going to install more than one operating system.

How many posts have been on this forum from people who had XP, then installed Windows 7, then deleted their Windows XP partition and, along with it, the files needed to boot Windows 7? If you have a boot partition you can just nuke and replace any of the installed operating systems with abandon without worrying about taking out the files needed to boot the PC.

Hello all,

Let me comment this situation.

The comments from garryj, DwnNDrty and K0LO are correct. Generally, we have heard about boot issues for the cases when customer restore the system without this 100 MB partition. So you should include it to each backup.

Anyway, please feel free to ask moderators or our experienced members for assistance, we would be glad to help.

Best regards,