ATIH 2011 - Backup of System Reserved Partition for dual boot configuration
SUMMARY: I have dual boot setup with Vista 32-bit on C drive and W7 64-bit on D drive. I want to deselect the Vista drive (300GB) from my backup options, but ATIH warns me against this, because the system reserved partition (100MB) may be required in the event of restoration.
DETAILS:
I have two hard drives.
Vista 32-bit (C drive) was the operating system of choice for the past couple of years.
I recently decided to upgrade to Windows 7 professional 64-bit on the second hard drive (D). And to ease the pain of transition, I decided to go for a dual boot configuration, to enable me to wean myself off of Vista gradually.
Clearly, as Windows 7 becomes the operating system of choice, I don't really care to backup my old Vista system any more.
But when I try to backup my W7 drive ONLY by deselecting my Vista drive from the backup options (ATIH), a warning comes up advising that this is not recommended, because my System Reserved Partition may be required in the event of restoration. The system reserved partition is not visible in Disk Manager.
I do not want to include the whole of the vista drive (300GB) in my backup, when all that is required from that drive is the system reserved partition (100MB).
I am NOT using bitlocker.
BOTTOM LINE: Am I going to have problems with restoration if I deselect the Vista drive from my backup, so that the only partition that gets backed up is the one containing the W7 operating system?
If this is going to cause problems, then how might I go about preserving the system reserved partition? I notice in Disk Management that the vista partition is active and primary, while the W7 partition is just primary - is it simply a matter of changing the W7 drive to active after restoration?
Thank you for the instructions Mark. I had an interesting, long day, to say the least. My Vista drive actually died in the course of events. Talk about a close call! To cut a long story short, it looks like I eventually came through in the end, and I couldn't have done it without EasyBCD. Acronis needs to partner up with these guys. Anyways, it's all good now. Thanks again. I'm sending off a humble contribution as thanks to EasyBCD for the terrific free program they provide.
sorajets:
That's good news! I'm going to have to try out EasyBCD myself someday. I've always done it the "hard way" by directly moving files and manually editing the BCD. Did you recover the space formerly occupied by the Vista partition?
No my vista partition is well and truly on its last legs. It's in its death throes. Takes ages to load up, and if you click to run something, it hangs. Talk about catching it in the nick of time! Unbelievable. Having said that, it seems taht I can still access files, like word documents, stored on it. But I'm not counting on that. The drive is physically on coronary bypass.
It may be that there is only a problem with the Vista installation and not with the partition itself.
Once you have copied off all of the data that you want to save then you can delete the partition, assuming that you don't want or need Vista anymore. You can then delete the partition with Windows 7 Disk Management. Then if you create an image of the Windows 7 partition and restore it to the entire disk you will accomplish two things. First, Windows 7 will perform better if its partition is located at the beginning of the physical disk where disk access is faster. Second, you'll gain additional space for Windows 7.