Creating a hidden partition

[CF93]

Thinking of creating one to store an image of my OS partition so that if XP ever messes up I can just restore the image.

What I'd like to do is create it and hide it, a la restore partitions you get on new laptops. But how would I go about that? (the drive is not paritioned at all right now) Guess I just use some drive manager software to create the partitions, then something like Ghost in DOS mode to image the OS onto it?

Problem is, I'm not sure:
a) Should it be a primary partition or logical drive in an extended partition?
b) I presume if it's primary, it should not be set to "Active" to stop it interfering with the main OS partition?
c) If I reformat the main OS partition then Ghost from the image back to it, would I need to then do anything else to be able to get it to boot XP?


Thanks.

 

[michael baxter]

Creating boot partition clones on the same drive, and successfuly restoring them later, can be tricky and fraught with problems.

The simplest approach would be to use Acronis TrueImage to create an image of your partition and store it offline, on a USB HD for example.

 

[DustyMiller]

That is by far and away the simplest answer to the problem, and the very one that i use here at work.

120Gb USB hard drives, dont ya just love em

 

[matja]

120Gb USB hard drives, dont ya just love em

No, slow as hell.