Is an image of a fresh os sensible?

Anchorman

Anchorman

Anchorman

Associate
Joined
6 Sep 2010
Posts
28
Getting a new rig sorted out over the festive season, and with it I'll make the changeover to win7 64 from vista 32. I've always liked the idea of having an image of the os partition but never got round to trying it!:o

Can I just partition the hd into c/d at say 50gig for c (os only!), and the remainder for d? And does this really mean I can just load up a fresh os image if windows gets borked - and keep programs/files intact?!

Sorry for sounding a bit thick - havent needed to do something like this since xp came out (despite all the hate, vista hasn't failed me yet - just not very well optimised!), and have time on my hands at the moment being off work.:(

Cheers!:)
 
I've never done it personally, but yes you can do this quite easily. Install OS and all programs, set it up how you want it and then it's just a matter of creating an image of it and reloading it when you like. The reason I never did it is that If your hardware changes then it would cause a lot of hassle with the drivers and by the time that's sorted you may as well have just reinstalled in the first place.
 
How many programs do you have that you wish to install? (in GBs)
How much external storage space do you have at your disposal?
Which version of Windows 7 have you got?
 
Anchorman said:
Can I just partition the hd into c/d at say 50gig for c (os only!), and the remainder for d? And does this really mean I can just load up a fresh os image if windows gets borked - and keep programs/files intact?!
Click to expand...

You will most likely have to reinstall most of the applications on D drive unless they were installed when the image was created, in which case most of them will work (unless they've updated in between and the update also affected something on C Drive). You are right though that it would allow you to quickly restore the OS drive. I'd recommend putting Steam on D drive and changing your music and documents folders/libraries to D-drive also (as well as backing them up externally). This is essentially how my PC has been working for years.

Anchorman said:
Sorry for sounding a bit thick - havent needed to do something like this since xp came out (despite all the hate, vista hasn't failed me yet - just not very well optimised!), and have time on my hands at the moment being off work.:(

Cheers!:)
Click to expand...

It doesn't take as long as you'd expect regardless of how you are doing it, Ghost, Acronis and even Windows 7 backup are all very good. Personally I always loved Ghost but recently I have been using Windows 7 backup for my own PC backups and know it's easy to restore should you completely muck up your PC *whistles*
 
Ok, thanks for the replies!:)

Don't really have too many things on the computer anymore, currently using less than 150gb (games/progs/pics) so if I have to backup d aswell it wouldn't be hard I suppose. What sort of size would you recommend as a purely os partition for c - is 50gb enough?

I'll be getting the home premium version i think, and probably oem for cost (tend to keep rigs for a while!):p

Don't have external space yet, might add some in - not sure it will be necessary though with a tb at my disposal.:eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom