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Make Custom Restore Partition

  • 18-03-2007 2:56pm
    #1
    Michael Collins
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 1,851 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    Over the last few years I must have reinstalled various Operating Systems a hundred times, and each time I die a little more...just the whole procedure is so tedious, I kept thinking there had to be a better way.

    Then I saw that Dell had this partiton on the Hard Disk of their new PCs that could restore the entire OS to it's shipped state in a few minutes. So my question is:

    Is there some kind of program I can get that will let me install XP & all my desired applications (one last time) then take an image of it, then...whenever i want...just lash that back onto the hard drive and have a nice new clean install without having to do all the tweaking I usually have to do to get the OS how I like it!

    I know Norton Ghost can kinda do this, but I'd rather if there was some kind of "Boot Manger" I could get, anyone hear of any such program?

    Cheers


Comments

  • #2
    conzy
    Subscribers Posts: 6,408 ✭✭✭conzy


    Im looking for the same thing, I know I can make a restorable partition with Acronis True Image or something, but i dont know how to make it restorable via a Boot menu like Dell have...

    Afaik Dell use some symantec Bootloader...


  • #3
    TonyM.
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 590 ✭✭✭TonyM.


    I have solved this problem years ago, i just keep a second hard drive with a clean install of windows and office which i update every so often with the latest drivers and i know its going to work unlike some software solutions.


  • #4
    Michael Collins
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 1,851 Mod ✭✭✭✭Michael Collins


    TonyM. wrote:
    I have solved this problem years ago, i just keep a second hard drive with a clean install of windows and office which i update every so often with the latest drivers and i know its going to work unlike some software solutions.

    And then do you just use something like Ghost to copy that to your first drive?

    The only problem I have with this method is that it requires you to either
    1) Set the computer up to dual boot two XPs or
    2) Have a computer that can boot to any of it's HDs


    The problems are:
    1: means that if for whatever reason the first installation gets damaged, the second one won't work AND the two HDs arn't an exacty copy (one has to be the master booter)

    and

    2: not every computer has the ability to do this, like mine.


  • #5
    TonyM.
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 590 ✭✭✭TonyM.


    why make everything so complicated i just made two seperate instalations at the beginning and unpluged one, every month i hook up disc 2 boot from it and update it with a flash drive and install any new programmes i have.
    If you partition your drive you will loose about 25% of your storage add that to buying software and it becomes cost effective to just buy two drives .

    If you really want disc 2 to be an exact copy and you have XP pro. just do a complete backup of disc 1 burn it on a cd and restore it on disc 2. ( never tried to do it but it should work in theory) you can use the files and setting transfer wizard as well.
    I know if my computer went down right now i could be back on line in five minutes it works for me.


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