Windows 7 Back up

[saioct]

Hi,

I recently purchased HP laptop which has 2 drives. In "D" drive mainly meant for HP support assistant and back up. Can i format that drive and use it as a normal one. I usually take back up with my external hard drive frequently.

Thanks Joe for your reply. Its a partition drive ( D drive) and where primary drive is C. Yes i need to another copy of my restore disk even though i had original given dvd's.

 

[Joe S]

Is it a physical second drive or just a partition? Make sure you have made a set of restore disks before you do anything else. It should be in the HP stuff or look on their website for instructions. If it's restore files and you don't have a suitable backup you will be in real trouble if you need to reinstall.
Joe

 

[Medico]

Create a system Image using any of the fine Imaging apps (Acronis True Image Home or Macrium Reflect are 2 such apps) then open Disk Manager and format the partition. This will leave you with a ready made Data partition.

Imaging is a much better method to back up you entire system as it makes a "snapshop" of the entire system including Win 7, all installed apps, customizations, everything. You can restore the partition to it's exact condition in less than 10 minutes should disaster occur.

 

[patcooke]

Create a system Image using any of the fine Imaging apps (Acronis True Image Home or Macrium Reflect are 2 such apps) then open Disk Manager and format the partition. This will leave you with a ready made Data partition.

Generally sound advice but as this is itself an image for recovering from you would be best off running the utility which comes with your pc to create the recovery disks which Joe refers to. I also always make a second copy - than you can use the drive as joe suggests for data or you may remove it and merge it in with any existing drives.

Generally speaking I recommend 40 - 100GB for the system partition for operating system and applications programs only and a second partition for storage of user data files.

 

[saioct]

I have a wmare with 150 GB sap IDES installed. If I take system image backup, will this 150 GB vmware hard disk will also be taken as a backup along with vmware software and other windows installed programs? Waiting for your comments