Posted on 03/15/2014 7:57:07 AM PDT by tbw2
If you have software such as Acronis True Image, you can make a compressed (much smaller) backup of your system drive to another drive or a second partition on your only hard drive.
You can then later mount that image and READ only from it to copy your data files back onto your new win 7 partition. By keeping that image backup you can at anytime restore your XP partition if it is needed for something you overlooked.
I keep a second (cloned) unmounted (without a hard drive letter)”backup” hard drive of my boot drive so if I hose up my main drive I can immediately boot into the backup drive via a BIOS hard drive boot priority change and then have everything immediately available to quickly restore my main drive.
Acronis is a great program and if carefully used can do a lot of good and save tremendous amounts of time.
A compressed copy of ones main drive doesn’t have to be as large as the main drive to hold the main partition, it only needs to be large enough to contain all of the data from the main drive.
In any case, I recommend keeping all data files on a separate hard drive so if the main drives fails or gets hosed you still have the data safe.
I do install and uninstall a lot of trial software and by keeping a bootable clone copy of my main drive I can quickly revert back to pristine condition.
Since all my data is on a second drive, I can restore the main (OS) drive and immediately have all of my current data available.
Another advantage of keeping data on a second drive is if the main drive fails or gets corrupted your data is safe.
I keep everything from my main machine, non OS drive, copied onto my media server and everything from my media server on my main machine as well. That way I have redundant backups of everything.
I do have two powerful machines each of which contains over 15 TB of hard drive space. I do not use or recommend raid for my data files but I do assign my hard drives to various file types for videos. If a single drive fails, I simply capy back from the backup copy on the other machine and I am good to go.
using something as raid 5 requires all the assigned drives to be powered up even if one only wants to retrieve a single file. Using my non-raid setup only requires the single drive to be up and running. which uses less electricity and gives a longer hard drive life.
My way IS more expensive but safer in the long run and avoids losing everything if more then one drive fails at a time.
Tech list important PING!
If you do a usb stick type install of windows 7, you can grab the WSUSoffline program directly from MS, pull the install.wim out of the “sources” folder, mount it using dism (DISM GUI will save your fingers from command line), and inject the windows updates. That may be what you are referring to. Drop the install.wim back on the USB and you just saved a massive amount of time waiting on 4 hours of updates. DISM is included for free as part of the WAIK tool set.
I really like windows 8 but it’s far from perfect. That scenario I listed above is not possible with a retail install because Microsoft encrypts the install.wim and it reads as install.esd. Dare i even mention the total, absolute, boondoggle of a clean install of the 8.1 upgrade from 8. There are work arounds using KMS activaton keys to get through the install and it activates with your win8 key, but still, how stupid that you have to do a workaround. My custom built desktop couldnt even be upgraded due to errors and issues.
My latest windows 8 toy is a Dell latitude 10 pro tablet. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this thing. It only has a dual core atom and 64 gig SSD, 2 gigs of ram, but it rocks for work. Im shocked at how snappy it is. My boss complained that it was slow, but I dont notice any hesitation or issues. I carry all of my client documentation on it and its nice being able to pull this out then hauling around my old laptop.
My fiance and I nearly fight over this thing when I get home. I set up some of the new Dell Venue 11’s for a client and they were killer but run over $1000 depending on options. I think you can get latitude 10’s for around $300 to $400 with the dock. The Netflix windows 8 app is awesome for those who are into home theater PC’s. We watch all of our television using Xfinity’s website on the Metro version of IE lends itself very well to home theater use. The big buttons and interface are a welcome change.
Lately we started playing with the Metro cooking app. Im amazed at what is on here and it is literally a free, full blown cooking and meal planning assistant. There are how to videos on all aspects of cooking.
Here is one last tip for those following this thread. Have you heard of Office Online?
https://office.com/start/default.aspx
If you sign in with a hotmail, outlook, xbox, or windows live account you can access a web version of Office for free. Great for those out of a job and needing to update their resumes. Im constantly amazed at what Microsoft gives away for free. Im no MS fanboy but their free tools and services have helped me advance my career. I went from $12 to $25 an hour in a few years thanks to their programs like Microsoft Dream Spark.
bkmk
thanks for the legwork Tophat. Bump
Will likely go the new box route, no patience to chase down new drivers and what not.
“Core2Duo, but now wonder if buying a W7 DVD just in case was a waste of time.”
Core2Duo would run W7, but a bit slowly, though the other issues would still remain.
You can always sell the W7 retail copy on ebay if you go the new box route.
Bookmark
Buying a Mac to run Windows increases his cost an order of magnitude and doesn’t gain him a thing.
I know you guys enjoy doing the buy a Mac thing but it really isn’t helpful.
“Buying a Mac to run Windows increases his cost an order of magnitude
Well, of course if cost has to be your only consideration, you should go with a cheap windows box or old computer with linux... or a Yugo.
I have two macs. One is marginally functional after 4 years. The other is about a year and a half old, it has been in the shop once for major hardware failure within a month of purchase and it is randomly giving memory and graphics errors now.
I just don’t see Mac hardware as being that much better and the software is a personal preference thing.
I spent the extra money for Macs, it did change one aspect of my purchases, I bought an upscale Windows laptop, I really did appreciate the backlit keyboard and superior screen on the Mac.
Sorry to hear of your computer troubles. I had Windows computers for 13 years. I had continual problems. I switched about 6 years ago to a Mac. Counting bride and kids, we have 4 operating with zero problems. No virus yet. No malware. No hardware issues. They just work. Between work and home, I no longer spend countless hours keeping everyone’s windows machines running and clean. I’m thankful.
Somebody bent the aluminium unibody on our first Mac, nobody would fess up to it, but it was enough to scratch discs, since kids don’t seem to use discs anymore, it became their computer. I don’t know what they did to it but Safari won’t work anymore and I can’t get it to install any alternative browsers, it is basically a door stop.
The new Mac had a bad graphics card from day 1. Apple took care of it but because of logistics, we were without it for about 2 weeks. Every now and then it won’t boot and beeps and error code that I think means bad memory and even with the new graphics card it will occasionally explode with a screen full of confetti.
I bought a new Asus laptop last year. I don’t care for Win 8 but It has performed admirably.
The OP is asking an opinion about an $80 upgrade and you gave him a $1500 answer.
I spent about $850 on the Asus, fit and finish, screen, performance and keyboard, it is in my opinion the equal of our $1500 Mac (not considering the Mac’s hardware glitches). Some may quibble back and forth about operating systems but I think that is just personal preference.
“The OP is asking an opinion about an $80 upgrade and you gave him a $1500 answer.”
Best answer.
Unfortunately your sample size was 1mac with hardware problems. Mine is 4 macs no problems with hardware or software. Still small. If we expand the sample size to a larger scale, macs just work.
... And if you don’t value your time at zero, money is comparable.
I can’t wait to delete my windows partition once my transition agreement at work is complete.
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