Creating my own recovery partition/drive

[hoorah]

Over the years, I've accumulated many hard drives I would normally trust data on but still work and have been lying around. I've got anything from 6GB to 160GB that I'm probably not going to need with the capabilities of my NAS.

So, since I also build/repair most of my families computers, I usually throw the extra drives in theirs and have them be backup drives (I know, I know, its not really a backup if its in the same machine...)

I got to thinking - I wonder if I could use the extra drives to setup my own recovery partition similar to the way OEMs do it. With a 6GB drive, I would just have the windows install files, but with a 160GB drive I would have room for several options, such as the windows install files, a 'first setup' image, and maybe a weekly system image depending on how much data the user has.

I guess I could just try tinkering around with boot loaders until I find something that works, but I thought I would ask here and see if anyone has gone down this road before and could give me some pointers. Thanks.

 

[LowTech]

1. "I wonder if I could use the extra drives to setup my own recovery partition similar to the way OEMs do it."
Yes, you can. I personally haven't try it because I don't find it useful for myself. I came across a video on youtube that show you how to create a recovery partition like the OEMs does it. Just search for "create recovery partition."

2. "with a 160GB drive I would have room for several options, such as the windows install files, a 'first setup' image, and maybe a weekly system image depending on how much data the user has."
I do too have a lot of extra old hdd. Instead of using the drive to store image file of the system, I used the old drive to clone the OS drive. If something happend, I can just plugin the cloned drive and continue my work. At night before going to bed, I clone the OS from the old drive back to the newer hdd.