I'm starting a fresh install of XP SP2 and Win7, and I wanted to make disk images of each install to make reformatting quick and easy, but I've not done this before and had a few questions which I didn't see the answers on a brief forum search here.
Plan: I have 64 gb SSD and a 1 Tb split into 120 gb and 880 gb partitions. I'm going to put Win7 on the SSD and XP onto the 120 gb. So I'll start with XP, then install 7 for a dual boot system. Then I'll install the "base" software like Office, WinRAR, uTorrent, printer drivers, etc, as well as setup personal settings like wallpapers, bookmarks, remembered passwords in firefox etc in each OS, before I make images of both partitions. I'm thinking of just keeping a copy of both images on the 880 gb partition (where all my other data like music, documents, movies etc are kept).
Questions:
1. Now if I do all of that, when I want to reformat say Win7, I just need to boot into XP, and reimage the 64 gb SSD, and when I reboot, and start up the newly reimaged windows 7, it'll look and act like the day I made the disk image? And vice versa to reformat the XP partition?
2. What would be the size of these image files? Like on the 120 gb XP partition, with XP and even with some software installed, it would be under 10 gb, but if I image the whole partition, is it going to be 120 gb big even if most of it is empty?
3. I don't expect any problem with XP, since it'll just be used to run older games and some VPN software for work that doesn't play well with 64 bit windows 7. On my Win7, I do use homegroup sharing with my laptop/PS3 etc of data file folders from the 880gb partition, will all that be preserved after a win7 reimage?
When I boot into a reimaged Win7, even if it is 2 years from now, will it just update to the new time and date, maybe run windows update for any new security updates, and keep all the other settings like folder sharing settings intact? Obviously as time goes on, the 880 gb data partition (which will of course have no programs of any sort installed on it, just various data files) will fill up, and change all the time in terms of size and content, will the reimaged boot drives have issue with that?
Thanks in advance for any help to these questions. I seem fill up (esp Win7) my main boot partition with random useless stuff in fairly quick order, and get the urge to reformat every 6 months or so, and if the above plan works, it would make it a 1 click type of operation instead of an all-day job reformatting and reinstalling all the software, drivers, settings.
Plan: I have 64 gb SSD and a 1 Tb split into 120 gb and 880 gb partitions. I'm going to put Win7 on the SSD and XP onto the 120 gb. So I'll start with XP, then install 7 for a dual boot system. Then I'll install the "base" software like Office, WinRAR, uTorrent, printer drivers, etc, as well as setup personal settings like wallpapers, bookmarks, remembered passwords in firefox etc in each OS, before I make images of both partitions. I'm thinking of just keeping a copy of both images on the 880 gb partition (where all my other data like music, documents, movies etc are kept).
Questions:
1. Now if I do all of that, when I want to reformat say Win7, I just need to boot into XP, and reimage the 64 gb SSD, and when I reboot, and start up the newly reimaged windows 7, it'll look and act like the day I made the disk image? And vice versa to reformat the XP partition?
2. What would be the size of these image files? Like on the 120 gb XP partition, with XP and even with some software installed, it would be under 10 gb, but if I image the whole partition, is it going to be 120 gb big even if most of it is empty?
3. I don't expect any problem with XP, since it'll just be used to run older games and some VPN software for work that doesn't play well with 64 bit windows 7. On my Win7, I do use homegroup sharing with my laptop/PS3 etc of data file folders from the 880gb partition, will all that be preserved after a win7 reimage?
When I boot into a reimaged Win7, even if it is 2 years from now, will it just update to the new time and date, maybe run windows update for any new security updates, and keep all the other settings like folder sharing settings intact? Obviously as time goes on, the 880 gb data partition (which will of course have no programs of any sort installed on it, just various data files) will fill up, and change all the time in terms of size and content, will the reimaged boot drives have issue with that?
Thanks in advance for any help to these questions. I seem fill up (esp Win7) my main boot partition with random useless stuff in fairly quick order, and get the urge to reformat every 6 months or so, and if the above plan works, it would make it a 1 click type of operation instead of an all-day job reformatting and reinstalling all the software, drivers, settings.
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