Making a partition with a OS backup

[TangoJuliet]

Any software out there that will do this? I know a lot of new laptops have a separate partition on the hdd that will allow them to reinstall from the image.

Subject hardware is a 7 year old Dell P4 notebook with a 80GB hdd running win xp.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Well, you could boot in to a linux live cd and essentially dd one partition to another equally or larger sized partition. Or use ntfsclone.

If you wanted to switch the active windows partition, you'd have to do some bootsector fixing, though.

http://www.backuphowto.info/linux-backup-hard-disk-clone-dd
http://man.linux-ntfs.org/ntfsclone.8.html

Using dd, piped through gzip works well for making a compressed backup image, and is easy to restore.
http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/ddcommand.htm

Other decent software I can think of that backup partitions and drives are Clonezilla and Acronis TrueImage, but I haven't really used them. So I don't know if they can save to a new partition or what.

As far as actually creating/shrinking/moving the partitions go, you can try a gparted livecd.

 

[rudeguy]

Well, you could boot in to a linux live cd and essentially dd one partition to another equally or larger sized partition. Or use ntfsclone.

If you wanted to switch the active windows partition, you'd have to do some bootsector fixing, though.

http://www.backuphowto.info/linux-backup-hard-disk-clone-dd
http://man.linux-ntfs.org/ntfsclone.8.html

Using dd, piped through gzip works well for making a compressed backup image, and is easy to restore.
http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/ddcommand.htm

Other decent software I can think of that backup partitions and drives are Clonezilla and Acronis TrueImage, but I haven't really used them. So I don't know if they can save to a new partition or what.

As far as actually creating/shrinking/moving the partitions go, you can try a gparted livecd.

you referenced linux but he said he was using XP, does that matter?

 

[TangoJuliet]

Well, I am going to do a clean install. After the OS is set up then I'd like to make a clone of it and put it on the 2nd partition. I'll make the 2nd partition when I do the clean install so I guess I need software that can do the clone.

 

[corkyg]

Just clone the original HDD to a separate drive. The put it away and chances are, you'll never need it. You can also clone to a large bootable thumb drive. The you can redo it anyway you like.

 

[Gooberlx2]

you referenced linux but he said he was using XP, does that matter?

No. He just wants to make a recoverable image of the drive after a fresh install, so any suitable tool should work. I mean, he could use a Windows Live environment too (like UBCD4Win, which has DriveImage XML for disk cloning).

I just suggested a live linux distro since they're a bit more easily available (unlike BartPE stuff since you have to build the iso) and possess a wide range of tools. I also figure why pay for some solutions (Acronis) when he can easily do it for free.

 

[KeypoX]

A dell laptop came with one such partition. And it seemed to also come with software to update that 'recovery' partition. Very interesting, as all you have to do is hit F8 and folllow prompts to completely restore. I would like some software to do this on my own.

 

[KeypoX]

Is any backup software able to integrate into F8 windows recovery?

 

[Gooberlx2]

Is any backup software able to integrate into F8 windows recovery?

On Win7, the F8 recovery console is able to restore from a system image made through Windows backup.

 

[Modelworks]

OEM computers usually put the recovery in a special partition called HPA. Normally that is not viewable from windows to keep people from damaging the files. You don't need to use that method though . There are other ways like using a boot cd.

Macrium Reflect full version adds a boot menu option where every time the pc boots you will get the boot manager that displays windows 7 regular boot as default or you can select macrium reflect to restore a image/backup.
http://www.macrium.com/

Cost $40 but they also have a free version , but it does not integrate with the boot menu.