Plugging external USB storage (Win7)

[tcsenter]

I bought a Lenovo laptop and want to make a backup/image of the factory HDD, so that I can restore it later if I want. I removed the HDD and plugged it into an external USB enclosure but have not yet plugged it in to a PC.

When plugging a blank or newly formatted USB HDD into the PC, Windows seems to always write something to the drive. e.g. a hidden 'system volume' and 'recycle' folder always appears on that volume, even if you disable the Recycle Bin and System Restore for other drives.

Any way to stop Windows from writing something to the drive or making any changes after/upon plugging?

 

[JoeBleed]

I've never noticed the recycle bin showing up unless you delete something. But you can delete it if it does show up.

As for system volume, that may be nothing to do about that. If the lenovo you bought is windows vista or newer, it's going to have one there anyway. I've never seen a new one get created. I don't know of an easy way to delete this, but you DO NOT want to or it will likely wreck your os on that disk.

I just formatted a disk in a esata cradle, ejected it, and now reconnected it and windows didn't put a system volume directory on it.

 

[tcsenter]

Do you have Folder Options ticked/unticked to 'show protected system files' and 'hidden files and folders'? I'm not 100% sure that the Recycle and System Volume folders are actually a real data alteration on the disk or whether it is some linked icon that Windows just displays for the volume but actually isn't on the disk?

 

[corkyg]

Consider this . . . when I get a new laptop, after initializing the OS, etc., I clone the original drive to bigger, faster better media (as in SSD.) I then remove the original factory HDD complete with unadulterated OS, etc., and store it in a safe place. It is always available to be put back in.

 

[tcsenter]

Well I sorta wanted to use the HDD in the external enclosure that I put it into, as a backup or external storage device. I do have SSD that I intend to put in it after cloning the factory disk to it, but I wanted to keep an image of the disk, too.

 

[corkyg]

That's OK. All you need is another HDD - clone the original to it and put it away.

 

[tcsenter]

Srsly, Lenovo? S-E-V-E-N partitions on the drive, five of which are hidden?

 

[JoeBleed]

System Volume is Where restore points and maybe other important files are Kept. It will probablyonly show up if a restore point or Volsnap Snaps that volume, I would't Worry about it.

So what are all the hidden partitions for? if you figured it out. I thought 3 on HPs Were bad.

 

[tcsenter]

So what are all the hidden partitions for? if you figured it out. I thought 3 on HPs Were bad.

Well it appears Windows 8.1 itself creates three pre-defined system partitions when installing the full version on a blank drive, not counting the OS partition or any others you create. So I guess Lenovo only added two more for the system recovery/restore functionality.