Hello guys,


I have an HP laptop that came with Vista Home Premium installed.
Two drivers, the C: driver as usual and a 'D:' driver also known as "HP_RECOVERY".

Now my question is very simple and basic yet I'm baffled not figuring out a way to do it.

Is it possible to clone the image of the OS I'm running currently to that D: drive? What software do I use to do that?



I will also need to mention that the drive size is ~8GB so it's very small. If there is a way to clone the current image to that drive, i will have to extend it and make it bigger, how would you do that also?


Thanks ahead of time.

You can, but it is a very very bad Idea. Unless the D drive is a seperate hard disk drive (HDD). If it is just a partition, and the drive fails you will lose all backups on the D Partition. Most likely the D partition is small (10GB), and is solely for the recovery partion factory Image.

[edit]
In your case it is 8GB in size, and It is not recommended to store anything else in there. Delete it if you want, repartition the HDD, create a "data" drive and store the Paragon Image. But keep in mind, if the drive fails, is corrupted, etc., you may lose all the data on the entire drive.

Vista also includes a file backup Utility-but it will not allow backups to partitions on the same HDD as the source.

Now you can modify the partitions, but by doing so you will prevent the recovery image (if you keep it) from being used, as the Main O/S drive will then be smaller that the image, and any recovery will fail.

Partitioner (bootable) must be burned to cd/dvd:
Paragon Partitioner
BURNCDCC


Free drive imaging software:
Free Drive Backup Express - disk backup software

Now a suggestion-

I would image both partitions (entire HDD), store the backup on an external HDD, or use Multiple DVD's.

then partition the drive as you see fit. In the event of catastrophic failure, you can simply re-image the drive as it was. I suggest weekly file data backups also.

Rive, thanks for the reply.

The partition drive 'D' is extremely usefull in case I would like to recover to factory default, because it literally takes 15 minutes or even less to recover.

Now you provided few installation programs to me.

Let's start with the paragon partitioner, how do I use this? Do you know if there is a tutorial around? If not, bare with me please as I understand how it functions. I downloaded it and I'm currently rippin it into a DVD. I'm guessing this program is usefull for only partionining correct?


For the other program, drive backup express, that's the one I'll use to save the image I need in the end, also if there is a tutorial, it would be appreciated.

PARAGON Software Group - Download Manual

Any other takes on this issue would be welcome as well.
Thank you.

Leave that recovery partition in tact...very handy thing to have and like you said it takes no time to set the PC back up.

The Vista "complete PC backup" is a very sweet feature if you have a second hard drive because it restores your PC to exactly the state it was saved at with all programs installed as it was when it was created but this method does require a good amount of space depending on how much is installed on your PC. This backup is an option when installing Vista accessed via the installation disk, not sure if it can be done from within Vista like system restore does.

Originally Posted by edilee012

Leave that recovery partition in tact...very handy thing to have and like you said it takes no time to set the PC back up.

The Vista "complete PC backup" is a very sweet feature if you have a second hard drive because it restores your PC to exactly the state it was saved at with all programs installed as it was when it was created but this method does require a good amount of space depending on how much is installed on your PC. This backup is an option when installing Vista accessed via the installation disk, not sure if it can be done from within Vista like system restore does.

The OP doesnt have Complete PC backup and restore (not in Premium/Basic), and It cannot be restored from within Vista. You must boot in Vista RE. (If the image is on Disk you also must put the last disk in first)

3rd party imaging is what the OP will have to use, but it is similiar to Complete PC backup.

I forgot it was not in premium/basic...great feature though.

It can be restored from a secondary drive...I did it a few months back when I got a nasty nasty virus. From the Vista Install disk it searched for a backup and located the image file on my second hard drive and restored it on the main drive. My drives are SATA so not sure if that made a difference...might work different for IDE drives.