A better idea would be to store the image on an external or secondary hard drive. What the restore partition does not protect against is a hard drive failure - if the drive fails, you can't restore. Keeping an image (TrueImage, Ghost, etc.) on a separate drive is good insurance against a drive failure and a fantastic time saver. Once you have your system set up the way you want, build an image to another drive. If the original drive fails, boot the TrueImage or Ghost CD, and simply restore from that image.

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@Dave Slomer wrote:

Is it possible to use Partition Magic or Norton Ghost or similar software to add programs to the Restore partition [Dim 8400] so that the added programs are ALSO reinstalled the next time I press control-F11 and follow through with restoring?

 

I have been to www.gooddells.net and he makes me think what I want to do isn't out of the question, but I'd like to know that somebody has actually DONE it. In fact, he tells how to repair damaged Restore partition and suggests retrofitting PCs that didn't originally have one.

 

Thanks, Dave

 

No, you cannot add to it.

You will need an external drive large enough to hold an image of your internal drive. You can compress the image but won't get 2:1 compression, so it's a good idea to make the external drive as large as the internal, if not larger.

If you don't have Ghost, buy a copy of Acronis True Image - it's more reliable, easier to use, and less expensive (license costs about $35 from newegg.com). You can prepare a bootable CD with TrueImage, and make the image to the external drive.

If you have a major failure on the internal drive, boot the CD, and restore the image in about 30 minutes or so - vs. hours of manually reinstalling (or using the Dell system restore and losing everything you've added or changed).

Thanks ejn63 and RickMktg.

I like ejn63's external drive solution but don't have one. I assume I could also make Ghost image onto CDs, but I don't have a feel for many it would take or how big a pain that would be. But I guess either way would be better than using the Setup CD to reinstall Windows. I have a Dell Dim 8400 OEM XPSP1.

I also don't know how I would do this sort of thing. I'm out of my element here. Never even seen G-g-g-g-ghost.

Let's say I get this small [?] external drive. As soon as it arrives, do I use Ghost or whatever to make an image of the entire disk? Or just the partition Windows is in, including all of drive C:? Or just the Windows folder?

And once I make that copy [of whatever I'm supposed to make a copy of], how do I use the copy later if I need to restore the image? Boot to the external drive, run Ghost, and Ghost will know what to do with the image?

Bear with me. Learning's fun, but it makes my brain sore.

Thanks, Dave

So when I redo my system I could Ghost an image to my 30gig HD as a backup?

Ejn, I just read about Acronis Secure Zone, "a special, hidden system partition for storing disk and partition images. Ordinary applications can't access it, for image security purposes. If you create a zone, it will be listed after all PC disks available for image creation and restoration."

Am I crazy or is this exactly what Dell Restore does only this is better since you CAN add whatever you want to this hidden partition?

Secure Zone is part of the Acronis True Image 8.0, right?

I also just read that the Secure Zone can be resized. Does Acronis True Image 8 have a partition manager that does what Partition Magic 8.0 [for example] will do? Or does it do enough of this sort of managing that I don't necessarily NEED Partition Magic?

It looks like even copying the image to CDs would be relatively painless according to the manual.

It may be important to know that I have a 160GB SATA drive that after a year is still under 20GB full. Originally ordered 80GB. Woulda done fine.

I've read the first half of the manual. It looks like exactly what I want. I'm gonna download a trial. But please answer my questions, briefly if you want. Especially if I've gotten carried away and assumed wrong stuff.

THANKS A LOT, Dave Slomer

Yes, Acronis SecureZone is the same thing as Dell's recovery partition. And yes, it can be added after the fact (the partition can be resized by ATI) - I just checked my own copy of TrueImage on this system.

Finally, yes, you can create an image to a 30G drive as long as the image is smaller than that.