Manually setting up recovery partion on Windows 7

[elvair]

Step 1 - Say for example you ve acquired Windows 7 [any], install all the necessary udates through thinkvantage ultility. Setup a bitlocker correctly through windows utility.

Step 2 - Is that possible as a next step to setup rescue and recovery in a way so that it creates this separate bootable partion and would restore the whole system to whatever state you left it in step one ? I skimmed through documentation for rescue and recovery. It seem quite complex but as a power user I should be able to understand all those instructions if I read it all in details sufficiently carefully. It looks like that it should be possible to do it all manually. However the question is - has anyone actually implemented it succesfully ?

Having thinkpad is great, but would be vrey nice to have all those software features that thinkpad should be coming with as well.

Please advise ! Thanks you very much !

[Ideasmiths]

Step 2 - Is that possible as a next step to setup rescue and recovery in a way so that it creates this separate bootable partion and would restore the whole system to whatever state you left it in step one ?

Welcome to my interest too For the 7 or 8 odd years in the past and the 10+ lenovo models i have went through, i had always wanted to try this too. The reason is that I experiment with a lot of software on my laptop and some of these are 'mean' so I would have to reinstall everything.

In my experience and so far my conclusion, it is faster as a power user to do a fresh installation (FI) and then update all the drivers compared using the RnR or window build in way. The drivers/software are so regularly updated, in most time it make more sense to install the new ones instead of doing a RnR install (with old softare), then update it. The time taken to download the new drivers/software updates is the same time it takes to do a FI then download.

Back to your question, in RnR, after step 1 and an ideal setup is achieve, you can backup the whole thing on a DVD RW/ external harddisk and in the future, press the blue button and reinstall using that image. Alternatively, win7 also have the backup option which essentailly do the same thing.

In all my experiements, my conclusion is still to go the Fresh installation way

[jguidera]

Easier to use the windows backup and recovery tool as it now creates an image of the machine (basically creates a VHD image of the drive or drives in question). Then just boot from the Windows CD/DVD and perform a recovery. Advantage is that it will restore the image of the machine that existed at the time of the backup.

[Ideasmiths]

Easier to use the windows backup and recovery tool as it now creates an image of the machine (basically creates a VHD image of the drive or drives in question). Then just boot from the Windows CD/DVD and perform a recovery. Advantage is that it will restore the image of the machine that existed at the time of the backup.

I had never tried that recently, but in the past I did experiment a few times (vista based). My challenge is

If lets say a few months have passed after the backup of the original setup

a) Time the recovery + update all window/software/drivers to the latest version
b) Time a clean fresh installation of win7 + install software/drivers

In my experience, process b is faster and 'cleaner'. BUT, I do that almost very month, so I have lots of practise, for beginner it may be slower. But I like the 'clean' bit. I do that because I experiment with a lot of software installation/deinstallation etc.

[elvair]

I see.

So I understand that it is a possibility. How exactly do you install all the relevant drivers onto it? Via thinkvantage system update ? I take it, that it should be relativelly smooth.

The key reason why Im intersted in lenovo original RNR is because I'm abit of perfectionist and I would like to be able to recover everything wihtout the use of any external media. Of course I d still need to use external media in order to back my data. however thats not a concern. I would like to be able to completelly recover my system with the press of 1 button and be able to do it from hdd hidden partition. So that if my system runs into any kind of trouble, I symple click RNR. Then click system update to get completelly recent updates and then throw my personal data back into the drive.

How complicated is that process of setting up that hidden recovery partition. Do you have to do considerable amount of reading? Or is that a relativelly straight forward process: as in download the package, run it and follow the instructions?

Many thanks for your input !

[Ideasmiths]

I see.

How complicated is that process of setting up that hidden recovery partition. Do you have to do considerable amount of reading? Or is that a relativelly straight forward process: as in download the package, run it and follow the instructions?

Many thanks for your input !

its a no brainer, you just install the latest RnR, setup the lenovo to the 'ideal' situation, run RnR, do a base backup, then as you install/uninstall software, use your computer, you run RnR occassionally and add more incremental backup. When something crash, you can run RnR and choose to recovery back to factory, your base backup, or backup + 1, backup +2 or so on. The only issue here is that each incremental backup needs space on your backup source.

The SAD news is, as a 'perfectionist' myself, I always have this nagging fear that the recovery works well for programs, but may not be on my data. For example, if I changed one of my word documents in backup+1 on monday, then changed more of the word file in backup+3. Then when I launched a program that contains a virus when i installed it in backup+2.....logically I would be using the RnR to recovery to backup+1 status.....now THEN what happens to my word file which was changed in backup+3?

You see the dilemma? The RnR will just robotically reset everything back to whereever you want, for programs there is no issue, as we can always reinstall new ones, but data?

I had an experience once when during the RnR recovery, an error messages came up tha says "$@# is missing", would you like to retry, abort, or ignore..this could be due to writing errors during backing up,or media error. In the old days, if you use Thinkvantage Security, some new RnR version would not even let you access older backup. They might have improved on it...but well.

I found too much headache using this, so my 'perfected method is to backup my personal data, create a 3 disk recovery media, clone my original lenovo drive to an external drive. Then if anything happens, i just start from scratch and reinstall my data.

[globalgmcd]

I once had a backup on my x301 using R&R and then couldn't find it to delete it. So I had to use my Acronis Disk Director Suite, Explorer feature to delete the files in the (restricted) RRescue folder. That help me to recover 30GB of space.

I am looking to see if there is a way to take the Win7 os from the Win 7 upgrade DVD and copy them into the hidden recovery drive on the x301 and then when required in an emergency to reload win7, access it from there. I haven't had a look to see how much of a pain that would be.

Alternatively, I will ask support if there is a recovery dvd for win7 that I could load into the hidden drives, which then could be accessed in times of emergency.

Any insights ?

[elvair]

[quote="globalgmcd"]I once had a backup on my x301 using R&R and then couldn't find it to delete it. So I had to use my Acronis Disk Director Suite, Explorer feature to delete the files in the (restricted) RRescue folder. That help me to recover 30GB of space.

I am looking to see if there is a way to take the Win7 os from the Win 7 upgrade DVD and copy them into the hidden recovery drive on the x301 and then when required in an emergency to reload win7, access it from there. I haven't had a look to see how much of a pain that would be.

Alternatively, I will ask support if there is a recovery dvd for win7 that I could load into the hidden drives, which then could be accessed in times of emergency.

Any insights ?[/quote]
thats exactly what i would aim to do, also looking for insights