Image Drive

[GrandMasterKhan]

What is the best low cost way to image a drive? Know about Acronis but is there a free option maybe taking a little more time is OK. I also want low complications such as having to repair the MBR. Can I assume the recover partition will image along with the image?

Also if one does a clean install of W7 on a fresh drive, how will R&R interact with the fact there is no longer a recovery partition?

If I have a dual boot Vista and W7 how can I get rid of the Vista parition and retain W7 and the Recovery Partition (original image). Am thinking in case my TP needs to be serviced I just wipe everything and give to tech support with system as shipped.

Thanks!

[ZaZ]

If you have a Seagate drive you can get a free download of DiscWizard from Seagate's website. It's a limited version of True Image, but does what I need it to. I think I saw WD offers this as well.

If you ever need to send your machine in for service and the hard drive is not the problem, you should pull it.

[moronoxyd]

There are several free options:
- EASEUS Partition Manager gets good reviews (I personally don't like it, but thats just me)
- clonezilla is an open source solution

[loyukfai]

See also Macrium Reflect (free version at http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp). Better than Acronis TrueImage IMO.

[ashleys]

Also if one does a clean install of W7 on a fresh drive, how will R&R interact with the fact there is no longer a recovery partition?

It works fine. I've never run with a recovery partition including my most recent install of Windows 7 Professional. When you install R&R all the files just go into the C:\ directory and F11 during boot still works.
If you use the BCD editor it will show the R&R boot loader details as just another entry.

You should be aware that installing Windows 7 on a clean non-partitioned drive will result in Windows creating a 100Mb recovery partition for itself. To avoid this, you've got to delete the partition during setup or pre-partition the drive. The Windows recovery partition is not created during a custom install.

[forests_gump]

I have a custom install of Win7, so there is not recovery partition, although i do have R&R installed.

Anyone knows on the recovery partition, what are the folders, so that i know what folders on my Win7 is essential for recovery. thks.

[ashleys]

If you have no recovery partition and R&R installed you will find folders called MiniNT and Preboot on your C: volume. These are the main R&R folders. There are some other files but I cannot remember what they are.