My HP Desktop was running Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) and was a good candidate for Windows 7 Ultimate
I backed up my HP Media Centre Desktop in order to put Windows 7 on it. Its a good computer, 2GB, Core 2 Duo, Fancy X1600 graphics. Two identical 250GB drives. I decided it would be a good place to try out Windows 7 x64 Ultimate - as it was a media centre before and Ultimate contains all the media center goodies.
Backing up was tedious
Its a lot of junk to move - 500GB. I had it set with 250GB for a C: and D: and the HP recovery partition, taking the rest. Just as it left the factory. I guess its about three years old, so its filled up with junk. Its probably time I blew it away anyway.
Backup strategy - True Image, VMware, File Copy
I have an unusual approach to backups. Well I think so at least. I take three different types if the data is important. Too many previous horror stories.
- I use 'Acronis True Image Home'. Cheap. Handy and works. Splits resulting backups to DVD sized chunks. Highly recommended. Win7 support in beta. (Backing up XP so this wasnt an issue).
- I use 'VMware Converter' to create a bootable virtual version of the final image of my computer. This means that if I have an 'I really need *that* file or *that program* moment I can fire up the last copy of it and find it. This has saved me from embarrassment many many times and is the single most important backup I make.
- I use filesync or even 'xcopy /s' or explorer to copy important folders and files to spare disks.
I suppose its overkill. I dont care. Backup Disk space and blank DVD's cost peanuts. Anyway its done. It took a lot of time, but the HP has a 320GB Personal Media Drive and I have three of those removables disks for it so it was at least fairly simple to do.
Installing Windows 7
I decided I would blow away all partitions and start fresh, ensuring I have a completely clean Win7 installation. This would allow me to change my partitioning as it was a bare metal install. I wanted to achieve two things.- Leave less data on my Desktop (I have an Xserve with many TB of space) and
- Get more performance. Using a Stripe Set (Raid 0).
Its been a long time since I famously blew a raid array at a fortune 50 pharmaceuticals company trying to install a beta of Windows NT! So I thought I'd read up a bit. Theres not much out there folks. Not much at all!
Windows 7 Disk Partitioning
Once Id searched in vain I thought I'd just give it a go. So I started to install Windows, (something I've been doing since Windows 1.0). When it asked me about disks I looked and looked for options. Nothing exciting. Oh well I thought. I'll let it complete and look in the disk manager. So I did. Nothing new. And even worse it made a complete and utter hash of my partitions. I expect more in the 21st century. I did not take much notice of the 'Windows may create recovery partitions' message before Windows installed. I should have. Its all wrong. My 250GB disk now looked like this:
| Disk Management |
| Disk 1 |
System Reserved100MB, NTFS
System, Active, Primary Partition |
249GB, Unallocated Space |
| Disk 2 |
C: 250GB NTFS
Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) |
Now personally I cannot imaging why anyone would choose to partition a disk like that. I cant mirror or stripe, because the Windows partition is bigger than the biggest free space - because Windows used 100MB for recovery it might has well have used the whold 250GB. It also just looks wrong. Call my a perfectionist but I dont want my volumes to look this ugly. Windows completed and I score a 4.1 on the Windows 7 experience-o-meter.
So back to the drawing board. I look at the boot screens for my HP, and its an Intel Raid controller, with a Bios for setting up volumes. Perhaps I should have done that to start with! So I set up a Raid 0 volume and blow away my just completed Windows install. Time to install again. This time I get presented with a 460GB single volume for Windows 7.
Now I have a better world
| Disk Management |
| Disk 1 |
System Reserved100MB, NTFS
System, Active, Primary Partition |
C: 465GB NTFS
Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) |
Much Better dont you think. Windows 7 doesn't think so - WEI rating still 4.1. Its better for me as theres only one volume for me to deal with.
Lesson learned
Er,. Read the Boot Screens. Note the name of your raid adapter and try to set it up before installing Windows 7!
HP You should have read it too. Why wasnt it like this from the factory? It would be impossible for most home users to blow everything away and start again so you have a duty to get this more appropriately set up - otherwise why provide two identical disks on a Raid controller - Pretty poor.
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