How do I create a self-bootable recovery partition

[Aspire1]

I'm looking to create a bootable recovery partition on my netbook. It has a built-in recovery function in the BIOS which will boot into the first primary partition at boot time when the correct keys are pressed. I wish to create a disk image after a fresh install so that next time recovery will take 10 minutes instead of 3 hours, as all my software will already be installed and setup (cleanly). I will overwrite the original image in the current recovery partition to do this, but the image must be self-bootable with no 3rd party software required on usb or cd.

Before I get any smug answers I want to make a few things clear:

1) This is not a backup issue. Do not tell me to back up to an external drive. I've already done that, I'm not daft. I use my machine to test software and my OS often becomes corrupted. It would be much easier to do a simple restore from a native partition than have to hook up a portable drive and do a re-install from slower media. I'm aware my hard drive may fail, I should have redundant copies, blah blah blah.

2) 3rd party software is no good unless the IMAGE is self-installing. If I have to insert a CD or USB key we're missing the point. This rules out Acronis and Norton. This is a netbook with no internal drives and I want to be able to reset while on the bus if I have to. And yes, I understand about performing backups while on battery power........

3) I do not want to copy the Win7 installation disc to a partition. That would perform a clean install on boot, not what I want. I have over 30GB of software installed and setup, and want to recover it that way.

4) I know how to use Google. Any forums I've found on the subject are outdated and polluted with redundance, such as 'why not back up to cd?' or 'just store an image to the partition and use an Acronis boot disk to restore it'. Those answers circumvent the question. Any guides I've found (ie PC Mag) are equally useless.

My entire goal is convenience, not a reliable long-term backup. When I screw up my system I want to fix it then and there, not have to wait until I return to my office or hunt down my USB. I apologize for my bluntness, but have seen some very ignorant answers to this question elsewhere. If you don't understand WHY I would want to do this, please don't answer.

The system is an Aspire One ZG5, Intel Atom N270, 1.5 GB Ram, 500GB HDD (60GB System partition, 410 GB Data partition), Windows 7 Ultimate (RTM 7.7600). Thank you in advance for all relevant answers!

[Taiko]

great idea ,used to have this feature on my old dell.I remember when I had a virus and it took me like 10 mins to reinstall to factory settings ie as it shipped.

[CaptainCrash]

I haven't used Acronis in a while, but IIRC it offers you the opportunity to create a recovery zone (rescue partition, call it what you will) for the system image, *and* to install a bootloader on the HDD which gives you the option to boot into Acronis itself and restore said image (it's called "Startup Recovery Manager" or some such). I daresay other imaging apps offer a similar feature.

On another note, as someone asking for help and advice, perhaps your attitude could do with some rethinking - yes, it's frustrating when people misunderstand what you're trying to do, but such is the nature of web forums I'm afraid.

If you get so irritated by people trying to help you, there's always Google...

[Aspire1]

Thanks guys, I'll have another look at Acronis.

@ CaptainCrash:

Thanks for the reply. Sorry if it came across as attitude. I posted here because the community seems helpful and educated. I spent three days on Google and found on other forums the posters had an extremely condescending attitude towards the thread because they couldn't understand why anyone would want to do this. There were some very rude answers regarding 'off-disk' backups and the 'stupidity' of a recovery partition. I just wanted to be sure anyone taking the time to answer had something legitimate to offer. You did, thank you very much!

I'll be sure to post my results for other viewers.

[Taiko]

please do post results cos I for one am interested !

[shaithis]

I am guessing this would best be done with OEM software. I would look into seeing if you can modify the code Dell/HP/etc use on their systems.

The only other way I could see would be to check how much data is used on a clean system, then shrink the drive by that size + 5% or so. Then make a new partition in the free space, make it bootable and have the Acronis/Ghost/Etc DOS files there with the relevant image. Add this "DOS Boot" to your boot config so you can choose it during boot.

Of course, for it to work flawlessly as you want, you will need to image it AFTER you have added it correctly into the multi boot.

[CWH]

Have you tried winPE, I use it for creating images for deployment, and usually use a DVD. However, there is no reason why it cannot be run from a HDD. This technet article has some info.

Takes a little working with, but quite flexible and useful once mastered.

Colin

[oolon]

You could do this easily with a mini linux or bsd partition, as part its init system it could have two options one to dd the filesystem compress it to a file, then it would just reboot.

dump with
dd if=/dev/sdXX of=- | gzip -c > /recovery.gz

restore with
zcat /recovery.gz | dd if=- of=/dev/sdXX

XX where XX is the right device

If you used grub as the boot loader it would boot you os by default and restore or dump if you picked the nix partition.

[Taiko]

sorry to bump this up but did the op manage to create an bootable image ?

[Aspire1]

Sorry folks, didn't mean to abandon the thread. Got the flu real bad three weeks ago, just recovered...... Had to catch up at work before I got back to this.

I've discovered that the Acer recovery tool is called D2D Recovery in the BIOS. It is linked to an invisible OEM partition labelled PQSERVICE, and initiates recovery procedures when Alt+F10 are pressed at boot time.

I have upgraded my HDD from the original, and despite creating a perfect clone of ALL partitions the D2D will not boot even though it is enabled in the BIOS. Apparently this is simple to fix by updating the MBR. However, I would like to know if it is worth doing this. Does anyone know what the D2D recovery is looking for when it boots? Does it seek a specific .exe in the partition, or is it similar to Autorun in that it reads an editable .inf or such for boot directions? It would be nice if I could configure the D2D to boot into the Acronis Recovery Console and simply store my Image on the PQSERVICE partition.

If altering the D2D boot sequence is not possible, could someone please point me in the right direction to learn the basics behind the Linux solution above? I'm quite proficient with Windows, but a total n00b with linux. I don't even know where to start lol.

One half-a$$ed solution I found was to use Paragon or Acronis to create a bootable media. I then created a primary partition at the beginning of the disk and copied the media to it. I made the partition bootable, stored an image, then marked it inactive/invisible. To boot into this partition I simply have to mark the partition as active in Computer/Manager/Disk Services and reboot. The only catch is that either W7 needs to be running or I need a bootable USB to change the active partition, so it doesn't quite work the way I need it to. (EDIT: I just re-read shaithis' post, I think this is exactly what he was suggesting. Is adding the "DOS boot" to my boot config simple to do? And will this cause the same boot delay as when multiple OS are installed? This fix is a little less than I wanted to do but appears much easier...)

If anyone can offer any info on the D2D, it seems the easiest way to accomplish what I want. As usual I Googled before posting, but anything I found was to repair the system, not hack it. Thanks for any help and sorry for the delay!

[peterb]

It depends how the hidden partition has been implemented. If it is 'just' just a hidden partition (with the appropriate entry in the partition table) you should be able to make t visible with a disk editor.

However if it is implemented using a host protected area on the original disk, then you won't have copied that hidden area across simply because normal tools won't see it - it is hidden by the disk. If that is the case, the then I would expect the D2D tool to unlck that portion for recovery.

On the other hand if the D2D tool works with a 'conventional' hidden partition, and you only need to install a modified boort sector and/or MBR, then the simplest way would be to use the linux dd tool to copy the relevant sectors off the old disk (if it is still available) onto the new one.

I don't have time atm to look up D"D - but I would expect that you have already done that.

[Unique]

i similarly like to try things "just because i can", and like to tinker around with stuff

on my laptop i have a main install of windows that i normally use, and two separate partitions with windows, one of which is the win7 beta. when testing stuff i boot into the other partition and try it, and if it does what i want, i boot into the main partition and do it there. it also came in handy when i was on the train one day and the batter ran out and windows didn't shut down properly and the main partition was corrupt, so i just booted into the second partition so i could keep on surfing online on the train with the power plugged in, and i did a repair to the main partition when i got back

as an alternative solution, but with the end result the same, how about you create a second partition on your drive, install windows to there, install some parition/ghost type software. make a ghost/backup image of the main windows install saved to that partition, so all you have to do is boot to that parition and ghost the main partition back again. personally, after installing windows on the partition, i would try and ghost your main partition to the second partition so you already have a working copy of windows in the second partition with your settings, and create a backup image stored on that partition, or a third untouched partition, so if you do screw things up, you have an already usable second copy of the system that would take 30 seconds to boot into and use so you have immediate use of the laptop, and whenever you have a spare 10/15 mins you can ghost the image back to the main partition

it's not as automatic as holding SHIFT+F9 or something when you boot, but in practice it wouldn't take that much longer to implement. it might take a bit more space, but you have a 500gb drive, so if your windows is on one partition, data on another, backup windows on another and ghost partition/copy on another it could be a convenient solution. you could potentially skip the ghost image copy, and just have a second working windows install that you can ghost/clone back to the first partition. it would take a bit more space than a disc image, but it would be a working copy that you can use instantly, and also clone back. so a bit more space for a lot more flexibility

[Aspire1]

@ uni

That sounds pretty easy to do.......my only concern would be having dual OS's installed. I've heard some bad things about dual installing Win7 (but haven't done it yet). Will it cause any boot issues to do so? And wouldn't ghosting the 2nd partition cause registry issues? (ie. original install is drive C:, copy would be E:, shouldn't it cause loading issues to copy straight across?)

@ peterb

As far as I've read, as long as the recovery partition is cloned exactly it contains the files to rebuild the MBR, so making it bootable again is possible. I guess I'll have to rebuild it and try booting the partition after replacing everything with my files to find out for sure. It doesn't seem like anyone else has even tried this with D2D yet.

[Unique]

@ uni

That sounds pretty easy to do.......my only concern would be having dual OS's installed. I've heard some bad things about dual installing Win7 (but haven't done it yet). Will it cause any boot issues to do so? And wouldn't ghosting the 2nd partition cause registry issues? (ie. original install is drive C:, copy would be E:, shouldn't it cause loading issues to copy straight across?)

@ peterb

As far as I've read, as long as the recovery partition is cloned exactly it contains the files to rebuild the MBR, so making it bootable again is possible. I guess I'll have to rebuild it and try booting the partition after replacing everything with my files to find out for sure. It doesn't seem like anyone else has even tried this with D2D yet.

i don't really know the answers, but it wouldn't be hard or take long to try it. i thought if you boot into the partition, windows would think that partition was the C drive. maybe a registry cleaner/fixer might help. if you can't ghost, then you would have to make a second installation, and either install the programs or save a ghost image. with a large HD i'd be inclined to have a fully working version, and a ghost image, and save a copy of the ghost image externally in case you had a bigger problem

[OilSheikh]

I know you are not looking to use a DVD disc.... but you may be able to create a workaround based on what I am saying.

I use Macrium Reflect to create an image of my HDD. It creates two discs - a Linux boot disc and a disc with the image of my HDD.

Now, if Linux can be installed on a separate partition on your HDD and the image copied to the Linux partition, it should be agreeable for you ?
Plus, the Macrium software which loads up from Linux has no expiration date! It takes me 15 mins. to restore a XP SP3 w drivers w Office 2007 Pro image.