Help: What does eRecovery back up? Hidden partition or C Drive

I made a backup of "something" after the software first installed itself. The set is 2 DVDs for Vista Home Basic.

But what did I really back up? Was it the C drive or the hidden partition?
I ask because, after a number of changes to the C drive, I want to take another backup. If I use eRecovery, what will I get in the backup?

 

Hidden partition. What it will do is restore your computer back to it's original state when you bought it. You must have a Gateway or Acer, huh? Make the dvds. 2 if possible just in case one goes bad. Thats what I did. You can also use the hidden partition to restore factory defaults but not if the drive it is on crashes. So good for you making the DVDs..........

 

Let me rephrase
The eRecovery DVDs have been made. The C drive has now been changed. If I use eRecovery again, FOR THE BACKUP, and NOT the restore, will it back up the hidden partition or the C Drive?

I'm sure that asking for a back up will not restore the C drive from the hidden partition.

 

Erecovery uses the hidden partition to make a backup of the machine as it was when you first switched it on. The hidden partition is a mirror image so to speak of the system when you first got it. I think there is an option in erecovery to make a backup of your c:, but I'm not 100% on that.

Also, when you boot the machine, on the acer splash screen, press ALT+F10, this will bring up a recovery console which gives you the option of restoring the machine back to the factory state without the use of disks.

 

This is what I get- [/URL][/IMG]Give you several options. You can restore with the factory image on the HD, or burn DVDs as you did for a clean install later.

 

I'm not sure what you are asking. The C drive, the D drive and the hidden partition are all on the one HDD.
When you say "changed the "C" drive are you meaning it's "content" or physically replacing it for a new one ?
Providing you can access ERecovery you don't need the discs you made, you can reinstall directly from the hidden partition.
Do new Acers (Vista) have the disc image backup utility on them ? If so that's what you should use to do running incrementel backups (say every week and start a new one off every month) which if needed restore the entire operating system and all personal stuff to exactly how it was on the date of the backup.

 

No .. only disk cloning can do that .

 

What LouArnold is asking is once he has done things on the laptop, saved files, altered windows will erecovery backup the C: or make backups of the hidden partiton.

 

It looks that there is the need to say , that the hidden partition , its a single complete partition , first in the chain of the partitions.

The first visible takes the name C:

The Hidden one has a name , and called PQSERVICE .


For more info, click on the fist link on my signature.

 

If you use the discs or the partition, ALL you personal data will be gone as it will recover your computer to it's original state. It should not wipe the Recovery partition. The discs will/should ask you which part of the HD to install Windows on. I hope this helps, but I can't really understand your question thoroughly so, sorry if I messed you up even more....

 

Actually, my assumption was wrong...after repartitioning the hard drive, and removing junkware, if I ask eRecovery for a backup of factory settings it will - in fact - back up the hidden partition, and not the C drive.

BTW: I did a eRecovery restore from the hidden partition. It doesn't bring over an image - at least not for many applicatiopns - alot is in fact installed via an installer. The process takes about an hour for Vista Home Premium and somewhat less for Vista Home Basic.

So now what I really want is a backup utility that will let me recover selected installed applications. That's a tall order.

 

I've used Norton Ghost a couple of years ago and it was fantastic. It allows you to choose what files and folders you would like to include in your image rather than just backing up a whole drive.

Also when you recover you can specifically choose which parts of the image you would like to restore, rather than it just restoring the whole thing in one go.

 

This is interesting...Is that with eRecovery or Norton Ghost?
Remember, I want to selectively re-install applications, not just recover data files.