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Hi,
I’m new here, but have been getting a lot out of reading the questions and responses. I just ordered my NC10 from Costco. It should be here in the next couple of days. I apologize if these questions are answered elsewhere, but if they are, I couldn’t find them.
I recall reading somewhere that you should make an image of the hard drive using 3rd party software like Ghost or Acronis before anything is installed–as soon as the machine is turned on for the first time. So here are my questions:
1) Is this necessary, since the NC10 is supposed to come with re-install disks for the OS and programs?
2) From what I’ve read, the reinstall disks won’t bring the machine back to factory fresh, is that correct? If so, what is the difference between the state of the new, unbooted hard drive from the factory vs. reinstall?
3) Will creating an immediate image allow you to bring it back to factory? If so, can someone walk me thru how to do it, so the setup sequence doesn’t take over, please?
4) And, finally, I’m a little confused about the “hidden partition”. Is it totally separate from “C” or “D”, or are the restore files hidden in one of those two partitions.? The reason I am asking is that I will probably set up the drive for one partition, “C”-100% If I format “C”, will the hidden restore files remain in a different partition so I can restore at a later date?
Thanks!
Bob
Welcome to the forum!
1.) It is not necessary. You can recover with the disk as well as by hitting F4 at boot up.2.) The reinstall disks won’t bring the marchine back to factory fresh. The first time you boot, you will be asked to partition your drive (a hidden one for recovery, c: and d:) When you reinstall from the disk, you won’t be able to recreate the hidden partition; the hidden partition will be there unless of course you reformatted prior to reinstallation.
3. It’s not going to be factory fresh when you recover from the hidden partition because you won’t go through the windows initial set-up. So if you have named your Sammy, Bob, when you recover the name Bob is already there.
4) The hidden partition is separate from c: and d: The first image is saved in the hidden partition when you start Sammy. You will be force to create the c: and d: unless of course you reformat and install using the recovery disk.
Additional info: You do not have to create a D: partition when installing the Sammy if you like me just want one large C: partition then you can do that, just set the “D” to 0GB and it will not be created.
And yes – the hidden restore partition is separate from C and D and you will always be able to press F4 during startup to do a fresh install of XP if you want to.
Thank you both for your quick reply. That helps to clear up a couple of things.
If I chose to create a “virgin” image (prior to Windows installation) will this allow me to restore to factory? Is there any benefit to doing this? If so, can someone explain how to do this? I remember reading a post somewhere, but now I can’t find it.
Thank you!
Bob
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