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Hello
My NC10 arrived y’day and I am going to upgrade to XP Pro, planning to do this before running it on XP home or setting up the notebook in any way but I have a few Q’s
Should I set the book up first and if so why?
Do I need to take an image for resetting and selling in the future? If so what’s the best bit of software for the job?
Can I just reinstall home from the recovery CD at a later stahe without keeping the recovery partition/Many thanks
irishkeetI’m waiting for mine to turn up tomorrow (03-12-08) but I think that your question is general enough for me to reply.
First, yes, I absolutely would do an image of the PC before doing anything major like an OS upgrade/change. That’s your get-out-of-jail card if something goes wrong.
The software that I personally use and recommend to friends, relatives and clients – ordinary end users and small businesses – is Acronis True Image Home. Typically, Amazon has good prices.
I’ve used versions from 9 to 11 but not yet gone hands-on with the latest (2009) – but from what I’m reading, it looks to be the best yet. Before Acronis, I’d used PowerQuest Drive Image (various versions) and Norton Ghost (various versions including the first one that incorporated PowerQuest’s technology).
Not saying that Acronis is perfect but I like it a LOT.
As for when to create an image, I’d do one of the entire system, virtually as it comes out of the box. The image size will be small and so I’d probably burn it to DVD and just put it away.
Then I’d set everything up – including all updates (XP and apps) – and do another full image.
Again, that’s likely to be small enough to burn to a DVD, so I’d make a copy of that image, though this second full image on external HDD would be the basis for my subsequent incremental backups if I were sticking with XP Home (which I have every intention of doing).
Know that you will need access to an external CD drive to install Acronis (unless you copy the installer to USB stick or download the trial directly to the PC), and that it makes sense to have a large-capacity USB external hard disk onto which you create the images and from which you access them.
I can’t yet answer what you can or can’t do with the recovery CD – though may be able to do that over the coming weekend, once I go hands on.
What I can do, though, is ask what feature/features of XP Pro you need/want to be going to all the bother of installing Pro?
I ask because, for most people, there is little advantage in having Pro rather than Home. Paul Thurrott gives an overview here:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.aspNow if there are things that you must have (or really want to have), then fine. Otherwise I’d stick with XP Home and just make sure to optimise it as best as you can, doing things like disabling unnecessary Windows services, turning of indexing on the hard disk and possibly turning off some other Windows features that are likely to slow things down.
I plan to experiment with doing a whole bunch of things to see whether or not they make any significant difference to my NC10, though I hope that it will have 2GB RAM will mean that some of the changes are unnecessary.
Cheers
Bob C
Bob C, you state:
“As for when to create an image, I’d do one of the entire system, virtually as it comes out of the box. The image size will be small and so I’d probably burn it to DVD and just put it away.”
I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this. I assume you are talking about doing this before the setup program runs in Windows, right?? How do you do this without setting up Windows first?? Please advise. I just got my NC10 and I don’t want to start it up until I know how to image the virgin drive.
Thanks,
Bob M.[quote1235204447=irishkeet]
Can I just reinstall home from the recovery CD at a later stahe without keeping the recovery partition/
[/quote1235204447]
Yes, no problem doing this either via an external CD drive or using a bootable USB stick as described in this thread[quote1235254040=Inspectorbob]
Bob C, you state:“As for when to create an image, I’d do one of the entire system, virtually as it comes out of the box. The image size will be small and so I’d probably burn it to DVD and just put it away.”
I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this. I assume you are talking about doing this before the setup program runs in Windows, right?? How do you do this without setting up Windows first?? Please advise. I just got my NC10 and I don’t want to start it up until I know how to image the virgin drive.
Thanks,
Bob M.[/quote1235254040]
Bob M
I haven’t got mine yet (next few days hopefully) but I think what Bob C means is you complete the instal of windows, then install Acronis or whatever imaging program you prefer and then take an image of the OS that can be recovered later.
What I want to know is whether taking an image at that point will include the hidden recovery partition.
The program making the image will ask you which partition to include and you can simply include all of them including the hidden one.
THe NC 10 comes with a image program preinstalled “Samsung recovery solution” and after you boot your NC10 for the first time it will promt you to make an image. If im not mistaking that will be your hidden partition on the HD. After updating and installing your favorite software you can make a new image using the Samsung RS.
Having said that I use still use Acronis, becuse im familar with it.
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