Looking for a Computer Solution

I've ran into a snag that I never thought would be this difficult.....

Here's the situation.

I have recently purchased Acronis true Image. I now have a "clean fresh install" on my laptop, with my Windows and Drivers all Installed as well as the base set of Applications that I want on my computer. (I also don't have to reactiviate my Windows, or any other application by doing this image). User Data is of no concern because I have it all saved to a NAS.

Now, over time as I'm sure we all know, computers get a build up of excess junk and slows them down. I want to be able to be able to do a fresh install periodicaly to clean the system out and maintain a usable computer.

I can boot from the Acronis CD and restore the files - but the problem is, simply copying a new MBR and all windows system files and such for a new fresh install doesn't really get rid of the unneeded Excess files.

Because of this problem, I want to be able to - at a minimum - boot up from CD and format my C:\ as an NTFS File System. If I can delete and reinstall the partition, that is fine, but most importantly, I want to be able to format my c:\partition as an NTFS file system from the bootable CD.

Unfortionatly, I see a lot of stuff I can "Partition" my drive, but I haven't been able to find something that would format my c:\ as an NTFS Format that I can restore my Windows Fresh Install Image.

I realize by utilizing my windows Installation CD, I can essentialy do this anyway, but I would prefer something quicker to boot from (don't have to load a huge amount of windows files to do basicaly nothing), and that is more to the point of the purpose of the bootable CD.


Any thoughts out there?

I think you can ghost image your current hard drive onto an external one, and just replace it with the copy of the original from time to time (booting from the external drive). I know that there are programs to do this for you, however, I don't know their names. I replaced a stock hard drive for a Runcore SSD in one of my Linux netbooks a couple years ago using something like this.

Sorry I don't know about this NTSF stuff.

I really don't worry about any of this stuff with any of my computers, Linux, Mac, or Windows.

It sounds like you just need to make an image of your drive as you want it fresh installed. Why so much worrie about the NTFS though? If for somereason your still running FAT32 you can esily convert it to NTFS with an easy command line command.

So you're using True Image to take an image of your hard drive and saving that image some where?

When you restore the image, you're basically doing what you want. True Image doesn't care what's on the drive when you restore, it's going to put on whatever data was in that original image you saved. You could completely hose the current installation, install a brand new hard drive, whatever you want. When you restore your original image, everything will go back to the state it was on that original image.

There's no need to prep the drive before you restore the image..

It isn't that I want to replace a Hard drive at any given time, It is that I want to "clean" the Hard Drive for a "Fresh Install". And I don't really have a Hard Drive to utilize to create another image to which I could simply replace. Right now, I have the image stored on a separate Partition on the Hard Drive. All I should technicaly need to do is to format the C:\ Partition and boot from the CD and restore the image to the Newly Formatted Partition. That is ultimately what I am looking to do.

The hard part is .....Getting the c:\ formatted as an NTFS File system prior to going in and restoring the image.

I image computers pretty much every day... We NEVER format them before we image them. It's not necessary to format to restore the state of the computer to what's saved in the image.

There's Linux boot disks out there.. you can pick your poison. Otherwise, for as rarely as you'd be doing this, I imagine that the time difference between using a Windows install CD and learning a new tool would be negligible, ya know?

Check out clonezilla (clonezilla.org) - it can image and restore a partition so you don't need to preformat it

Your looking for parted magic http://partedmagic.com/
Bootable distro from CD, DVD, or USB drive
It includes GParted which will do anything you need to do to your HD in NTFS and any other file system type.

From their site:
The Parted Magic OS employs core programs of GParted and Parted to handle partitioning tasks with ease, while featuring other useful programs (e.g. Clonezilla, Partimage, TestDisk, Truecrypt, G4L, SuperGrubDisk, ddrescue, etc...) and an excellent set of documentation to benefit the user. An extensive collection of file system tools are also included, as Parted Magic supports the following: ext2, ext3, ext4, fat16, fat32, hfs, hfs+, jfs, linux-swap, ntfs, reiserfs, reiser4, and xfs.

machine99703 said:

Your looking for parted magic http://partedmagic.com/
Bootable distro from CD, DVD, or USB drive
It includes GParted which will do anything you need to do to your HD in NTFS and any other file system type.

From their site:
The Parted Magic OS employs core programs of GParted and Parted to handle partitioning tasks with ease, while featuring other useful programs (e.g. Clonezilla, Partimage, TestDisk, Truecrypt, G4L, SuperGrubDisk, ddrescue, etc...) and an excellent set of documentation to benefit the user. An extensive collection of file system tools are also included, as Parted Magic supports the following: ext2, ext3, ext4, fat16, fat32, hfs, hfs+, jfs, linux-swap, ntfs, reiserfs, reiser4, and xfs.

Click to expand...

This sounds like something that I would be looking for: Especialy considering it does have other tools that could potentialy be usefull in the future.

From their info (as you mentioned) ....." as Parted Magic supports the following: ext2, ext3, ext4, fat16, fat32, hfs, hfs+, jfs, linux-swap, ntfs, reiserfs, reiser4, and xfs. "......

Also that it lists:
Features

•Format internal and external hard drives.
.........

That sounds like what I would be looking for....Formats and works with NTFS file systems.

I reckon it's about time I do another download and take a look.

Thanks

jcummins said:

This sounds like something that I would be looking for: Especialy considering it does have other tools that could potentialy be usefull in the future.

Click to expand...

Thread drift for a second.... Howdy jcummings, I'm in Spring Hill right up the road from ya....

Back on track, yep GParted is a great tool. I've used it a couple of times in the past and have had no issues.

Saunterer said:

Thread drift for a second.... Howdy jcummings, I'm in Spring Hill right up the road from ya....

Back on track, yep GParted is a great tool. I've used it a couple of times in the past and have had no issues.

Click to expand...

Hey...Never really thought I'd find anyone on here in my neck of the woods.

And Now back on track again . . . .
I've downloaded and took a look at the GParted application within the linux OS. Pretty Nice. I found quite easily how to do what I wanted. Looks like I simply will unmount the drive, and format it. via NTFS. Quick/Simple. Also can delete and reinstall the partition if I want. Everything there I was looking for - Plus So Much More that I could potentialy use in the future if I wanted. Given this late in the evening and considering I will be getting up fairly early in the morning, I probably won't be starting the process right away, but I have it here ready to do (hopefully this weekend - but maybe not).

Thanks for the reference Machine and Saunterer...