Complete hard drive backup of new notebook?

[nightanole]

I havent bought a computer with a restore parition in a long time and dont know what to do.
Im getting a xps m1330 in the mail tomarrow and would like to to a FULL image backup of the hard drive, so when i sell it, i can just pop the image back on and it will be like when i first opened the box. Dell has some very odd non standard partitions (media direct) so dont think that a standard partition image software will work(ones that mostly just workj with fat32/ntfs). So far the only luck ive had with copying a system hard drive to another hard drive, and have it still boot, is with seagates free software that i think is stripped down acronis.

Does anyone know how to do a full image backup and have all the funny dell partitions work after restore?

I can take the hard drive out real easy, and i can pop it in my vista/ubuntu(warning very linux nubie) box with intel ich9R controler if that helps.

 

[Joe Average]

Partition "formats" don't matter, nor do filesystems. Imaging software images the raw bits on the drive, not the filesystem, so it doesn't matter what filesystem exists be it FAT32, NTFS, or whatever: the raw bits on the partition are what the imaging software cares about and that's all it works with.

True Image can make a complete accurate image of the entire hard drive in that laptop if you allow it to do so, bit-for-bit-accurate. If you have an external USB drive, and you have the True Image bootable "rescue" CD, you'd do the following:

- Plug in the external drive
- Boot off the True Image bootable CD
- Wait for TI to load
- Go to make the Backup
- Destination for the image will be the external drive, so obviously it must show up on the target list - if not then you're stuck and will figure that out yourself
- If the target drive (the external) shows up fine, select it, give the image a name
- Select all the partitions in the machine when asked for the source - put a check in all of them except for the external drive, of course as it will be listed there as well
- Proceed through the rest of the creation process, make sure the compression level is Normal (High takes 5x longer for really no smaller images), and continue
- When the image creation is done, totally finished, go back an Verify it - sure this takes longer but at least you'll have confirmation the image was creating successfully right then and there

That's about it. Been using True Image for a really really long time now and it is my most highly recommended piece of software next to NOD32. Couldn't live without it, personally, and it has saved my proverbial behind more times than I can count these days. I started using drive imaging software over a decade ago with the introduction of DriveImage from Powerquest, and honestly in some respects, that old software is still better than most of today's products - DriveImage would image to CD and make the first disc in the recovery set bootable with the DI software on it. Even today's products still don't create that sort of 1st recovery set disc, and I can't figure out why.

Good luck...

ps
Dell includes the OS reinstallation CD that's tied to Dell hardware only, and then the CD/DVD with drivers and applications, but you're right in stating that none of them will accurately restore the laptop to factory-fresh condition. If Dell is still continuing the practice of making the recovery partition (not sure if they will or do with the newer hardware), the process above - as long as you make sure you select all the partitions - will restore the laptop to factory condition just as it was when you first turned it on.

IN FACT... you should make the image of the system the very first time you turn it on and before the OS ever loads the first time - but that's probably what you have in mind sooo... I'll shut up now.