Transferring a recovery partition to another hard disk

[Vortex]

Copy a functional recovery partition to a new hard disk

[Gunther]

Hi Vortex,

thank you for the link. It's easy to use and safe. :t

Gunther

[dedndave]

usually, they create a normal NTFS partition, then change the "type ID" byte in the mbr to something other than 7
what value they use varies a little between OEM's
on my sony, they use 12h, Dell's use 0D?h

my machine also has a program that is run at startup to set the type ID on that partition
on my machine, it's called "PartSeal.exe"
so - temporarily disable that

then use MbrWizard to set the type ID to 7 and reboot
the partition shows up as a normal NTFS partition and you can copy the contents
when you are all done, set the type ID byte back to the original value, enable the partition program, and reboot

i spent some time figuring out what all the files do
i learned how to disable a bunch of crap-ware and out-dated stuff   :P
a few of the programs, i wanted - WinDvd is nice, etc
i wrote a batch file that allows you to pick and choose which files to disable
now, when i rebuild from the recovery partition, i get a nice clean install
the registry needs a little cleanup because there are a few invalid entries (missing software)

[Vortex]

Hi Dave,

Your method is nice. Yes, all the trick is the modification of the partition ID.

The Linux dd tool helped me to copy a recovery partition at work.

[Magnum]

What happens when the O.S. seesor doesn't see hardware that wasn't part of the original installation ?

[dedndave]

it may not always work
these partitions are small (less than 10 gb)
they could easily be FAT or some proprietary format
i haven't run into any that weren't NTFS, yet
the way the files are put together varies widely between OEM's

Andy,
windows usually detects uninstalled hardware and brings up the "new hardware" wizard
in most cases, it recognizes the hardware type and installs it automatically
if it has already been installed, no need, of course - the files in Windows\Inf contain the info
for certain types of hardware, you may have to bring up the "add new hardware" snap-in in the control panel
then, windows looks for it - if it doesn't find it, you are offered a chance to install hardware-specific drivers