• Welcome to Tux Reports: Where Penguins Fly. We hope you find the topics varied, interesting, and worthy of your time. Please become a member and join in the discussions.

Windows Starter recovery w/o dvd

F

felmon

Flightless Bird
greets!

just got a Samsung N150 Plus netbook with Windows 7 Starter.

I wanted to back up the Windows recovery partition to be able to re-
install it if it gets corrupted or if I remove it.

what is a good way to back it up with an eye on certainty and ease of
reinstallation?

the N150 doesn't have a dvd. I suppose I could purchase an external one
and will do so if that is necessary or if other methods are terribly
complex or uncertain but would rather avoid that.

I have tried googling around but so far I haven't stumbled on anything
useful.

felmon
 
P

Parko

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:03:11 -0500, felmon wrote:

> greets!
>
> just got a Samsung N150 Plus netbook with Windows 7 Starter.
>
> I wanted to back up the Windows recovery partition to be able to re-
> install it if it gets corrupted or if I remove it.
>
> what is a good way to back it up with an eye on certainty and ease of
> reinstallation?
>
> the N150 doesn't have a dvd. I suppose I could purchase an external one
> and will do so if that is necessary or if other methods are terribly
> complex or uncertain but would rather avoid that.
>
> I have tried googling around but so far I haven't stumbled on anything
> useful.
>
> felmon

Clonezilla installs onto a USB flash drive
http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/
You may need to use gparted to unhide the recovery partition. Installs to
a USB flash drive too
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
This assumes, of course, that the Samsung N150 Plus netbook will boot off
a USB drive

--
Where's the cursor?
Where's the eraser?
Where's the cursor?
Where's the eraser?
G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O
G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O
G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O
H-O-9-O-G-O-H-O
 
F

felmon

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 12:27:20 +0000, Parko wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:03:11 -0500, felmon wrote:
>
>> greets!
>>
>> just got a Samsung N150 Plus netbook with Windows 7 Starter.
>>
>> I wanted to back up the Windows recovery partition to be able to re-
>> install it if it gets corrupted or if I remove it.
>>
>> what is a good way to back it up with an eye on certainty and ease of
>> reinstallation?
>>
>> the N150 doesn't have a dvd. I suppose I could purchase an external one
>> and will do so if that is necessary or if other methods are terribly
>> complex or uncertain but would rather avoid that.
>>
>> I have tried googling around but so far I haven't stumbled on anything
>> useful.
>>
>> felmon
>
> Clonezilla installs onto a USB flash drive
> http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/ You may need to use gparted to
> unhide the recovery partition. Installs to a USB flash drive too
> http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php This assumes, of course, that
> the Samsung N150 Plus netbook will boot off a USB drive

very nice!

I will give it a try later today. I have clonezilla on a dvd but hadn't
used it much so I forgot about it.

the netbook does boot off a usb drive.

gparted shows all the partitions, no problem.

thank you!

Felmon
 
A

AJL

Flightless Bird
felmon <nemo@nowhere.INVALID> wrote:

>just got a Samsung N150 Plus netbook with Windows 7 Starter.

>I wanted to back up the Windows recovery partition to be able to re-
>install it if it gets corrupted or if I remove it.

>the N150 doesn't have a dvd. I suppose I could purchase an external one
>and will do so if that is necessary or if other methods are terribly
>complex or uncertain but would rather avoid that.

Buy the self powered DVD. They're very cheap, my local Target store
has em for under US$70. Very small and handy. I not only use mine for
my netbooks but it's also handy for DVD to DVD copies using my larger
laptops that have a built in DVD.
 
G

Gene E. Bloch

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:03:11 -0500, felmon wrote:

> greets!
>
> just got a Samsung N150 Plus netbook with Windows 7 Starter.
>
> I wanted to back up the Windows recovery partition to be able to re-
> install it if it gets corrupted or if I remove it.
>
> what is a good way to back it up with an eye on certainty and ease of
> reinstallation?
>
> the N150 doesn't have a dvd. I suppose I could purchase an external one
> and will do so if that is necessary or if other methods are terribly
> complex or uncertain but would rather avoid that.
>
> I have tried googling around but so far I haven't stumbled on anything
> useful.
>
> felmon

Ask the manufacturer to send you a restore disc.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)
 
A

AJL

Flightless Bird
"Gene E. Bloch" <not-me@other.invalid> wrote:

>On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:03:11 -0500, felmon wrote:
>
>> greets!
>>
>> just got a Samsung N150 Plus netbook with Windows 7 Starter.
>>
>> I wanted to back up the Windows recovery partition to be able to re-
>> install it if it gets corrupted or if I remove it.
>>
>> what is a good way to back it up with an eye on certainty and ease of
>> reinstallation?
>>
>> the N150 doesn't have a dvd. I suppose I could purchase an external one
>> and will do so if that is necessary or if other methods are terribly
>> complex or uncertain but would rather avoid that.
>>
>> I have tried googling around but so far I haven't stumbled on anything
>> useful.
>>
>> felmon
>
>Ask the manufacturer to send you a restore disc.

Won't work since he has no external DVD reader/writer (the netbook has
none internally). But as I said, if he did he could make his own
recovery disk.

To the OP: I recently restored my Eee PC netbook (also no internal DVD
but which came with a recovery DVD disk) and besides needing the
external DVD writer for that, I needed it to reinstall all my old
apps, which of course came on CD/DVDs... ;)

Get the DVD writer, you won't be sorry...
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
AJL wrote on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:58:41 -0700:
> "Gene E. Bloch" <not-me@other.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:03:11 -0500, felmon wrote:
>>
>>> greets!
>>>
>>> just got a Samsung N150 Plus netbook with Windows 7 Starter.
>>>
>>> I wanted to back up the Windows recovery partition to be able to re-
>>> install it if it gets corrupted or if I remove it.
>>>
>>> what is a good way to back it up with an eye on certainty and ease of
>>> reinstallation?
>>>
>>> the N150 doesn't have a dvd. I suppose I could purchase an external one
>>> and will do so if that is necessary or if other methods are terribly
>>> complex or uncertain but would rather avoid that.
>>>
>>> I have tried googling around but so far I haven't stumbled on anything
>>> useful.
>>>
>>> felmon
>> Ask the manufacturer to send you a restore disc.
>
> Won't work since he has no external DVD reader/writer (the netbook has
> none internally). But as I said, if he did he could make his own
> recovery disk.
>
> To the OP: I recently restored my Eee PC netbook (also no internal DVD
> but which came with a recovery DVD disk) and besides needing the
> external DVD writer for that, I needed it to reinstall all my old
> apps, which of course came on CD/DVDs... ;)
>
> Get the DVD writer, you won't be sorry...

Hello AJL! Did you know that Asus Xandros recovery DVD (or was it your
Windows machine one?) can be used in another computer with a drive and
it can create the recovery on a flash drive? I believe it needs to be at
least 2GB in size.

There are ways to get by without an external DVD drive. But some of them
requires a lot of work to get say Windows to install from a flash drive.
But it can be done. But I do agree, getting an external DVD drive really
does make things as easy as it gets. Yes I have a few of them myself.

--
Bill
2 Asus EEE PC 7014G ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 7028G ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2/SP3 ~ Xandros Linux
 
G

Guest

Flightless Bird
REFORMAT YOUR COMPUTER AND INSTALL OPEN SOURCE LINUX UBUNTU! JUST FYI!
THREAD CLOSED!
 
A

AJL

Flightless Bird
<kevpan815@hotmail.com> wrote:

>REFORMAT YOUR COMPUTER AND INSTALL OPEN SOURCE LINUX UBUNTU! JUST FYI!
>THREAD CLOSED!

Whoopp, Whoop, Whoop, Troll alert Troll alert...thread closed.
 
A

AJL

Flightless Bird
BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:

>Hello AJL! Did you know that Asus Xandros recovery DVD (or was it your
>Windows machine one?) can be used in another computer with a drive and
>it can create the recovery on a flash drive? I believe it needs to be at
>least 2GB in size.

Hello Bill, yes I think I remember you giving that info here awhile
back.

>There are ways to get by without an external DVD drive.

And that may become necessary someday for my Xandros powered Eee PC 2G
Surf netbook. It won't recognize my newer HP slimline external DVD
drive. And I've never been able to find a driver to get it to work.
But it still recognizes my several year old monster sized externally
powered HP DVD drive so I'm OK for now... ;)

My XP powered Eee PC 1000HD recognizes the slimline drive just fine so
no problem there.

The reason I used the recovery disk on my 1000HD is that with all the
updates it seemed to be getting somewhat sluggish. After the recovery
it is back to its old snappy self. Quite a noticeable difference. So
this time I've turned off all the OS update stuff (apps too) and will
just use it that way awhile and see what happens... =8-O

I think you do that on one or more of your laptops also IIRC...
 
G

Gene E. Bloch

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:58:41 -0700, AJL wrote:

> "Gene E. Bloch" <not-me@other.invalid> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 02:03:11 -0500, felmon wrote:
>>
>>> greets!
>>>
>>> just got a Samsung N150 Plus netbook with Windows 7 Starter.
>>>
>>> I wanted to back up the Windows recovery partition to be able to re-
>>> install it if it gets corrupted or if I remove it.
>>>
>>> what is a good way to back it up with an eye on certainty and ease of
>>> reinstallation?
>>>
>>> the N150 doesn't have a dvd. I suppose I could purchase an external one
>>> and will do so if that is necessary or if other methods are terribly
>>> complex or uncertain but would rather avoid that.
>>>
>>> I have tried googling around but so far I haven't stumbled on anything
>>> useful.
>>>
>>> felmon
>>
>>Ask the manufacturer to send you a restore disc.
>
> Won't work since he has no external DVD reader/writer (the netbook has
> none internally). But as I said, if he did he could make his own
> recovery disk.

Well, the manufacturer sent me a restore DVD for an Acer netbook that
didn't have an optical drive. BTW, the disk was free, and they didn't
hassle me at all when I called.

Please - please - explain to me how my not having a drive prevents a
manufacturer from sending me a restore DVD :)

> To the OP: I recently restored my Eee PC netbook (also no internal DVD
> but which came with a recovery DVD disk) and besides needing the
> external DVD writer for that, I needed it to reinstall all my old
> apps, which of course came on CD/DVDs... ;)
>
> Get the DVD writer, you won't be sorry...


--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)
 
A

AJL

Flightless Bird
"Gene E. Bloch" <not-me@other.invalid> wrote:

>Well, the manufacturer sent me a restore DVD for an Acer netbook that
>didn't have an optical drive. BTW, the disk was free, and they didn't
>hassle me at all when I called.

Heck Asus *included* the recovery DVD in the new packaging of both my
Eee PC netbooks that have no internal DVD drive to run them on.

And of course my full size Acer laptops came with *no* recovery DVD
even though they *do have* an internal DVD drive. Go figure.

In the past when I had an HP laptop and I had them send me a recovery
disk they charged me $10 for it. I like the Asus way the best... ;)
 
G

Gene E. Bloch

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:32:19 -0700, AJL wrote:

> "Gene E. Bloch" <not-me@other.invalid> wrote:
>
>>Well, the manufacturer sent me a restore DVD for an Acer netbook that
>>didn't have an optical drive. BTW, the disk was free, and they didn't
>>hassle me at all when I called.
>
> Heck Asus *included* the recovery DVD in the new packaging of both my
> Eee PC netbooks that have no internal DVD drive to run them on.
>
> And of course my full size Acer laptops came with *no* recovery DVD
> even though they *do have* an internal DVD drive. Go figure.

It's an unfortunate crap shoot, I guess...

> In the past when I had an HP laptop and I had them send me a recovery
> disk they charged me $10 for it. I like the Asus way the best... ;)

The other computers here have software to burn recovery DVDs, but I had to
supply my own blanks :)

Two of them are not much good anyway - the computers stated out with
Windows Vista and I upgraded them to Win 7, so I'm not eager to recover to
factory status.

I'll rely on backups - which I don't do often enough. Of course :)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
AJL wrote on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:40:33 -0700:
> BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:
>
>> Hello AJL! Did you know that Asus Xandros recovery DVD (or was it your
>> Windows machine one?) can be used in another computer with a drive and
>> it can create the recovery on a flash drive? I believe it needs to be at
>> least 2GB in size.
>
> Hello Bill, yes I think I remember you giving that info here awhile
> back.

Ok

>> There are ways to get by without an external DVD drive.
>
> And that may become necessary someday for my Xandros powered Eee PC 2G
> Surf netbook. It won't recognize my newer HP slimline external DVD
> drive. And I've never been able to find a driver to get it to work.
> But it still recognizes my several year old monster sized externally
> powered HP DVD drive so I'm OK for now... ;)

Xandros doesn't recognize it or the BIOS doesn't? If the latter, Xandros
probably will never see it unless the BIOS can. If the BIOS can see it,
then you should be able to reinstall Xandros through the drive anyway.
You can tell if the BIOS sees it by hitting the ESC key before Linux
boots up. That kicks in the boot menu. And it will show up in the list
if the BIOS sees it.

> My XP powered Eee PC 1000HD recognizes the slimline drive just fine so
> no problem there.

Oh good deal there.

> The reason I used the recovery disk on my 1000HD is that with all the
> updates it seemed to be getting somewhat sluggish. After the recovery
> it is back to its old snappy self. Quite a noticeable difference. So
> this time I've turned off all the OS update stuff (apps too) and will
> just use it that way awhile and see what happens... =8-O
>
> I think you do that on one or more of your laptops also IIRC...

Yes I turned off Windows updates on one computer over a year ago. Lots
of people said this was a bad idea. But I did it as a test and it worked
so well, I later stopped all Windows updates on 6 other computers a few
months later. And I haven't had any problems yet. If one ever does, I
keep them all isolated anyway from each other. And no one system totally
going down means nothing to me. As the rest could quickly carry the load
anyway.

So I am starting to think that Windows updates are far more scarier than
viruses themselves. As I haven't seen any viruses myself before or
after. But I have seen Windows updates screw up one's computer. The good
news is the next one usually fixes it. But the next one later breaks it
again. And the cycle repeats. <sigh>

--
Bill
2 Asus EEE PC 7014G ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 7028G ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2/SP3 ~ Xandros Linux
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
Gene E. Bloch wrote on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:13:36 -0700:
[...]
> The other computers here have software to burn recovery DVDs, but I had to
> supply my own blanks :)
>
> Two of them are not much good anyway - the computers stated out with
> Windows Vista and I upgraded them to Win 7, so I'm not eager to recover to
> factory status.
>
> I'll rely on backups - which I don't do often enough. Of course :)

Well I personally value backups far superior to the recovery disc
anyway. As once you have backups, the recovery disc is only good for if
you want to sell or give your computer away anyway. As why would you
want a system without your favorite applications and settings for? And
in your case, a totally different OS to boot. ;-)

--
Bill
2 Asus EEE PC 7014G ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 7028G ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2/SP3 ~ Xandros Linux
 
A

AJL

Flightless Bird
"Gene E. Bloch" <not-me@other.invalid> wrote:

>The other computers here have software to burn recovery DVDs, but I had to
>supply my own blanks :)

My 2 Acers also came with built in software to make recovery disks and
nagged until you did (or turned off the nag) which seemed odd to me
because both laptops have recovery partitions. However I usually get
rid of the recovery software and use the partition for more drive
space so always made the disks. My older Acer can only burn CDs
(although it reads DVDs) so it took 7 CDs for the 'recovery disk'...

>Two of them are not much good anyway - the computers stated out with
>Windows Vista and I upgraded them to Win 7, so I'm not eager to recover to
>factory status.

*My theory* is that a laptop works best with the software that was
matched to and originally came installed on it. And AJL's theory of
laptops #2 is that the original factory installation as restored by a
recovery disk works faster and better than that OS with a years worth
of updates. The theory certainly works out on this netbook... ;)
 
A

AJL

Flightless Bird
BillW50 <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote:

>AJL wrote on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:40:33 -0700:

>> And that may become necessary someday for my Xandros powered Eee PC 2G
>> Surf netbook. It won't recognize my newer HP slimline external DVD
>> drive. And I've never been able to find a driver to get it to work.
>> But it still recognizes my several year old monster sized externally
>> powered HP DVD drive so I'm OK for now... ;)
>
>Xandros doesn't recognize it or the BIOS doesn't?
>You can tell if the BIOS sees it by hitting the ESC key before Linux
>boots up. That kicks in the boot menu. And it will show up in the list
>if the BIOS sees it.

Just tried your suggestion. The boot menu *does show* the slimline
drive. So Xandros is the culprit.

I never worked on the problem too hard since my old HP external drive
works fine so I just use it. Out of curiosity (at the time) I did a
little research about using the slimline drive with the Surf but came
up empty. And really I would hate to rock the boat installing and
trying drivers even if I found one cause that little 7" box hasn't
crashed in months, it really works well with the original setup.
Course that just proves AJL's laptop theory#1... ;)
 
F

felmon

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:58:41 -0700, AJL wrote:

> To the OP: I recently restored my Eee PC netbook (also no internal DVD
> but which came with a recovery DVD disk) and besides needing the
> external DVD writer for that, I needed it to reinstall all my old apps,
> which of course came on CD/DVDs...
>
> Get the DVD writer, you won't be sorry...

I am seriously considering this but I'm a bit short of time as I am
packing for a European jaunt and everything is last moment plus it would
be nice not to carry more gear.

am looking into clonezilla.

Felmon
 
F

felmon

Flightless Bird
On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:31:56 -0500, BillW50 wrote:

> Well I personally value backups far superior to the recovery disc
> anyway. As once you have backups, the recovery disc is only good for if
> you want to sell or give your computer away anyway. As why would you
> want a system without your favorite applications and settings for? And
> in your case, a totally different OS to boot. ;-)

in principle I agree with this but this device may go to my spouse and we
are a two operating system ('bi-OS'?) couple so I figured it would be
good to be able to restore to factory condition once I'm done with it.

perhaps I should just configure the Windows partition to my liking, back
that up and give her the kit and kaboodle when the time comes, she'd
probably be just as happy, or happier even.

Felmon
 
B

BillW50

Flightless Bird
AJL wrote on Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:01:08 -0700:
> *My theory* is that a laptop works best with the software that was
> matched to and originally came installed on it. And AJL's theory of
> laptops #2 is that the original factory installation as restored by a
> recovery disk works faster and better than that OS with a years worth
> of updates. The theory certainly works out on this netbook... ;)

Yes, I too have seen this evidence time and time again. ;-)

--
Bill
2 Asus EEE PC 7014G ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
2 Asus EEE PC 7028G ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2/SP3 ~ Xandros Linux
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top