Windows 10: About Differential & Incremental images

I know that, Count, but the problem is which ones. I have C:\ and D:\. It's obvious that I would choose one of those. However, I have four 450MB Healthy Recovery Partitions and one 99MB Healthy EFI System. Since there's only one EFI system partition, I'd say I choose it each time.

But what should I do with the other four partitions?

 

Here's a snippet of what I have:





And why are all five of the partitions 100% Free?

Also, I will remove the two unnecessary external drives when I backup.

 

I don't know - I am not really good with partitions - but it looks to me like you have too many recovery partitions...

 

Yeah, that's what I think too. I think I probably should have removed some of them, but not the 99GB one before the clean install. But which ones!? *Smile

 

I am reluctant to say, Wynona. I am just not well-versed in partition structure/requirements. TC may be able to help you. *Smile

 

For now I'm not going to worry about it, Simrick. I think if I were to do a clean install on both partitions, though, I'd then have six 450MB recovery partitions. *Smile

So, probably what I will eventually do is remove all partitions except the 99MB one, divide the space in half and then do a clean install of both, letting them each do their own thing.

 

I think, if you're going to completely clean install, get rid of all the partitions, including the 99MB one. Then divide in half, and clean install.

 

Yeah, that's what TC told me to do too. Thanks.

 

If you are to backup just system together wit C: all you need is C: and two partitions in front of it. Those partitions behind it (Excluding D*Smile are probably leftovers from past upgrades. Can't use them anyway.
If you look at my picture, I left only last backup partition and don't use UEFI at all.

 

Do you guys verify your images?

I always figured, better safe than sorry.
It does add a significant amount of time to the image creation. Is it worth it for 1:100 shot? (or whatever the odds are)

 

I always verify when creating an image. I verify again, if I am restoring one.

 

I have not verified images in ages, must be years now. Macrium really is so secure, I've had no issues with images. Anyway, I create images so often that a corrupt image is not an issue.

 

Appreciate your input Kari

I know I should backup more. But usually only bi-weekly or monthly.

 

Hello @Wynona
Looking at your screen shot.



You must have done upgrade/in place repair at least 3 times. Each time, Windows will shrink your C partition by 450MB to create a Recovery partition to store WinRE.wim (it is a version of WinPE containing a set of tools for trouble shooting) to boot into the Recovery Environment by hold down SHIFT key+Restart.

To find out which Recovery partition is currently used. Open Admin command prompt and type: reagentc /info
which will point to the partition # containing WinRE.wim.

The 99MB EFI System partition (not 99GB) contains the BCD code for booting Windows. Without it, Windows won't boot.

There's a 16 MB MSR partition between the 99MB partition and C drive hidden from Disk Management but will show in Macrium.
Disk Management also report all 450MB partitions are 100% free because the partitions and files in them are hidden and they are not empty.

If you get rid of those Recovery partitions, Windows will still boot. However, The Recovery Environment will break and I saw quite a few people just deleted all the Recovery partitions and if they have the need to get into the Recovery Environment, they just boot the Win 10 installation disk and click on "Repair My PC".

Below is a screen shot of my current Windows and should only have 1 450MB Recovery and reagentc shows partition 1 containing WinRE.wim




HTH

NOTE: To clean up those partitions without breaking anything as posted here:
Solved Old Recovery partition - Windows 10 Forums

 

Posted this note in first post:



Note Notice please:

I asked mods to move these almost 30 posts about Macrium from TF Video thread here to keep that thread a bit less cluttered, more focused on videos.