BIU: Which partition to back up for Windows 10?

[ohaya1000]

Hi,

I have a Dell Vostro that I bought last Christmas but hardly ever used. When I got, I created a USB stick for recovery, and then installed BIU on it, but never did much with the machine until about a week ago, when my main laptop crashed.

The Vostro cam a 500GB M.2 NVME SSD (HD1 in BIU) and has a slot for a 2nd M.2 NVME SSD (confusingly, HD0 in BIU), which I installed right after I bought the machine.

Now that I am mostly done recovering from the main laptop crash, I have started to work more with the Vostro and I haven't done any image on it yet, but I was looking in BIU Partition Work, and am wondering: How (which partition) do I backup using BIU?

Also, it looks like the partition for the C: drive is huge (almost 500GB) and taking most of the space on the drive, so I'd like to resize that a little smaller?

I think the rest of the HD1 drive is pretty much the way the machine came out-of-box, and I think there is a recovery partition that is for the stock recovery, so I guess that I'd like to not break that if possible.

Sorry for all the questions... Up until this machine I was mainly using MBR and BING/BIBM, so a lot of this (GPT, UEFI, etc.) is new to me.

Thanks,
Jim

[ohaya1000]

I ran the x64 version of partinfo:

PARTINFG, Version 1.02
Copyright (c) 2009,2013 TeraByte, Inc. All Rights Reseverd

Run Date: 12/19/2022 0:52 AM

===============================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD0 - 0x2156DF8A)
(CHS: 1023/254/63) (WCHS: 124519/255/63)
+====+====+=============+====+=============+=============+=============+
| 0: | 80 | 0 1 1 | 7 | 1023 254 63 | 63 | 2000397672 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+=============+=============+
===============================================================================
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 63 Total Sectors: 2000397672 ID: 0x1
Jump: E9 57 0
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 63
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800000
Total Sectors: 0x773BA567
MFT LCN: 0x32
MFT Mirr LCN: 0xBEC5D57
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x1D8518DDB5D6800
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD1 - 0xCBF1BE35)
(CHS: 1023/254/63) (WCHS: 62260/255/63)
+====+====+=============+====+=============+=============+=============+
| 0: | 0 | 0 0 2 | ee | 819 254 63 | 1 | 4294967295 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+=============+=============+

===============================================================================
GPT Found (HD1) {71E50E02-CB96-43B0-B9A7-39F90DC479F9}
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revision: 10000 Hdr Size: 92 Max Entries: 128 PE Size: 128 PE LBA: 2
Primary LBA: 1 Backup LBA: 1000215215
FAvail LBA: 34 LAvail LBA: 1000215182
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Num Name Attr Start End GUID Type GUID
----- ----------------------- ---------------- --------------- --------------- -------------------------------------- --------------------------------------
0 ESP 8080000000000000 2048 411647 {C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B} {3DE766BE-A259-41F0-83B7-BCAD30C67AD1}
1 Microsoft reserved part 8000000000000000 411648 673791 {E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE} {41CB52F4-34F5-475E-BBF5-4E7E1B7F556A}
2 Basic data partition 0 673792 959152127 {EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7} {B872ED65-EC44-46D1-B2BF-D25CC994DA7E}
3 WINRETOOLS 1 959152128 961179647 {DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC} {C4748FB4-F60A-46FA-AC0B-7BF2DEA00D2E}
4 1 961179648 997337087 {DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC} {AF61D7F5-26EE-47A8-8DBE-223381A1F531}
5 1 997339136 1000214527 {DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC} {363B353D-DDA0-4293-8313-B9DF6F3F248E}
===============================================================================
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0xB LBA: 2048 Total Sectors: 409600
Jump: EB 58 90 (EB 58 90)
OEM Name: MSDOS5.0 (MSDOS5.0)
Bytes Per Sec: 512 (512)
Sec Per Clust: 4 (4)
Res Sectors: 6622 (6622)
Num FATs: 2 (2)
Root Dir Ents: 0 (0)
Sectors: 0 (0)
Media: 0xF8 (0xF8)
Secs Per FAT: 0 (0)
Sec Per Track: 63 (63)
Heads: 255 (255)
Hidden Secs: 2048 (2048)
Huge Sectors: 409600 (409600)
Huge Secs Per FAT: 785 (785)
Flags: 0x0 (0x0)
Version: 0 (0)
Root Dir Clust: 2 (2)
FS Info Sec: 1 (1)
FS Bkup Sec: 6 (6)
Reserved: 0 0 0 0 0 0
Drive Num: 0x80 (0x80)
Res: 0x0 (0x0)
Boot Sig: 0x29 (0x29)
Vol ID: 0xE6E64EAA (0xE6E64EAA)
Volume Label: NO NAME (NO NAME )
FS Type: FAT32 (FAT32 )
Boot Flag: 0xAA55 (0xAA55)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 673792 Total Sectors: 958478336 ID: 0x2
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 673792
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x392137FF
MFT LCN: 0xC0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x2
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x988E180A8E17DF94
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 959152128 Total Sectors: 2027520 ID: 0x3
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 959152128
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x1EEFFF
MFT LCN: 0x14A00
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x2
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xC46EC7C26EC7AB8C
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 961179648 Total Sectors: 36157440 ID: 0x4
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 961179648
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x227B7FF
MFT LCN: 0xC0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x2
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x5418C80018C7DF5C
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 997339136 Total Sectors: 2875392 ID: 0x5
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 997339136
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x2BDFFF
MFT LCN: 0x1D400
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x2
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xD68A7C768A7C5549
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD2 - 0x16F2A91F)
(CHS: 1023/254/63) (WCHS: 1702132/255/63)
+====+====+=============+====+=============+=============+=============+
| 0: | 0 | 0 0 2 | ee | 1023 255 63 | 1 | 4294967295 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+=============+=============+

===============================================================================
GPT Found (HD2) {B30259D3-F0BD-4C08-9315-03C4C13BBDBE}
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revision: 10000 Hdr Size: 92 Max Entries: 128 PE Size: 128 PE LBA: 2
Primary LBA: 1 Backup LBA: 27344764927
FAvail LBA: 34 LAvail LBA: 27344764894
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Num Name Attr Start End GUID Type GUID
----- ----------------------- ---------------- --------------- --------------- -------------------------------------- --------------------------------------
0 WD-EASYSTORE14TBB 0 2048 27344762879 {EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7} {7A370DC9-54C1-81FD-E4CF-BD5F94780000}
===============================================================================
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 2048 Total Sectors: 27344760832
Jump: EB 52 90
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 2048
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800080
Total Sectors: 0x65DDFEFFF
MFT LCN: 0xC0000
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x2
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0xE80458A404587810
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================
MBR Partition Information (HD3 - 0xC324AC16)
(CHS: 1023/254/63) (WCHS: 972801/255/63)
+====+====+=============+====+=============+=============+=============+
| 0: | 0 | 0 0 2 | ee | 1023 255 63 | 1 | 4294967295 |
| 1: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 3: | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 0 0 | 0 | 0 |
+====+====+=============+====+=============+=============+=============+

===============================================================================
GPT Found (HD3) {C324AC16-03D2-A955-C045-975CD9570300}
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revision: 10000 Hdr Size: 92 Max Entries: 128 PE Size: 128 PE LBA: 2
Primary LBA: 1 Backup LBA: 15628053166
FAvail LBA: 34 LAvail LBA: 15628053133
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Num Name Attr Start End GUID Type GUID
----- ----------------------- ---------------- --------------- --------------- -------------------------------------- --------------------------------------
0 Microsoft reserved part 0 34 32801 {E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE} {203024B5-2561-804D-C045-975CD9570300}
1 Seagate-8TB 0 34816 15628052479 {EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7} {5AECF337-463B-4469-C045-975CD9570300}
===============================================================================
BOOT SECTOR INFORMATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
File System ID: 0x7 LBA: 34816 Total Sectors: 15628017664 ID: 0x1
Jump: E9 57 0
OEM Name: NTFS
Bytes Per Sec: 512
Sec Per Clust: 8
Res Sectors: 0
Zero 1: 0x0
Zero 2: 0x0
NA 1: 0x0
Media: 0xF8
Zero 3: 0x0
Sec Per Track: 63
Heads: 255
Hidden Secs: 34816
NA 2: 0x0
NA 3: 0x800000
Total Sectors: 0x3A3809FFF
MFT LCN: 0x32
MFT Mirr LCN: 0x5D267666
Clust Per FRS: 0xF6
Clust Per IBlock: 0x1
Volume SN: 0x1D4E21F39ABA200
Checksum: 0x0
Boot Flag: 0xAA55
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

It's usually a good idea to create a backup of the entire drive. That way you can return to that state later if needed. After that, you can just back up the normal Windows related partitions. The partitions I would include are the EFI System partition, the Windows partition, and the WinRE partition. Dell may have one or more utility partitions and a recovery partition, but those generally don't need to be backed up regularly since they rarely (maybe never) change.

If you resize the Windows partition smaller and create a data partition, you may wish to create backups of that on a different schedule than the Windows partitions. Once you have your final disk layout, you may want to create a new backup of the entire drive. And be aware that Windows may automatically shrink the Windows partition a bit and create a new WinRE partition as part of a major Windows update. The following KB article has more information and layout examples: https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/kb ... gpt-disks/

[ohaya1000]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the info. To do the entire disk backup (using BIBM imaging), do I just select every partition for the source selection? Or is there some other way to backup the entire disk?

Also, when you say "the Windows partition", which partition is that?

Thanks,
Jim

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

Select the checkbox for the entire drive (it's the top item and says "Entire Drive"). It will automatically check all the partition boxes.

The Windows partition by itself refers to the partition that contains Windows (usually drive C: in Windows). From your report, I assume it's this partition:
2 Basic data partition 0 673792 959152127 {EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7} {B872ED65-EC44-46D1-B2BF-D25CC994DA7E}

Windows related partitions are the ones I consider a group for that Windows installation ([System Reserved + Windows], [EFI System + Windows + WinRE], etc.) and would normally be backed up together.

[ohaya1000]

Hi Paul (and everyone else),

Merry Chrishtmas to you all, and thanks for all the info.

FYI, since I am still fairly new to the GPT world , I was wondering: If I just image backup the entire drive (as you mentioned above) ONLY, and don't do a separate backup for Windows (in addition to the entire drive backup), is that going to be good enough for me to recover the laptop in the case where (for example), the M.2 SSD goes bad?

I am attaching a screenshot of the partition work for HD1 (the machine has 2 M.2 SSDs: HD0 is a 1TB SSD for data, and HD1 is the original "half-size" 500GB SSD that came with the Vostro - not sure why it is HD1 but that is what it ended up as).

SO in my case above, if the HD1 SSD died, I'd get a replacement 500GB or 1TB SSD (the HD1 slot only takes a half-size M.2 SSD), swap out the HD1, then use BIBM to restore the entire disk backup file.

Is that correct?

I also want to reduce the size of the "OS" partition... I don't really need an almost 500GB Windows partition, plus I want the backup image file to take less space, so I would like to resize the OS partition using BIBM before doing the entire disk backup.

Is that OK?

Thanks,
Jim

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

Yes, you can restore the entire drive backup to a new drive. In most cases, doing so is easier than when you have separate backups of the various partitions since it can be done in one operation. Note that if the replacement drive is smaller than the original you may need to use a scaling option or other method when restoring. Also, when you create an entire drive backup (or multi-partition backup) you can just restore what you need from it (you don't have to restore the entire image when not necessary). If the Windows OS installation is the only thing on the drive (no large data partition, for example), I usually just back up the entire drive every time.

Regarding resizing the OS partition, you can do that before creating the backup, if desired. It's really user preference. Some prefer to create an entire drive image prior to making those types of changes to it's easy to revert to original state if needed. In that case, you would have your "original layout" image and then create a new one after making whatever partition changes you wanted.

For normal backups, the unused space isn't backed up. Having a large 500GB Windows partition that contains 50GB of data is only going to be slightly larger than a 100GB partition with 50GB of data, for example.

[ohaya1000]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for answering all my questions!

When I got the Vostro (a year ago), I spent some time making sure I had made the recovery image, then I proceeded to install BIU, then I (literally) didn't do anything with the laptop until the other Dell crashed, but now I am trying to switch to using the Vostro as my main laptop since it is much faster than the old Precision (though I still *MUCH* prefer the Precision, because it has TONS of USB ports, plus a real ethernet connector), so I want to get a BIU backup image and also start getting into multi-booting after that. I'd like to be as familiar with BIU and GPT as I was/am with BING/BIBM, but it's going to take awhile, so your answers have been very helpful!!

Now that I know that the 500GB partition would cause a 500GB backup file , I will do the full disk BIU image first and then a resize after that.

We'll see how it goes !!

Thanks, and Happy (upcoming) New Year!

Jim

[ohaya1000]

Hi,

I completed the entire disk backup using BIU. The ending image/TBI file was ~85GB (the original partitions totaled approximately 500GB).

I was then able to resize the Windows 10 (the "OS") partition to 200GB.

One thing I learned not to do: So I have my 2 laptops configured with a kind of KVM (it's a keyboard/mouse USB switch and both laptops hook to a monitor which has 2 HDMI and a DP port, and I use software to switch which laptop uses the monitor). The first time I tried the image, I switched the monitor and the keyboard/mouse to the other laptop, but when I switched back, the monitor stayed blank. I had to reboot the laptop that had been running the image (I think that the image had fallen back into BIU).

Overall, other than that, everything worked fine.

I also copied the TBI file to my NAS, then just to be safe, I downloaded the TBI from the NAS, and then I ran sha256sum on both TBI file, to make sure the TBI file on the NAS was identical.

Thanks,
Jim