I want to keep this plain and simple, if you please. 
I would like to get some more information about what I have, and have not, and what I have to do for a pain-free recovery with this new system, just as I was able to do when I made several recoveries with the Win XP system.In the past when I used IFL for backups, it was easy. Even so, in that case, when I was running Windows XP, there was only one disk, with one partition, on which Windows put everything it needed to function. In the past I cloned the entire disk to another one of equal size. That is not possible any longer because I do not have another disk equal in size to this new laptop's internal disk, which is much larger. However, I do have a much larger NAS device on which I can put data, but as far as I understand, and please correct me if I am wrong, I cannot clone my laptop disk onto the NAS because they are not the same size. Therefore, I now need to change the simple routine of cloning to accomodate this difference. Is that not so? In addition, since I now have a much larger internal disk, a much larger portion of this disk is empty, and it would be inefficient to clone it even if I could.
Furthermore, now, on this system, it is slightly more complicated because there is still one disk, but with three partitions. I am not technically savvy enough at this point to perfectly understand what sort of data are on those partitions, and I need to rectify that here and now, as well as understand how to modify what I did in the past to handle the changes in the new system so that my backup and recovery operations are effective and understand what procedure is best for making easy backups/restores for this fairly simple scenario.
TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
> Look in Disk Management and check the details for each partition. The
> partition with the booting files (the partition that booted to Windows)
> will be marked as "System, Active" and the Windows partition will
> be marked as "Boot" (seems backwards to me too, but that's the
> way it is). From what you've described it looks like the the
> "System" partition is larger because it contains the WinRE files
> along with other data.
How can I take a look at what data is on the partition without risking damage to it? If this smaller partition contains the WinRE files, then what sort of data is on the other unlabeled partition, which I mentioned? What has created, or is presently creating, WinRE files?
>
> Normally, when creating the recovery media you would run the MakeDisk
> program in the appropriate folder. It will allow for customization of
> options and also get the key so the program is unlocked when you boot to
> it. TBWinPE and TBWinRE can be created using the tutorials (TBWinPE:
> http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/ ... torial.htm, TBWinRE:
> http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/ ... torial.htm). Since you
> have Windows 7, I would suggest using the TBWinRE version (it's generally
> easier and doesn't require a large download).
Now you have totally confused me with this talk about TBWinRE, and I need to understand perfectly what is said so that there is no surprises. I already mentioned that I am fairly familiar with using the IFL recovery environment; so is there any reason I cannot or should not continue using it for this present scenario? I do not have problems making downloads of whatever is best, large or not, but I already have made downloads of everything I should need, I believe. I mean, since I already have a bootable IFL CD ready to go, I would prefer to use it. I am clueless concerning your idea that I need TBWinPE instead of IFL. Can I not use IFL, which I know has worked perfectly for me in the past?
I showed you the TBI files I have right now of the backed up data. Three of them were created at one time using IFW when I used it while in Windows and instructed it to backup the whole drive HD 0. When I clicked that disk, it automatically ticked off all three partitions and backed up the whole shebang, putting each partition into a separate file such as you see in my illustration. Later on, when I did a second backup procedure, I "did not" select HD 0 to backup everything. I, separately, backed up the System partition and the Windows OS partition; AND, when doing these backups, I instructed IFW only to backup "Changes Only". Now, having said this, I want to revisit your earlier statement:
> If the backup is of the entire drive you would select the drive for the destination
> when restoring. All existing partitions on the selected drive will be removed (there
> will be a warning) when the restore is started. If the backup is of a single partition
> you would need to select an existing partition (e.g. restoring over the original)
> or free space as the destination. If the backup contains multiple partitions, but
> not all the partitions, then you can restore them all at once if restoring back
> to the original drive (otherwise, restore them one at a time).
Therefore, again, my question is. In the event that I should need to restore, I assume I have to do them separately, and I should start off by using the "Changes Only" images to restore as I expect the program will find the initial images that I put in the very same folder, regardless of the fact that the initial images were backed up all at one time, such as I just described, and the second images (i.e., "Changes Only") were made separately. How does all this sound to you? Thanks.