Put image on NTFS or Ext4 partition?

[rustleg]

I'm setting up a PC for my brother in law. Actually I'm installing a retail Windows 7 to his laptop. He didn't like the Windows 8 supplied (laptop about 10 months old) so asked a company to install Windows 7 on it, but I found that they installed an illegal copy which I suspect has now been infected, possibly by his son's dodgy downloads!

So what I'd like to do is to install the new Windows 7 then set up a separate partition with an IFD image on it so it can be restored in future by me describing the process over the telephone. I don't see the need for him to spend the extra $10 for IFW as I won't be expecting him to create more images.

My question relates to this partition. Essentially I want to hide the partition from his son (not particularly computer literate) and also possibly from potential malware infection of the image. I have 2 ideas.

1. An NTFS partition at the end of the drive - I can remove the drive letter so it doesn't appear in Windows Explorer.
2. An Ext2/3/4 partition at the end of the drive.

1 is more straightforward but would perhaps allow his son to meddle with it. If I use method 2 I don't think Windows would see the partition or be able to do anything with it unless someone goes to a lot of trouble to find a third party application to access it, so I favour this method. I understand IFD can write an image to Ext2/3/4 so presumably restore from there.

Just to complete the picture, I'll also give him a set of recovery DVDs created with IFD in case the hard disc dies or the recovery partition is messed up. He will have the original Windows installation DVD but I'd prefer to give him a working image with other software already installed and he'll only need to apply updates from 2013.

I'd appreciate comments on which method, 1 or 2, that people would recommend.

An auxiliary question is whether IFD would be able to wipe the disc and restore the OS partition in case either the disc is trashed somehow or there are viruses which might have infected it somehow. If not I'll have to think of another idea such as giving him a live Linux CD and I'll have to talk him through gparted. Or perhaps he could use the Windows 7 DVD to do this.

All comments would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

[Brian K]

Russell,

I don't like the extra partition idea as his son could either delete it or overwrite it with another partition. Also, if the HD dies then both the OS and backup image are lost.

I suggest having the backup image on an external HD. Create an IFD flash drive and edit tbos.str with a restore command line. All your brother in law has to do is connect the external HD and boot from the IFD flash drive. There is no input needed from your brother in law as the restore just happens automatically. No phone call needed.

[Brian K]

Or you could use IFL for the auto restore instead of IFD.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=545

[Brian K]

Paul Purviance reminded me this can be easily done with the latest TBWinRE. Very nice too.

[rustleg]

Brian

Thanks for all these thoughts. Yes I agree that the HDD could die or the partition be overwritten but as I mentioned I also intend to supply separate rescue DVDs. In all probability the partition will remain.

I might also provide a USB for restoration of the OS but I wouldn't make it run automatically - I fear someone will wonder what it's for and put it in to see!

I'll look at IFL instead of IFD. Are there some features which make it more useful?

I don't plan to buy IFW for him, only IFD/IFL, so won't be able to use TBWinRE.