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A friend wants to try out Windows 10 on a Windows 7 system. But they want the option to go back to exactly how things are now.

Their hard drive is 1TB (platter-based, not SSD), and they don't have a backup device that large.

So here's the plan:

  1. Use Windows 7's integrated Disk Management to reduce the primary partition size to 600GB (the rest is empty space).
  2. Create a Clonezilla live CD.
  3. Use Clonezilla to backup that 600GB partition onto an external USB hard drive.
  4. Switch their system from Windows 7 to Windows 10 using Windows Update.

We have run into the first snag: According to Disk Management, their hard drive has 3 partitions. The first is about 2GB and is listed as "Active, Recovery Partition". That makes sense, as it's likely the recovery partition from the system's manufacturer. The next partition is about 10GB and is listed just as "Primary Partition". The purpose of this partition is unclear; please see this question.

The final partition is listed as "Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition". This is obviously their Windows 7 partition.

Note that they have never installed any OS on their system except Windows 7, which came pre-installed from the manufacturer.

The questions:

  1. Should this plan work?
  2. In order to restore the system, will just having a backup of the last partition using Clonezilla be sufficient, or will there need to be backups of the other partitions as well?
Community
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End Anti-Semitic Hate
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  • Hmmm... a downvoter without any feedback. Please add a comment with a description of how to improve. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 19 '16 at 20:44
  • Seems like a ton of work. If you just upgrade the machine to Windows 10, they can roll back to Windows 7, for 30 days. Easier solution is just use a trial Windows 10 VM instead of modifying the single hdd with all their data – Ramhound Jul 19 '16 at 21:39
  • @Ramhound Do you have link to how to set up a trial Windows 10 VM? I think first the user has to install a VM, then install Windows 7 into the VM, then use Windows Update within the VM to install Windows 10. Is that correct? – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 19 '16 at 21:43
  • Microsoft offers trial VMs of every single one of their operating systems for free! They even provided Virtual HDds for every major virtualization software on the market! As for a website, do a google search, I don't feel like doing the Google search for you – Ramhound Jul 19 '16 at 21:45
  • @Ramhound wrote "You have not given us enough information to identify the 10 GB partition's purpose or function." I agree. I'll write a separate question for that, so we can stay focused. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 19 '16 at 21:45
  • @Ramhound wrote "Microsoft offers trial VMs... for free." Thanks! I will look into that. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 19 '16 at 21:46
  • @Ramhound I created this question regarding the mystery partition: http://superuser.com/questions/1102906/how-to-identify-the-purpose-of-a-partition – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 19 '16 at 22:01
  • Is this a persistant VM or just to play with? – Journeyman Geek Jul 20 '16 at 00:59
  • @JourneymanGeek Are you asking me or Ramhound? – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 20 '16 at 01:16
  • er... I clearly had not enough coffee. I've done VHD installs, which work decently for testing. I was thinking of suggesting that, but said VM instead. – Journeyman Geek Jul 20 '16 at 01:18
  • @JourneymanGeek LOL. I've been reading so much tech stuff, that my brain is fried too. My friend just wants to switch to Windows 10 (using the "free upgrade" offer), but have the ability to go back to Windows 7 without any changes to the system if it doesn't work out. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 20 '16 at 01:21

3 Answers3

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The plan would work, but it's partially obsolete.

No idea about the 10GB partition, but if possible simply back up the whole disc just to be sure.

Besides that, Windows 10 may be uninstalled within 30 days, allowing you to go back to the previous state without having to rely on your own backup.

End Anti-Semitic Hate
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Mario
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    Yes and no. As you mentioned, it has a 30 day limit. Also, when it it is removed, there is no telling what has changed on the system. From what I've read, when Windows 10 is installed, it will remove applications that it finds to be incompatible, and make other changes as well. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 19 '16 at 06:02
  • @RockPaperLizard if you roll back to Windows 7, the system is restored as it was, no traces of Windows 10 is left behind. Windows 10 will uninstall incompatible software but the program's files will not be deleted – Ramhound Jul 19 '16 at 21:41
  • @Ramhound wrote "...the system is restored as it was...". By any chance, do you have a reference for that? Ramhound also wrote "Windows 10 will uninstall incompatible software..." If a rollback is performed, will that software still be fully operational, or will things require tweaking to get it all running again? – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 19 '16 at 21:49
  • @RockPaperLizard Just yesterday I installed Win10 with an intention to go back to Win7 right away. When I told Win10 to go back to 7 it told me that "some programs may need to be reinstalled" (not with these words exactly, because I have Polish locale; nevertheless the meaning was as I say). This was the reason I gave up on Windows way and restored Win7 from dd backup. – Kamil Maciorowski Jul 19 '16 at 22:18
  • @KamilMaciorowski Thanks Kamil. Your anecdote confirms what I've heard. You were able to restore Win7 just by using dd? – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 19 '16 at 22:47
  • (1/2) @RockPaperLizard I tend to stick to simple tools. I made dd backup of Win7 partition with zeroing free space and compression, as described here. My partition layout was more standard than yours. I also made backup of ~100MiB partition that Win7 had created; and MBR with all the data before the first partition. When restoring, I used all three images. The last one was important because it turned out that Win10 repartitioned my drive. All went well. – Kamil Maciorowski Jul 19 '16 at 22:50
  • (2/2) @RockPaperLizard If I were you I would zero the empty space and make dd backup of entire disk (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda3) with compression. Lots of I/O, probably way far from optimal solution. – Kamil Maciorowski Jul 19 '16 at 22:51
  • @KamilMaciorowski Thanks Kamil. Win10 repartitioned the drive? Yikes! Good to know. – End Anti-Semitic Hate Jul 19 '16 at 22:58
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Kamil Maciorowski Jul 19 '16 at 23:00
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You don't need a backup device as large as the whole drive for most modern backup software - and in many cases it can be slightly smaller due to compression. I tend to use third party software (Veem endpoint backup handles my daily backups, and I've used macrium for one off backups). So, if you want to play it safe try backing up first, then doing windows backup.Resizing pre backup shouldn't be necessary, nor would selective backups, as long as enough space for storing the used space. As a bonus, you can do this off a running system.

the 10gb partition feels like a factory recovery partition - if you can create recovery disks this should not be necessary.

Journeyman Geek
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Clonezilla works best when it is cloning from one disk to another disk of exactly the same size. I've had mixed results with cloning partitions. If you want to clone to a device that has less storage space than the original, you can try PING (Partimage is not Ghost). This has worked well for me in creating compressed images of my hard drive.

I've upgraded about 10 PCs from Windows 7 to 10. Some upgrades went well; some went poorly. However, I have also rolled several machines back to 7 with absolutely no loss of programs, data, or functionality. I did have to manually reset static IPs on my network connection.

MrMoxy
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