is it possible to make a recovery partition and recovery cd for my pc with partition magic, my laptop came with a recovery cd, and when i put it in it said partition magic so i was wondering if i could make one for my other old desktop pc?

If you want to make a backup partition for your desktop, you'd want to use a program like Acronis True Image. The Recovery Partition on your laptop is pretty much exactly this.

Again... complete sentences... Periods, capitals, proper punctuation.

but arconis is a trial version, is that ok? will it expire my image or anything after the trial is over? So your saying i cant use partition magic?

what other programs do this?

anyone?

An hour and a half to bump your own post...

I don't know of any reliable freeware backup programs. Acronis is worth every penny of the price that you pay for it.

Partition Magic creates partitions. It doesn't manage what goes on them.

After the trial of Acronis is over, the partition with your image will remain, but you won't be able to use the program to recover the image if you need it.

could norton ghost do the same thing as arconis too?

Yes, Norton Ghost does the same thing as Acronis, but True Image is better than Ghost IMO. You have the option of creating an Acronis boot loader so that you can recover your image without having to load into Windows, or you can create a boot CD that you can recover your images from as well. I've simply found Acronis better than Norton.

can norton ghost creat boot cds etc?

Yes. If you want a free one I can point you in the direction But, they can be a little hard to understand.

what free one?

There are several on here.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

How about BartPE - that's free isn't it?

And can be used to create boot cds - not?

Here are a couple of threads on the making of recovery partitions:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=26185

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=37939

jaclaz

(responding to hakeem5454 PM):

A detailed whitepaper is here:

http://oem.microsoft.com/static/worldwide/...ons_for_SBs.doc

As already mentioned in the posts I previously linked to you will need a Partition Manager to be able to hide/unhide the recovery partition, unless you want to use the technique detailed here:

http://www.tech-forums.net/computer_articl...estore-disk.php

(it is a simple guide to make a hidden recovery partition + recovery boot disk with Ghost)

Here you can find almost the same using "Partition Saving" which is Freeware unlike GHOST or ACRONIS:

http://www.optimizingpc.com/howtouse/imagebootdisk.html

http://www.optimizingpc.com/howtouse/imagingpartition.html

I already suggested some freeware partition managers in the threads I previously linked to, here are some more hints:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=47773

("partita" actually works, the only downside is that you see at boot time the "hidden" partition boot entry in the menu)

Of course there are many more, both commercial and freeware.

If the "recovery partition" is DOS based (or to be more exact the Operating System hooks on int13h) you can use ISOEMU:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=8955

(scroll down the page for a working link)

to add an entry to boot.ini that boots from an .iso image (yeah, ok, it is not a recovery partition, but it's similar enough)

or vfloppy:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=10878

to add an entry to boot.ini that boots from an .ima image (yeah, ok, it is not a recovery partition, but it's similar enough)

jaclaz

Have a look at BootIt NG - partitioning, imaging, and boot management. Free 30 day trial or $US35 to buy.

http://www.bootitng.com/

I've used it on many occasions for various partitioning procedures and image creation and restoration - and not had any problems.