I wanted to make an image of my boot drive (C). I created a partition on my D: drive for it and sized it at 439 GB. This is on my Win10Pro desktop. I made the image using “Backup and Restore Windows 7” function found in Settings | Update and Security | Backup. I’ll move that image to an offsite location later.
Anyway, when the image was complete, I went into File Explorer, right-clicked the W: drive where the disk image was created and went into Properties. It showed Used Space of 411 GB, Unused Space of 28.1 GB and a total Capacity of 439 GB. When I just opened drive W: to view what was there, it shows 3 folders and 1 file. The folders were System Volume Information, WindowsImageBackup and $RECYCLE.BIN. The file was dropbox.device. All the folders showed a Size of 0 bytes, Size on Disk 0 bytes and Contains 0 files, 0 folders. The dropbox.device file was Size 56 bytes with a Size on Disk of 0 bytes (go figure). Forgot to mention, when I opened the W: drive to view what was there, I had already gone into View and checked the Hidden Items box, went into Options and told it to Show hidden files, folders, and drives and I unchecked the box Hide protected operating system files.
When I open Disk Management, it shows that Drive W: has 439.45 GB Capacity with 439.35 GB free (yes, .35, not .45). However, when I click on the W: drive partition down below the top frame in Disk Management, right-click the box for that partition, and click on Properties for it, it shows Used space of 411 GB and 28.1 Free space and a Capacity of 439 GB.
I’m admit that I'm no computer guru but this isn't making any sense to me. I’m the only user of this machine (administrator). Why, under Properties vs. Disk Management for this drive, do I see two VERY different things? and where the hell is my disk image?
Anyway, when the image was complete, I went into File Explorer, right-clicked the W: drive where the disk image was created and went into Properties. It showed Used Space of 411 GB, Unused Space of 28.1 GB and a total Capacity of 439 GB. When I just opened drive W: to view what was there, it shows 3 folders and 1 file. The folders were System Volume Information, WindowsImageBackup and $RECYCLE.BIN. The file was dropbox.device. All the folders showed a Size of 0 bytes, Size on Disk 0 bytes and Contains 0 files, 0 folders. The dropbox.device file was Size 56 bytes with a Size on Disk of 0 bytes (go figure). Forgot to mention, when I opened the W: drive to view what was there, I had already gone into View and checked the Hidden Items box, went into Options and told it to Show hidden files, folders, and drives and I unchecked the box Hide protected operating system files.
When I open Disk Management, it shows that Drive W: has 439.45 GB Capacity with 439.35 GB free (yes, .35, not .45). However, when I click on the W: drive partition down below the top frame in Disk Management, right-click the box for that partition, and click on Properties for it, it shows Used space of 411 GB and 28.1 Free space and a Capacity of 439 GB.
I’m admit that I'm no computer guru but this isn't making any sense to me. I’m the only user of this machine (administrator). Why, under Properties vs. Disk Management for this drive, do I see two VERY different things? and where the hell is my disk image?
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partition, in that order. I have a partition called System Reserved (1GB) after that which is currently empty but I didn't have that partition when I originally bought this Dell XPS 8930 desktop. Following the System Reserved partition, I have some Unallocated space. I remember watching a YT video that led me to believe that a couple of partitions that came with this Dell PC that were at the end of Disk 1 "weren't really important" and "could be deleted without consequence." Stupidly, I deleted them and I think that was the advice that doomed me because, if what I recently read (somewhere), in one of those two deleted partitions was my winre.wim file. If I understand correctly, the winre.wim file is required to create a Windows recovery disk. The last time I tried the Backup and Restore (Windows 7), I was able to get a backup and Disk Management showed that I only had 26.10GB of space available on my 439GB backup partition that I had created so I know that Windows and my apps were backed up (even though when I open that backup and go in to Properties, none of the files there have any data in them - still can't figure that out). However, after the backup, it would NOT let me do a System Repair Disk. It continued to state "The System Repair Disc could not be created, A system repair disc cannot be created without a Windows installation disc." I don't have a Windows installation disk because it was preloaded on my Dell machine and I could not find the Win10pro license number under my Dell account online and there was no license number on any email that Dell sent to me when I bought the machine. Is the missing winre.wim file the reason why I can't make a repair disk? I looked in the Windows |Recovery and the Windows |System32 |Recovery folders for it and it isn't there (I did go into View and Unhide the hidden OS files before I searched). Could the missing winre.wim file be the reason why Disk Management shows that a backup clearly occurred but why it shows no data in the folders/files that are listed in that backup? I think I'm just screwed. I bought Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat DC and Cyberlink Power Media Player (also preloaded) so I don't want to do fresh reinstall of Windows, and lose those apps, just so I can do a backup disk. Windows is running ok except for not being able to do the backup disk.
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