Safe to delete boot folder on non-boot drive? And image q's.

[CreeDorofl]

I was looking into the windows 7 backup tool and saw you can image an entire drive now. When I go to do this, Windows thinks I have 2 boot drives. Two theories as to why this is:

1. I was paranoid and chose the upgrade installation, keeping my old XP windows folder. I've since deleted that folder but a boot folder is there, filled with various language folders (en-US, cs-CZ, etc) and .mui files.
2. I had a botched windows 7 installation because windows stopped being able to read my DVD drive late in the install process. I ended up reinstalling via USB drive. To this day I get presented with a boot menu offering 1. Windows 7 or 2. Windows 7.

Which is it? And can I just delete that folder? Unlocker shows windows is using it. For what though I can't imagine.

===========

Next question: I violated all sorts of techy rules by putting my OS on a gigantic 1 TB drive that I also use for worthless movies, mp3s, etc. BAD DOG. At the time my thinking was that the former windows drive was getting really old (it's a 40GB drive from a time when 40GB was a big drive). I wanted windows on a new drive that wasn't likely to die anytime soon.

So anyway, I know I have various backup options like a windows rescue disk, an ubuntu live CD, system restore, etc. But I want to check out the disk imaging feature.

Is there some workaround that will let me partition off just the used portion of the disk (not much at the moment) and image just that partition? Can you even image just a partition and not the entire disk? I don't think that's how imaging works but I thought I'd ask.

 

[Jonmor68]

Yes you can image a single partition. If it only contains data files you can easily restore them to the same or new drive/partition.
When creating an image of the OS and there are system files on another partition both need to be imaged so you can restore in the event of a drive failure.
With a somewhat messed up install, I would suggest a new install on the drive that you want it on, disconnect all other hdd's before you start.
You can then reconnect them afterwards and get what you want off them and reformat them for reuse if they have any OS files on them.
You can then create an image that can be restored to a new drive if needed.

 

[CreeDorofl]

That makes sense to me, I figured at some point a reinstall of the OS was gonna have to happen.

I was hoping there was a partition tool to partition just the used blocks of my C:\ drive, then image that partition and stick it onto a new fast smaller drive.

But having windows think my OS is spread across two drives somehow... I guess I really need to address that by making a clean install on one drive, then getting rid of the installs on the others.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[CreeDorofl]

Best answer selected by creedorofl.