karenjoly :
SATA optical drive
You can put both controllers on AHCI. Optical drives these days are SATA, like yours, so AHCI suits them fine. And they can install on the same controller. I run an ASUS board with the x99 chipset and have two sata optical drives and two sata ssd drives on the same AHCI-set controller.No problemo.
Regarding Macrium Reflect Free
The app is very flexible, imaging just a partition/ volume or the entire disk. You will notice # 3 imaging option is " to image this disk". Ergo the whole enchilada is captured.And in working order.
I am not aware of an external imaging app that restores from a usb without an app on the target disk but you have likely found EaseUS to try. Do not use Windows imaging as it is unreliable tho I suppose it may work, but we have had several issues to deal with it recently.
Let us know if you find something suitable.
With all due respect to the bros I would just use Macrium. (How can one app infringe the Hyper V operation ?).
Oh, so it was fine the way it was. Good to know. I moved the Optical to SATA 5, but I can put back on SATA 2 if SATA drives are backwards compatible and work fine on AHCI. That keeps things simple. Thanks!
I need to image the main pure SSD drive into whatever Hyper-V files can be used. And size is an issue. Right now im pushing 34GB which means every Hyper-V file will be no less than 40GB and probably a lot more so i have work space (Ex. Home Video editing). I really want the "TEST" and "Benchmark" VMs very small. I suppose having Macrium duplicated onto every VM isn't too much of a waste. It can't be more than a 500MB program, right? I wonder if there is some feature of it that actually would be necessary and benefit every VM - I'm not clear on that yet. Right now im working on the fact that once anything has been installed on the Main drive it permanently has changed it.
I really appreciate these ideas. They help me think through my options. I realize people here have a lot of solid experience which can help me. However, I'm not confident I've totally made clear my purpose of this new box, so im filtering each idea through that prism as we go.
I'll feel more confident in learning from everyone here if I try to explain my purpose with this box.
In short: This is my new main and will be my only computer. I use a computer for 5 to 10 years. Historically my computers degrade into permanent slowness and trouble within about 2 years. I usually build my own system and know everything about every component hardware and software but my brothers built and gave them to me as a gift, so im being extremely cautious this time since i have very little knowledge of what i have, why each part was chosen, how well they work together, and I have no ability to restore anything if something goes wrong (since no install discs of any type, nor hardware documentation were provided - All I know is that everything was purposed from NewEgg). Therefore, my initial plan is to keep the main drive SSD (my first SSD ever) clean. By Clean I mean the Windows 10 + all pre-installed programs. I wasn't even planning to install any Motherboard software or drivers, since Windows 10 seems to have grabbed everything necessary for no yellow exclaimation marks in the device manager, and the system boots fine. I was intending to load utilities, games, and other software into Hyper-V Vms. Then if something go very bad, I can always load a copy of the original VM as a method of restoring, never rising the main system drive. I put my own second (data/storage) drive on, so each VM could write to it, thereby never losing any data if having to switch VMs (only configuration, however i was planning to periodically copy the current VM as a backup too). My brothers insisted that by working only in VMs im more secure and wont have a messed up slow system.
So when I realized the IDE setting was less than efficient for my first ever SSD, it slightly complicated my plan, because now instead of just having to figure out how I am going to image the main SSD drive into Hyper-V files (still need to figure that out), I also now im seeking imaging options to store and be able to restore the main SDD fully OS and programs, full drive, in case anything goes wrong with the AHCI correction in BIOS. Thats about it. It actually sounds more simple having typed it out.
As of now: I tried Clonezilla via USB Pendrive, and saved an image of the SSD on Drive 2. Interestingly it saves a ton of files with the main appearing to be an .img file which ciearly will not load in Hyper-V so this backup (assuming it even works) is only good for restoring the SSD and nothing else. I dont think i trust it, since its 12GB in size, and I know the used space is 33GB. Maybe clonezilla compresses things, but im skeptical.
I also did the Win 7 Imaging from within Windows 10, which I just read people say is not reliable. That image is stored on Drive 2 now also, however while Im an admin and can enter the directories by granting myself permission, by default it is unreadable, and therefore i have no clue if it even grabbed 33GB worth of data. Im nervous about clicking yes to allow admin privilege to enter the directories to check, since changing any details like permissions could be enough to make a restore fail since i have no prior knowledge of this tool.
I've found a list of other options but every one of them is like Macrium which appears to require installing software, which will bloat the pure and clean main drive, and even change things in registry. I'm not inclined to do that giving my purpose and plan written above. But if anyone has some additional thoughts on that, im happy to hear. I'm not confident that I have secured a restorable image and plan yet. Thanks.
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