eva2000

The use of secure erase via apps like hdderase, gparted, parted magic, and sanitary-erase etc on SSD drives to restore a SSD to full performance will wipe all data on the SSD. So prior to wiping an SSD via secure erase, you'd want to do a full back of your windows system.

For Windows 7 users the simplest method to do a full system backup and restore, would be via Windows 7's Back and Restore function to create a system image and to create a windows repair disc which will be used to restore the Windows 7 system image backup. You can either create the system image on local disk or a networked folder.

Note:

• Windows 7 system backup and restore feature will only work if the size of formatted backup source partitions in total, is of the same size or less than the size of the created partitions of the destination drive or array that is being restored to. So if C drive is formatted at 200GB in size. The raid array created needs to be at least 200GB in size. This is regardless of how much actual data is on that 200GB C drive. Even if C drive only used 15GB out of 200GB, restoring to a 100GB raid array will not work and fail. So if need be, you'd need to shrink and resize your system partitions to fit the intended destination hard drive/SSD or raid array size.

Local disk





Network shared folder





The below illustrative guide assumes the Windows 7 system image is located on a networked shared folder called \\DFIX58\\raid964. The system image will be restored to a freshly created 2x 60GB Gskill Phoenix Pro Sandforce controller based SSD in raid 0 on LSI MegaRaid 9260-8i PCI-E raid controller.

Below example, the system backup image is for the entire drive with 2 partitions, C: drive and G: drive.

eva2000

System boot up and hitting CTRL+H to get into LSI MegaRaid 9260-8i web bios to create 2x60GB Gskill Phoenix Pro ssd raid 0 array.









Creating raid 0 array



Select drives to add to array



Hit Accept Drive Group





Setup raid 0 options



Confirm you want to set Write policy to Write through (usually only select this if your raid controller has a BBU - battery back up or your system is connected to an UPS).



Newly created virtual drive array called VD0





Initialization of new virtual drive array



Setting virtual drive array VD0 to boot drive



Virtual drive VD0 properties overview









Exited out of web bios back into system boot up, LSI 9260-8i displayed newly created virtual drive raid0 array.

eva2000

Loading the Windows 7 created system repair disc to restore windows system image backup to SSD raid 0 array



Select "Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier"



Since Windows 7 system image backup is on network shared folder, you initially won't find the image on local disks. Hit cancel so you can select a system image



No image will be found on local disks.



Hit Advanced button to search for system image on the network



Connecting to network



Specify location of system image on network and enter network username and password to the remote system



Scanning for system image disks



Select Windows 7 system image backup you want restored to SSD raid0 array



I prefer to hit Advanced and uncheck automatic restart after restore is complete so i can confirm the restoration





Confirm restoring of system image backup will wipe out all data, partitions on destination SSD raid 0 array



Windows 7 system images being restored



Windows 7 system image backup restored and ready to restart

youngpro

nice i never looked at that sort of process before, didnt know it was as good as it seems to be

im still doing the w7pe + ghost or acronis for my reimaging process

wim is a nice format though, especially if you are making multiple images, maybe one for each benching setup, it is a deduplicated format, so your overall image size might grow by only 10% if you have say 5 27 32bit images each with different drivers and benchmarks installed...

i generally like to setup a benching platform, get it all prepped for that particular bench, and image it without vga drivers (so when i put it down again in 6 months time, i just need the latest vga driver and go), so this type of de-duplicated format would make sense for me

eva2000

Yeah same thing i do, install OS bare nothing - then image backup. Then install drivers - then image backup. Then install apps - then image backup. So can revert to which ever is needed.

I use to use Acronis but for past few years they've lagged and each successive versions always seem to have issues restoring older version backups. Now i moved to Paragon Hard Drive Suite 2010 for backups they have winpe ISO included with their app integrated. But it doesn't have drivers for my raid controller so need to learn how to use Adddriverstope script http://www.wilderssecurity.com/archi.../t-273497.html and http://www.wilderssecurity.com/archi.../t-274455.html. Tried it last night but it results in non-bootable usb winpe ISO for some reason heh.

They even have pdf guide on how to add more drivers to winpe http://www.paragon-software.com/expo...tomization.pdf

The Windows 7 backup and restore is simple though

youngpro

ah yeah paragon have some ncie products, i havnt been using their partition software it has some amazing options for a benchmark like pcmark, such as downgrading ntfs versions, changing cluster size on the fly, etc...

you know what i find the best way george is to use a vanilla w7pe with a few addons like computer management so i can configure parititions, of course booted from a usb stick..

i like to run a BCD style usb boot from my new Mach-X 32gb stick.. i can then install all my os, boot my w7pe and boot my deployment images for work from the same stick.. as well as do my backups and restores..


then i boot into that and run ghost32 on top of it..

you can have all your drivers and use the drvload command to load the driver you need when your in the pe on the fly..

then you have a ghost that is compatible with any platform you want.. i was all about acronis but this makes more sense to me now, especially since some verisons of acronis block server os from being backed up now and that really bothers me!

eva2000

Nice... you should write up a guide when you have free time

Is that Mach FX USB3.0 drives http://www.mx-technology.com/en/prod...ash2.php?sid=8 ?

youngpro

yeah thats the one ive got, i use a combination of that and a gskill falcon in a sata3 enclosure to deploy my images, usb3+sata is makes it go down nearly as fast as disk 2 disk imaging..

i will write up a guide when i get a chance