Windows System Restore and Norton Ghost

[murphychris]

Does anyone have experiencing using either of these utilities for a successful backup and restore of Windows installed using Boot Camp Assistant (own partition)?

I ask because if this thead thread:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1358415/

Here I'm seeing a totally hosed GPT and MBR, and I'm wondering if either of these utilities might be assuming they have full authority to overwrite the entire MBR and all or part of the MBR gap, rather than just restoring the boot code?

Most people are recommending Winclone it seems, and from what I can tell it's designed explicitly for Boot Camp Assistant created Windows installations on Mac OS.

 

[Intell]

WinClone is what you want. Norton Ghost doesn't play nice with Boot Camp.

 

[Grannyville7989]

Just to make sure you're not getting confused, System Restore isn't a backup utility.

System Restore creates system checkpoints that contain system files, registry keys, installed programs, etc so that they can be "rolled back to" in the event of a malfunction. This program can be particularly useful if you've installed a device driver that's preventing your system from booting up correctly, to which you can restore your computer back to a time before you installed the driver.

I'm sure you were referring to Windows Backup & Restore Center for backup but I know many people have mistaken System Restore for a backup utility.

 

[Dr McKay]

What you'll want is to make Windows create a disk image. This will back up your computer entirely how it was. All drives.

 

[marikavs]

Disk Image (?)

What you'll want is to make Windows create a disk image. This will back up your computer entirely how it was. All drives.

I'm missing drivers in my XP BootCamp (transferred from MacBook 1,1 2006 to MacBook Pro 5,1 2008.) I still have the original MacBook. How would I go about making Windows create a disk image?

I suppose then I could get the drivers, which has proven problematic now with Lion and W7 predominating. My Snow Leopard disc doesn't seem to install them and I didn't bring my Leopard (or was it Tiger?) install discs with me. (Elsewhere it's been suggested some grey install/re-install disc would do the trick.)

 

[murphychris]

I'm sure you were referring to Windows Backup & Restore Center for backup but I know many people have mistaken System Restore for a backup utility.

I actually don't know what I'm referring to, because I'm parrotting other suers who referred to using System Restore. Perhaps they were confused.

What I'm curious about, but don't want to test it myself, is if either System Restore or Windows Backup and Restore Center overwrite the MBR in any way, and if so exactly how.

If the first 440 bytes of the MBR are restored, that's fine. But if the 64 bytes that contain the table of primary partitions is altered, that will almost certainly spell disaster for the dual boot-ability of the system—as in, a disconnect between the MBR and GPT on the disk. Not good at all. And hence why hybrid MBRs are just a disaster waiting to happen.