non destructive partitioning

[Char Jackson]

So you regard sector by sector as implying all sectors are backed up
including unallocated ones?

I usually blow past it quickly, but in Acronis 2010 I believe it
defaults to what they call a "smart" backup, which only backs up the
allocated sectors. But there's another option called Sector by sector,
and that option has a sub-option called Include unallocated sectors.
So I think the answer to your question is no, at least in some cases.

See also Joe Morris's reply in this thread.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Joe Morris

There are three situations in which a sector backup is necessary:

1) The backup program does not know how to handle the file system used in
the partition, and thus has no way to know what sectors have valid data and
need to be backed up, nor how to reconstruct the file system control blocks
on restore.

2) The entire file system is encrypted, and the backup program can see only
cyphertext. In this case it may know everything about the file system
structure but cannot see it.

3) Forensic investigations, in which case you need to make a working copy of
the disk involved in a manner that is *completely* identical to the
original. You generally want to keep the original locked up and unaltered
in order to preserve its evidentiary value, and critical data may be present
in unallocated sectors and/or in residual data not cleared from
no-longer-in-use field in file system control blocks. File-level backups
will usually fail to copy either.

[]
4) Where some software expects to find something at a given absolute
position on the disc. This has in the past been used as a
copy-protection mechanism, though I haven't heard of it being for some
time (and might well argue viciously with the OS under 7, and possibly
even XP).

 

[yorkda]

On 9/24/2011 3:38 PM, (e-mail address removed)d wrote:
> I'm setting up my wife's new laptop which runs W7 64 bit whose HD comes
> in a single partition plus a hidden restore partition.
> I like to have a separate data partition for easier backups. Any
> suggestions for a free utility that will permit resizing and creating
> new partitions in W 7 64 bit?

Creating your backups onto the same physical hard drive as your OS is
not a wise idea. Even though it may be on a different partition, when
the drive fails not only would you lose the OS partition, you'd lose the
backups as well. It's better to use a network attached storage device,
or a USB drive for storing your backups instead.
​

Agree 100%, don't use the same drive even if different partitions. The original post didn't imply that was his intent however. He just wants to maintain data in a partition to itself presumably to make backup of the entire partition easier. Today's backup software makes it easy to select what to backup, so rather than isolate, what about committing to using a single directory for data? In the past, I've run into self induced space restrictions when creating too many partititions so I now opt to maximum sized partition then manage within.