Hello,

Firstly I would like to apologise if I have posted this thread in the wrong category. As it is my first post on this forum I hope you can forgive me.

I have had this problem for a very long time and I'm sure someone on this website can help me find a solution.

Basically, I would like to create a recovery partition on my hard drive. I am aware of how to do this using software such as Norton Ghost etc. But I would like to create this recovery without using this kind of software.

Something like how HP, Dell, PC World etc. have theirs set up? So if a virus corrupts the C: drive, and I need to format my drive, I can just hit the F10 key (or F11 etc.) in bios to access the recovery partition without using the Ghost disc?

I hope I have made myself clear, it would be very much appreciated if someone can help me, thank you.

Kind regards,

Robert.

Hello Robertcraig Welcome to PCHF

Unless you know how to program, you won't be able to set something up like brand name recovery programs. What you can do however, is set up a partition on your hard drive and then use a program like Ghost (or Acronis True Image is what I prefer), and then save the image to that partition.

The best way to do that if you want to get it to a "factory default state" like what they do with brand names is to format and install a fresh copy of Windows, install all the software you like, set Windows up with all the appearance settings you like, add all your favorites, background, etc etc etc...just get the operating system set to a perfect state. Then create the image and save the image to your home made "recovery partition."

The only difference doing it that way, is you can't just hit F10 or something like that...you just boot to the software and recover the data. You can even make a 3rd partition (or preferably have a second hard drive) and save all your music/movies/pictures/documents to that other area. So after you recover, you can just pull your data from your data partition or hard drive.

Hope that helps!