the moment I got my laptop which came with Windows 8, I formatted it and deleted the GPT partition table then recreated the partitions with a DOS partition table and installed Windows 7 just fine I always delete the GPT partitions because I was never able to restore a disk image if I take it with let's say Acronis True Image properly, so to keep things simple I kept the partitions at basic because I read that GPT Partition's only benefit is that it supports disks of more than 2 TB I read somewhere on the forums someone saying keep GPT disks for faster boot performance? Is that true? and how does it do that? sounds like a gimmick to me, can someone please confirm and guide meh in the right direction? do you think i should format and redo everything using GPT again or is there no gain other than the increased partition size support?
UEFI and GPT seems to go hand in hand with better boot performance. I have UEFI & GPT and it shaves a lot of time off the boot process... Norton Ghost will restore the system happily for me so not an issue. Not sure 100% as mind foggy from lack of sleep, but I think you need GPT partition/UEFI bios for best results too many beers and not enough sleep
yeah I have a UEFI BIOS bro I have 2 questions for you: 1) how does UEFI/GPT Partition save time from the boot process? where's the magic? 2) are you sure Norton Ghost is able to backup and restore a GPT partition successfully?
1. UEFI cuts out 30 years of legacy crap and since we don't use a lot of the peripherals from then we can dump some of it. The BIOS was limited to loading all things in the first 1MB of RAM where UEFI can extend that out as it is like mini-OS. I tried to look for some resource links to show you graphically but dammned if I can find it now. So perhaps someone else can explain the magic... otherwise if you had 2nd spare drive kicking about, then remove all your others and test with BIOS and time it... then nuke and repeat with UEFI and time it. 2. Yup I have many times restore the Windows partition back. Partition 0 is the Windows Boot Part that I do not Ghost, and Partition 1 is the Windows install/programs. I backup and restore just the Partition 1 just fine.
Does Windows 8 have a backup tool like Windows 7 did and is it any good or skip it and try Paragon's Backup and Recovery above?
Windows 8 does, but its been removed AFAIK from 8.1. I cannot find it in 8.1 anyway lol. In Win8 at the start screen type "windows 7" then click settings > "Windows 7 file recovery" (or Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Windows 7 File Recovery) there will be 2 options on the left, "create system image" create system repair disc". I prefer to boot to external software and backup personally. Nothing on the system is running at that time. Note: if you do setup a system with GPT and UEFI w/ secure boot, depending on the software you might have to enable legacy to boot to the backup software. Once finished, reboot to bios and disable legacy again.
It seems to be that MS is pushing hard to get more user using Cloud-Services, for example with Skydrive etc. and in the same way pushing the use of MS-Accounts which includes a frre Skydrive account as well. In that means, it's a bit logically that MS has "forget" to place Backup on Windows 8.1 because that maybe "drives" Windows 8.x and later users f"faster" to use the cloud services. It was also one of the main points in the Opening Speech of Steve Balmer at WPC! He really pushed hard to get the guest thinking deeply about the use of Cloud systems. Anyway, most third party Backup Apps are even better than the MS internal apps.
Just go to Control Panel, File History, wait like 5 seconds and find System image Backup option in the lower left corner