Too many newbies trying this and destroying their PCs

**Medico** · 2012-03-19 06:21

Sometimes I wish MS would not do a wholesale release of a beta like this. There are a ton of people downloading Win 8 CP and trying to load it into VMs or Dual Boots that have no idea what they are doing, and they are destroying their host or primary OS without creating an Image first. There are a couple more stories in the Step By Step Instructions posted by Fred Langa of people doing this.

For those of you contemplating trying this, PLEASE, read about Imaging FIRST!!!

That way WHEN, not IF but WHEN you screw up you will be able to restore prior to your next attempt. I know this is a learning process. But PLEASE take baby steps and the first step is to CREATE AN IMAGE!!!

Next misconception:

Many people in this forum and elsewhere think that Win 8 CP is a fully released OS that they should upgrade their present OS to. It is absolutely crazy to destroy your present activated legal OS to install a beta OS that is not even fully functional yet. Yes, Win 8 CP is quite impressive and seems rock solid, but there are MANY features still missing that work in your present OS!!!!

This just ain't so folks!! Please do not upgrade your present OS!!

Win 8 CP is a time limited beta OS that has been released by MS to allow consumers to preview (hence the name Consumer's Preview) and to allow feedback to MS on problems or recommended additional features. This OS will deactivate sometime in shortly after October when Win 8 RTM (Release To Manufacturing) is released. The RTM is the Gold Standard fully functional release of Win 8. This is the OS that MS will be selling. This is the OS that will most likely have various versions.

**rmonroe36** · 2012-03-19 07:10

Point well taken, Ted. And just to confirm your advice about imaging, I had occasion to use an Acronis image yesterday. The short story: tried installing some software and ended up with losing Metro completely. But Acronis to the rescue and here I am back to "normal"

.

**Medico** · 2012-03-19 15:43

Very good Rich. Another satisfied customer.

**DrWho** · 2012-03-19 16:42

I've been putting "Backup! Backup! Backup!" in my signature line on countless PC Help forums, for years.
Does anyone pay attention? Seldom!

Regardless, of what some may say, having two OS's visible to each other can cause interaction. For instance, one day when I ran XP with my Win-8 drive connected and powered up, XP deleted all my System Restore Points in Win-8.
Later that day when I booted into Win-8 and needed to do a System Restore, all my restore points were GONE.

I had to fall back on a Ghost Backup that was several days old. I lost everything I'd done on Win-8 since I'd made that backup. (but at least I had a backup, when I needed one) So if you're doing a lot of testing and changing things, installing new programs, etc, like most of us are doing with Win-8/CP, do a Backup at least once a day. *

I now use just one Molex power plug to power up both my XP and Win-8 hard drives. I just plug it into the power cable to the drive that I want to work with. It's a little bit clumsy, but it prevents one OS from mucking about with the other one.

* NEVER, run your backup and restore program from within Windows. When your HD goes up in fire and smoke, you're strictly out of luck. Keep your backup/restore software, whatever program you may use, on a CD or bootable Flash Drive and keep your backup image file on some removable media, either external HD or DVD. Most of the best Backup software allow you to make an Emergency Restore CD. Do it!

So far, I've had to re-install my Win-8 OS several times because I didn't have a suitable backup.
But since Win-8 is NOT my main OS, it's not a really big deal.

Thanks Ted, , , Good thread!

The Doctor

**Medico** · 2012-03-19 16:49

You are very welcome Doc. Anyone with a question about how to do this stuff needs to ask BEFORE they jump in, not after they fudge their OS without a good Image. That makes things very hard. Believe me years ago I learned these things the hard way. I did not know any better and did not frequent these are any forums. Learning the hard way is NOT FUN!

Please read Doc's signature. Perhaps I will add that to mine as well.

**Roderunner** · 2012-03-19 19:24

On a lighter side, don't encourage newbies to backup, it'll make us regulars redundant. haha.gif

**DrWho** · 2012-03-19 20:04

Ted, I have a copyright on that signature, but I hereby give you permission to use it. roflmao

I've been setting up backup schemes, long before there was Windows or forums, going all the way back to the early 80's.
Those were the "DOS Days".

I witnessed people backing up their data to floppy disks and then storing those disks in a plastic box, right next to the computer. In case of fire or theft, those backups would have been GONE. Only when those backups were put in a Fireproof vault or off premises someplace were they really safe.

The only thing that's different today, is that we no longer use floppy disks.
We might use an external USB hard drive, or maybe a flash drive, but that is usually left sitting next to the PC.
Again, in case of fire or theft or maybe even hurricane or Tornado, the backup will be gone, right along with the computer.

I'm not at all in favor of uploading data to a "Cloud" or file server someplace out on the internet, as you have no control over your data in those cases.

Keeping backups in a fireproof location, Off Premises, is always a good idea for critical data files.
And for the greatest ability to recover from a Hard Drive Crash, your backup needs to be an Image of your entire C: drive, not just the data.

You don't have to "Buy" a new Backup Program each time you upgrade to a new OS.
I'm still using Ghost 11.5 that I started using with Windows XP and it still works through Vista, Win-7 and now with Win-8.
I have it on bootable media and NEVER put it on my C: drive.

Using Cleanup batch files on my Ghost boot disk, I can do a HD cleanup right from there. That reduces the amount of data going into my backup by about 5 gigabytes. That's tremendously helpful in reducing backup time and the space needed on my backup media.

I do two more things when I'm doing a backup of my XP drive. As soon as the backup is done, I go ahead and run a "Check" of the backup image file to make sure it's good. If it is, then I do an immediate Restore. That proves the image file can be used later to restore my C: drive, if ever needed and it performs one more task. It provides the worlds best Defrag of the drive. That's how we defragmented the big drives on Mainframe Computers of times past.

When I'm done, cleaning up the drive, then backing up the drive, checking the backup image file and doing a Restore, my C: drive looks like I just formatted it and loaded windows. There are NO spaces between files and NO fragmentation.
(I wanted to post a picture of my XP C: drive, but I couldn't copy this link using FF. I had to use I.E. to get it. CRAP!)
The blue area is my files, the green area is the pagefile, re-written by Windows, after the Backup/Restore.
(I delete the pagefile as part of my cleanup, before doing the backup. I don't backup NO JUNK!)
Cheers Mates,
The Doctor

**Medico** · 2012-03-20 02:32

By the way so as not to infringe too badly, I changed the look of the signature, and put it first. LOL

Part of my Imaging routine is a complete cleanup and defrag prior to creating the Image as well. What's the sense of creating an Image of all those old TIF and temp files and what not. Does not make sense to me. I clean out as much junk as I can find, do the disk cleanup on steroids thing, run the cleanup batch file, run the temp file cleaners, the whole shootin match, then run a defrag. Then I'm ready to Image from outside of Windows. I load my Acronis disk, boot into Acronis and create and validate my Image onto my ext HD. I had not thought about restoring right afterward but since that only takes about 10 minutes, I could do that.

**rmonroe36** · 2012-03-20 16:49

In my reply above, I should have included "The Three Backup Rules":

1. If it is important - BACK IT UP!

2. If it is very important - BACK IT UP TWICE!

3. If it is very, very important - BACK IT UP THREE TIMES WITH THE THIRD STORED OFF-SITE!

**DrWho** · 2012-03-20 17:43

I've been saying that for about 30 years now.
And I didn't even get the quote. (Ha Ha, jus kiddin')
Good advise though.

And I've also been saying just what the railroads say, "Never the trains shall meet".

Only in this case, it's "Never let one OS see another one".
Two OS's on the same hard drive are just like two trains on the same track, headed towards each other. Not IF but WHEN they finally meet, "Kaboom!".

The 'Kaboom' happened on my own PC this week, when in error, I left my Win-8 hard drive plugged in while I booted up my XP hard drive. Without my knowledge or consent, XP deleted all the restore points that I'd created (manually) on my Win-8 drive.

The next day I needed one of those Restore points and they were all GONE. Then I remembered hearing about that problem when Win-7 was first released in Beta and people started installing it as a dual boot OS.

A sure fire way to destroy your main OS is to try to set up another OS on the same drive. Just one little mistake is all it takes.......

Or set up a new hard drive while the main drive is still plugged in.
It doesn't take much for a Format command to take off and Re-Format the wrong drive.
Always assure that this can't happen, by simply unplugging the main drive while setting up a new one. Just one simple rule to follow. Eh?

Cheers mates!
The Doctor

**RussB** · 2012-03-20 20:18

Originally Posted by Ted Myers

Sometimes I wish MS would not do a wholesale release of a beta like this. There are a ton of people downloading Win 8 CP and trying to load it into VMs or Dual Boots that have no idea what they are doing, and they are destroying their host or primary OS without creating an Image first. There are a couple more stories in the Step By Step Instructions posted by Fred Langa of people doing this.
For those of you contemplating trying this, PLEASE, read about Imaging FIRST!!!

That way WHEN, not IF but WHEN you screw up you will be able to restore prior to your next attempt. I know this is a learning process. But PLEASE take baby steps and the first step is to CREATE AN IMAGE!!!

Shhhhhhhh. This is job security for a lot of Nerds.

**Drew1903** · 2012-03-21 01:49

Good point, if, End Users couldn't muck things up we, IT Pros, would have a lot less work. So, yeah, shhhhhhh

**Medico** · 2012-03-21 04:11

Don't worry, there will still be thousands of people who think they know what they are doing and will muck things up very badly and yell help to you 3 "professional" gentlemen, perhaps at a higher level than before. Hey, then you can hire me to help. Yea that's the ticket. I'll put out a sign "Nerd for hire" yea, that's the ticket! Now I'm cookin with gas!

**bobbybluz** · 2012-03-22 06:03

I'd never install a "test" O/S on anything but a secondary box intended just for that use. If something goes wrong consider it part of the evaluation process. I've been playing with the Windows 8 Developer Preivew since it was released a few months ago. After getting rid of the annoying Metro GUI I must say I'm very impressed with the new memory & resource management and the resulting speed increase. Since it's such an early release I consider it a toy at best. I have used it for command-line flashing of BIOS on GPU's I've repaired but other than that I try different hardware on it to see if it'll install without having to mod the .ini files.

Windows 7 can create it's own system image file and those work great for doing repairs and reinstalls. I make an image of all my main computers once a week and store them on seperate hard drives. I still partition mechanical HD's keeping the operation system on it's own partition and critical data on another. With SSD's I use those as the operating system drive and have mechanical HD's behind them. I also do redundant backups for extremely critical data.

Windows 8 test rig: Asus M4A89TD, AMD 965BE @3.9ghz (water cooled), 16gb Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600, 2 1tb Samsung F3 HD103SJ's in RAID 0, Sapphire HD 4890 2tb, Creative Audigy 2 Pro (modded .ini files), Corsair HX 750, Win 8-64 Developer Preview in dual boot with XP Pro 64.

**Drew1903** · 2012-03-22 06:50

Yes, no question, back-up should be given... indeed for ALL End Users not, just, Enterprise & Power Users.

I remember whilst beta testing Windows7 all the woes brought to the table in forums by ppl who did upgrades instead of clean installs or who wiped out their non-beta Vistas or XPs w/ a beta Win7 OS... Ergo, learn from past mistakes w/ this reminder...

No Beta OS should be installed except, as follows:

1. On a spare machine
2. Virtually
3. As a dual-boot.

Never as an Upgrade or replacement to an existing, current, non-beta OS. Never on a production machine.
Nor, BTW, can one move from 1 Beta of an OS to the next or from Beta to RTM, etc... from Build to Build or stage to stage, except by clean installs.

Programs & software must be installed, after a fresh OS install.

Cheers,
Drew

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