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Recommended image backup/recovery solution for a netbook (no CD drive)

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MerleOne:
It's just that EWF seems a little bit more elaborate to set up.  But I have not read yet all the links you mentioned.

4wd:
It's just that EWF seems a little bit more elaborate to set up.  But I have not read yet all the links you mentioned.-MerleOne (April 17, 2009, 10:16 AM)
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For me it was, quite literally, 5 minutes work - I'm not saying I'm super smart or anything, (would be nice though :) ), but by the time I'd read through the instructions/limitations/etc of SteadyState, EWF was installed and running.

However, some kind soul has created a tool that takes all the hard work out of installing EWF - check out EWFTool.

NOTE: You still need to download the Windows XP Embedded SP2 mentioned in the other thread but I'm sure if you do a search1 you'll be able to find just the necessary files.

This OCZ forum post contains a lot of info regarding doing it the manual way and using EWFTool.  (NOTE: Unless you truly understand what minlogon.exe is and does, ignore any reference to installing it.)

1. Hint: Google

MerleOne:
I guess simplicity is a rather personal matter.

Here it's just that it's still a bit unclear to me whether I have to download just "Microsoft's Windows XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007" since Microsoft webpage says it's an option of another component that I don't have ("The Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 Feature Pack 2007 is not a stand alone product; it requires the developer to have Windows® Embedded Studio tool suite installed").  Also this component is in English, whereas I will be using a French localized XP, and sometimes it yields to strange results to mix languages. Then I also have to chose between EWF and FBWF. And the software to activate them.  I cannot see how I could do this in 5 min.

Anyway, thanks for giving me these directions !

4wd:
Here it's just that it's still a bit unclear to me whether I have to download just "Microsoft's Windows XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007" since Microsoft webpage says it's an option of another component that I don't have ("The Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 Feature Pack 2007 is not a stand alone product; it requires the developer to have Windows® Embedded Studio tool suite installed").-MerleOne (April 18, 2009, 04:28 AM)
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The Gran Turing site gives you details on how to extract the necessary files from Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 Feature Pack 2007 - no other part of XP Embedded is required.  No installation of the Feature Pack is required - we're only interested in 10 or so files within it.

Also this component is in English, whereas I will be using a French localized XP, and sometimes it yields to strange results to mix languages.
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The language it's in doesn't matter because the only parts we're interested in, (EWF and FBWF), are an underlying OS component you never get to see - they have no interface.  Just like 90+% of Windows XP itself.

Then I also have to chose between EWF and FBWF. And the software to activate them.
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If your system partition is going to be NTFS format then EWF is what you need as it fully supports NTFS.  If it's going to be FAT32, then you can use either - the differences between them are listed here.

MerleOne:
Thanks a lot for your time and detailed explanations.  This is definitely worth looking into.

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