Why do I have multiple drives in my backup system image?

Posted by bebop on Super User See other posts from Super User or by bebop
Published on 2010-01-13T14:11:57Z Indexed on 2010/04/29 1:27 UTC
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I have a drive which has 2 partitions. One is where the OS is installed, the other is a data (but not libraries) drive. When I try and create a backup using the built in tool, it wants to include both partitions in the system image. Why does it do this? If I move the os to a separate drive will I be able to back up just this data?

Edit: To be more clear.

I have 4 disks in the machine. 1 disc has 2 partitions. These are c: and e:, the other disks are d: f: and h:. The OS is installed on c: and libraries are stored on h:. The libraries are already backed up using crashplan, but I want to create a system image so I can easily restore the machine, if it either dies or if I get a SSD drive. When I choose backup (either through the wizard or if I open it through control panel) and check (or click) create a system image it automatically adds both c: and e: to the list of drives that will be backed up, and I cannot change this, the checkboxes to unselect are greyed out.

I would like to know why it automatically adds e: to the list (but not h:, where the libraries are) and if I can change some setting so whatever files it has on e: that it thinks need to be backed up as part of the system image are moved to c:. How can I determine what they are? Is it because c: and e: are partitions of the same disk? If I move c: tro a different disk will that mean I only have to back up c:?

Thanks

Edit 2: I have viewed all files including hidden and system ones on both drives and it seems that I have a suspicous hidden e:\boot\ folder. I think that I might have installed the OS as a VHD at first then installed a seperate version straight on the disk, having dual boot for a while, then used EasyBCD to remove the VHD boot and file. Might this be what is causing my issue? How might I go about removing this? is it safe to just delete the boot folder?

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