On restore can I leave out the E partition?
Yes, and No.
If your system is booting properly, there is no need to restore the boot files.
However, this partition is tiny compared to the one where your Windows is stored. Time wise, it would probably take, at the very most, one or two seconds more to include it when you restore.
But there's another reason to recommend including it when you restore. . .
Windows checks the boot files (Or does the boot files check Windows?) when your system starts. By restoring both your E partition and your Windows partition together, you're guaranteed that they will be consistent with one another.
I always restore the partition where my boot files are stored when I restore my Windows partition. (Those who put more weight on what I do than what I say may like to know this.)
Cheers, PW.
P.S. Something else, related a bit, but not totally on point here. . .
When booting Windows, the program bootmgr checks that the layout of your disk matches what's stored in the Boot Configuration Database, or BCD. If it doesn't match, you get an error message and your system won't boot.
When you alter your disk, the program that does the altering also "informs" Windows of the changes. This ensures your system will boot.
But if you have a multiple Windows systems on your machine, the only Windows system that "knows" about the disk changes will be the one used to make the changes. The others won't know what happened.
So. . .
People who run Multi-Boot systems must edit their BCD and make the necessary changes manually.
Depending on how their system is configured, the other systems will not boot, or if they do, the drive letter assignments will revert to the Windows' defaults.
P.P.S. The program bootmgr is interesting. First, it doesn't have the usual FileName extension.EXE commonly used for executable programs. As well, it's Hidden Attribute is set. In spite of these unusual circumstances, it still does its job.
P.P.P.S. I don't know if many people know this, but Windows doesn't use the .EXE extension to determine if a file contains executable code. Executable program files can have ANY extension, or none at all! (But if it's something other than .EXE one must include the extension when invoking it.)
I exploit this Windows "quirk" when I'm working with my Auto-Edit collection of programs. Those that expect to work on two file names get the .EXE extension, while those that work on one get a .SFN (Single File Name) extension. I don't do this for the computer's benefit -- I do it because it cuts in half the number of program names I need to remember.
Applying a Header and Footer for an example. . .
Header.EXE InFile.TXT OutFile.TXT "Top of Page Text"
Footer.SFN AnyFile.TXT "Bottom of Page Text" |
