Will this strategy to try Windows 10 work?

Question

A friend wants to try out Windows 10 on a Windows 7 system. But they want the option to go back to exactly how things are now.

Their hard drive is 1TB (platter-based, not SSD), and they don't have a backup device that large.

So here's the plan:

1. Use Windows 7's integrated Disk Management to reduce the primary partition size to 600GB (the rest is empty space).
2. Create a Clonezilla live CD.
3. Use Clonezilla to backup that 600GB partition onto an external USB hard drive.
4. Switch their system from Windows 7 to Windows 10 using Windows Update.

We have run into the first snag: According to Disk Management, their hard drive has 3 partitions. The first is about 2GB and is listed as "Active, Recovery Partition". That makes sense, as it's likely the recovery partition from the system's manufacturer. The next partition is about 10GB and is listed just as "Primary Partition". The purpose of this partition is unclear; please see this question.

The final partition is listed as "Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition". This is obviously their Windows 7 partition.

Note that they have never installed any OS on their system except Windows 7, which came pre-installed from the manufacturer.

The questions:

1. Should this plan work?
2. In order to restore the system, will just having a backup of the last partition using Clonezilla be sufficient, or will there need to be backups of the other partitions as well?

Answer 1

The plan would work, but it's partially obsolete.

No idea about the 10GB partition, but if possible simply back up the whole disc just to be sure.

Besides that, Windows 10 may be uninstalled within 30 days, allowing you to go back to the previous state without having to rely on your own backup.

Answer 2

You don't need a backup device as large as the whole drive for most modern backup software - and in many cases it can be slightly smaller due to compression. I tend to use third party software (Veem endpoint backup handles my daily backups, and I've used macrium for one off backups). So, if you want to play it safe try backing up first, then doing windows backup.Resizing pre backup shouldn't be necessary, nor would selective backups, as long as enough space for storing the used space. As a bonus, you can do this off a running system.

the 10gb partition feels like a factory recovery partition - if you can create recovery disks this should not be necessary.

Answer 3

Clonezilla works best when it is cloning from one disk to another disk of exactly the same size. I've had mixed results with cloning partitions. If you want to clone to a device that has less storage space than the original, you can try PING (Partimage is not Ghost). This has worked well for me in creating compressed images of my hard drive.

I've upgraded about 10 PCs from Windows 7 to 10. Some upgrades went well; some went poorly. However, I have also rolled several machines back to 7 with absolutely no loss of programs, data, or functionality. I did have to manually reset static IPs on my network connection.