Jeremy Caney

At this point, the majority of Ignia's workstations are Apples. While we appreciate the hardware, however, most of our staff have an affinity to Vista (we are, after all, Windows developers). This introduces certain IT challenges. One of the biggest has been backing up the operating system. For the most part, our data is kept at the server, but we do make a point of backing up each workstation once all software has been installed and configured so that we can bring the workstation back to a stable baseline with a minimal impact on productivity.

Backing up a Boot Camp partition (or any Windows partition, regardless of how it was created) is easy - and supported by most popular backup and imaging packages (such as Norton Ghost or, my preference, DriveImage XML). Restoring the partition is another story. This is because most Windows-based backup systems are not written for EFI (a replacement for BIOS implemented on Intel-based Macs) or GPT (a replacement for MBR). Or, more specifically, the hacks it takes to mimic MBR in a GPT based system. After restoring, users may find themselves with the error "no bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" or a flashing folder with a question mark on it (the equivalent in newer Apple firmware). This is because - while the partition has been restored successfully - the GPT reference to the drive have been lost.

There are a number of solutions to this problem, although each have tradeoffs which should be evaluated against your specific needs. The following is a high-level summary of these.

1. Always restore to the same partition; in this case, the referential integrity will be retained. This, however, is impractical for hard drive upgrades or disaster recovery scenarios.
2. Backup and restore from OS X using something like Canoes Software’s Winclone (free) or even Apple's Disk Utility (ships with OS X). The former requires that you have an OS X partition; the latter can be performed from the Apple Setup disk, but only if you're using FAT (since OS X can't write to NTFS drives natively).
3. Pay $70 for Paragon Drive Backup Pro, which promises support for both GPT and Boot Camp partitions; while I haven't tried this, it looks to be the easiest and most reliable approach.
4. Restore files directly (without recreating the partition you made with Disk Utility). This requires some care in terms of which files are restored first and will require first reformatting the disk if you use NTFS. This is likely your best bet for migrating a backup between GPT and MBR and has the added benefit of defragging your drive in the process.
5. Partition your drive using MBR via Apple's Disk Utility. In this case you bypass the GPT to MBR mapping altogether thus offering more compatibility with traditional backup utilities. This will prevent you from installing OS X on your hard drive, though (although you can still restore OS X onto this drive if you have a backed up image to clone).
6. Partition your drive using GPT (the default), then use rEFIt's partition utility to synchronize the mappings between GPT and MBR. After this you may need to run Windows Recovery Disc so that Windows can repair the MBR.
7. Create a "Windows Complete Backup and Restore" image (requires Windows Vista Business, Enterprise or Ultimate) - or use another backup utility which creates a raw image of your entire drive as opposed to simply your partitions. This allows you to backup all partitions (including OS X and Linux) at one time and, since it operates at a lower level than the partition, your original GPT and MBR are maintained. This doesn't provide flexibility in restructuring your partitions on restore, however.

Regardless of which approach you use, there are some considerations:

1. Whatever your preferred approach, test it prior to an emergency. I recommend doing this immediately after installing your operating system (before you're too invested). Not only will this confirm that the setup will work with your environment but it also gives you a "dry run" before you've lost any data.
2. There is some evidence that you may be able to restore between GPT and MBR using the repair utilities on Windows Recovery Disc. I haven't successfully reproduced this, however, and would instead recommend restoring files directly if you're hoping to migrate between the two partitioning systems. With this in mind, it's important to keep track of which partitioning system you used when backing up your drive; the same approach should be used during restore.

Since I run Vista exclusively I use MBR partition tables. Some of our machines, however, dual boot or were for other reasons setup on GPT. To support both scenarios, there are a series of tools I keep in a specially marked "recovery" folder to simplify restorations.

1. Apple OS X Setup Disc. Even if you don't run OS X, you will need this to create "MS DOS" partitions if you use GPT - or to repartition your hard disk using the MBR partitioning schema.
2. Windows Recovery Disc. You may need this if you have an OEM copy of Windows or if your computer didn't ship with original media. It will allow you to repair your Windows installation, including the Master Boot Record (MBR) if it is damaged. In addition, if you use Windows Vista Business, Enterprise or Ultimate it will allow you to restore from a Windows full system backup.
3. Bart PE Boot Disc. Even if you plan on restoring using your backup utility's recovery disc it's a good idea to have a Bart PE disc lying around. It contains a number of utilities useful in recovering data - and can be slipstreamed with additional utilities. We always include a copy of DriveImage XML on it as well.
4. rEFIt Boot Disc. If you're using GPT then this is a must. It can help re-synch your GPT and MBR tables, which is a common source of "No bootable device" errors. rEFIt can also be installed to your hard disk as a boot manager, which is useful if you plan on booting to more than two operating systems.

Internally, we use DriveImage XML via Bart PE for cases when we need to rearrange our partitions. Otherwise, for disaster recovery and per-computer backups, we use the built-in system backup model provided by Windows Vista Enterprise.