Re: 8th Alt coin thread. Or what to do now that asics are all over the place.

when you have a stable setup make a disk image of the OS. that way if you blow the OS or drivers away just load the good image back on and good to go.

i use macrium reflect free. saved me a lot of grief many times. both miner rigs and my other computers. anytime i change something and it works i make a new image.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Additionally you could also try the built-in tools in Windows 7 and 10. On Windows 10 you can create a System Image on any external hard disk that can be used to image an other computer using the repair and recovery tools found in any Windows 10 installation DVD or usb-stick.

This method might work as a quick way to deploy Windows installations too. Remember that you may have to re-license and activate Windows, if it's not already licensed on the target computer. Otherwise you will get an activation notice.

Create system image:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-10/84fa6683-e3ac-4e93-9139-368af9267869

Restore system image:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/how-to-restore-a-windows-10-system-image-to-an/e20992ca-5641-4f7c-bb09-3895d0732162

ive known those built in windows tools exist but ive never actually tried them. im so used to reflect, its so reliable and ive been using it for so long, that i never bothered with anything else. being free for personal use helps of course

never thought to build a baseline windows miner image. good idea, that would save some time with all the updates and tweaks that need to be done for deploying a typical new rig.

i wonder how well an image would tolerate a chipset change, like from B250 to Z370 or something.

it did not do well on win7 but on win10 it seems to work.

same comment. on windows 7 ISO's ive successfully used the integrated package manager to modify and repack the necessary parts of the install disk... I can install 7 on some pretty old machines, and even the newer X99/z270/etc boards that didn't have drivers in the ISO for basic system components. Since Im always upgrading to 10 on the machines when able, installing 7 is a necessary precursor step for the "free upgrade" which seems indefinite.

I haven't unpacked and added drivers to the 10 image yet; I would assume there's a similar package manager for rebuilding it after adding files/drivers/configs.... I remember following the microsoft official how-to on adding a driver to the install disc.

I remember installing XP on a Pentium 60mhz..... They kinda limit that sort of activity in newer os's...