Win 7 backup strategy

I think I may have misled you gregrocker...

The Win7 laptop is an existing up and running machine. My new Win7 bits have not arrived yet, so I was messing about with what I have (32bit XP desktop, 64bit Win7 laptop) to produce a rescue boot cd to run Macrium from.

Just tried UBCD4Win CD which is also Bart PE based and that runs fine on my XP desktop - only problem is it doesnt have Macrium. I have a feeling that the reason my BartPE with Macrium boot CD wont see my XP HDD is to do with drivers, but not sure how to fix that.

I was hoping to make exclusive use of Macrium in place of DriveImageXML, but so far though it boots up my XP desktop, it cant see the HDD.

I am assuming that I can produce a boot cd on my 32 bitXP machine that will work on any other machine? It wont even boot up on my Win7 64bit laptop.

Hope this explains my problems a bit better.

You can make a Linux-based boot CD using Macrium's Installed version. It should work on any bit-rate version since it boots via BIOS and not the extant OS.

ok just made the linux version. Looks good on my xp desktop, but my win7 laptop ignores it and boots normally.

Time for a beer....

Will try making a linux disk on the laptop tomorrow to see if that will run

Thanks for your help.

Use ImgBurn at 4x speed with Verify.

How to Boot your Computer from a Bootable CD or DVD - Boot to CD

Or use the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key given on first boot screen to trigger CD drive.

Are you getting prompt to "Press any key to boot CD?"

keithr said:

ok just made the linux version. Looks good on my xp desktop, but my win7 laptop ignores it and boots normally.

Time for a beer....

Will try making a linux disk on the laptop tomorrow to see if that will run

Thanks for your help.

Why do you require one Macrium boot disk for the 2 separate OSs on 2 different PCs? Just make two.
Macrium linux boot CDs can have problems with Sandy Bridge processors so it may not work on a new PC (doesn't on my new build).

Hirens boot CD provides an inbuilt Macrium pe capability as well as a vast array of tools.

I would use 2 imaging programs in case one lets you down. In addition to Macrium, I have used Windows 7 imaging on 2 PCs and it has never let me down.

Well, this has been quite a learning curve for me. Yes my PC's are both set to boot from CD. - thanks to all for your input.

I get the impression with these boot CD's that there is always a possibility they might not work with a particular hardware configuration. Perhaps someone could explain why this is.

Anyway, just burned myself a Hirens v14 CD, and it boots fine on both my existing machines, so am happy with that and ready to put together my new PC :)