I want to backup my Windows 7. I have 2 Hard Drive with 2 partitions on each drive. Backup will not let me backup my Windows 7 and put it on my 2nd partition on the first drive. Backup wants to backup my C drive "Windows 7" (first partition) and my data on my 2nd partition (1st drive) and put it on my 2nd hard drive. Vista has a great backup but this backup seems really screwed up. I'm using the 64 bit Windows 7. Anyone can help.
I don't think you can use Windows to create an image on the same drive. It would need to be on another physical internal drive, an external or network drive. Another partition on the same drive will not work. I see what you mean though....it should not want it on another partition on the same drive....
As a general rule, it's not ideal to back up to a partition located on the same drive as the material you are backing up. The reason is that if the drive fails and becomes unusable, your backup is trashed too, just when you need it.
So really the OP should be trying to back up to a separate internal or external drive, imo.
I tried to use W7's back up tool to back up my C partition to an external USB drive. It made the back up fine but when I tried to restore it before booting into Windows, Win couldn't find the back up. I never figured out what the problem was, although it probably was something to do with the way the USB external drive powered up. I just moved on to Acronis which is much more configurable and hopefully very reliable.
I backup the C drive on the same Hard Drive (2nd) Partition and have been doing it for years with Vista built in Backup so yes you can do that. I also backup on my 2nd hard drive also. I have 5 copies of all my data. I was an MIS manager in San JoseCA so I backup up everything on a half dozen Hard Drive. Yes you do need to backup on a 2nd Hard Drive. I don't understand why system specs since I've been backing up the C drive for 20 years but I will look into Sniping. I too have been using Acronis True Image Home 11 and it's a great backup so I guess I might buy the 2009 version.
Thank You Richard
Hmmm...I'll have to test this out at work, because I'm pretty darn sure on my single drive machine at home that I had 3 total partitions
#1). 100MB system reserved
#2). 150GB C drive where Windows was installed
#3). 750GB D drive where my data, downloads and stuff was kept.
I thought during my testing that it allowed me to backup #1 and #2 onto my #3 partition. I think it gave me a warning saying "hey this isn't safe, in the event of a hard drive failure, you would lose this backup". But I'm pretty darn sure it let me continue.
I'll test it on a box here shortly and post back my results.
Well, I looked at my computer at work, it had a 100MB reserved partition and a 150GB C drive. So, I used disk management and shrunk the 150GB C drive to about 75GB...thus leaving 75GB unpartitioned. I created a new partition on the available 75GB.
I ran the backup and told it to backup partitions 1 and 2 onto partition 3 and it worked just fine. It gave me a warning, but did it's thing as shown below
Warning Message
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/b...ingMessage.png
Confirming what is backing up
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/b...hat2Backup.png
Backup complete message
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/b.../completed.png
Results on the hard drive partition
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/b...s1/results.png
If you have 3 partitions there was no need to do anything to any of them. In a full backup, all you need to do is backup the C:\ because the 2nd partition can just copy however you want to the 3rd partition. You can just pick and choose, copy and paste, no need for a backup. If you want the whole 2nd Partition to be copied to the 3 partition just create a folder in the 3rd partition and copy into it. I have never had a reason to use a backup utility to copy anything except the C:\
In my last post I mean at home and not at work. Also I mean a major backup as coping data from one drive to another; you don't need a utility backup for that. Incremental and differentials are different. Sometime I just don't think far enough into the further. That 100 MB partition you have came from the manufacture but I think you can just copy that.
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