Backup software for Win 7...

whs said:

Hmm, Bruce you got me there. I never installed V5 because my 4.2 works so well. Kado may know. He is always up-to-date

OK. I have been through the restore process using version 5.

1. The Linux rescue disk gives no opportunity to mark the partition. I guess that it uses the same as in the image. Similarly it always restores the mbr with no option to not do that.

2. The WinPE rescue disk is much more flexible and allows the partitions to be marked and re-sized and to not restore the mbr if required. The options are well hidden so I have produced some screenshots.



Click on Restore Image.



Click on Copy Selected Partitions.



Highlight a partition in the lower pane and click Partition properties.



Here you can change the partition marking and size.



After pressing Next you get to a summary screen. Press Advanced Options.



Here you can select whether to rewrite the mbr.

I hope this helps.

HammerHead said:

WHS:

If you back up only the recovery partion to a file and then back up the other partition to another file. When it comes time to restore to a bare disk, Will you have to do two restores and in a particular oreder? I can see where it will save space and some amount of time, which is good. Maybe keep one copy of both partitions in the same file?

When you image e.g. with Free Macrium, the principle is simple. You image partitions, not whole drives. You can image several partitions in one go (just check all partitions that you want to image), but you can only restore them one by one. There is no specific order required. But each partition image will be a seperate file (VHD) which you can also mount if e.g. you just want to copy some stuff from it.

In case of a new bare disk, you have to, of course, define the partitions in the first place (e.g. with the bootable CD of Partition Wizard or with Diskpart). Those partitions must be the same size or bigger than the originating partitions).

Yes it is similar. The only difference is that it copies all partitions as a shortcut to dragging them individually.

Some people only backup the system partition once and then just the C partition after that. I personally have taken a different approach. I made an initial image of all partitions on the internal disk (4 in my case). I have kept that image in case I need to recover the recovery partition and HP tools. All other images I backup both System and C because if System does change then I have the latest version of both in the same backup and I can restore them at the same time. It only adds moments to the backup and restore. V5 unlike V4 allows you to restore more than one partition at a time.

As I have the paid for standard edition with incremental and differential imaging my backup sequence is.

1. Every Saturday at 21:00 a full Image.
2. Every day except Saturday at 21:00 a differential image.

This gives me the ability to restore back to the previous day at any time. I keep three full Images and their associated differentials. I don't use incremental images here because I don't really trust long incremental chains and they slow the restore process.

Because I'm paranoid about backups I also use Windows Imaging every Wednesday to a different backup drive. This of course just happens to coincide with any "Patch Tuesday" (Wednesday in the UK) updates.

whs said:

HammerHead said:

WHS:

If you back up only the recovery partion to a file and then back up the other partition to another file. When it comes time to restore to a bare disk, Will you have to do two restores and in a particular oreder? I can see where it will save space and some amount of time, which is good. Maybe keep one copy of both partitions in the same file?

When you image e.g. with Free Macrium, the principle is simple. You image partitions, not whole drives. You can image several partitions in one go (just check all partitions that you want to image), but you can only restore them one by one. There is no specific order required. But each partition image will be a seperate file (VHD) which you can also mount if e.g. you just want to copy some stuff from it.

In case of a new bare disk, you have to, of course, define the partitions in the first place (e.g. with the bootable CD of Partition Wizard or with Diskpart). Those partitions must be the same size or bigger than the originating partitions).

In V5 you can restore all partitions in the backup in one go.

Thanks Kado for telling me. I am obviously not going with the times - LOL.

whs said:

Thanks Kado for telling me. I am obviously not going with the times - LOL.

No problem Wolfgang. I think you need to consider upgrading soon.

Yeah I know - I am a dilapidated Guru. On the other hand:" If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

whs said:

Yeah I know - I am a dilapidated Guru. On the other hand:" If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Let's not start the Win 7/ Win XP debate here.