Windows 7: Incremental backups with Backup & Restore?

Is there a canonical way to make incremental backups that permit a full restoration from a freshly-formatted disk?



I made a single system image, then set up B&R to backup all the files on all drives weekly. I can see the weekly backup directories, but they seem to be full backups, not incrementals.

I was able to restore from the system image, but I didn't see a way to restore the newer files. You can't do it from within Windows, since it complains as soon as you try to overwrite a system file.

Are you supposed to make weekly system images?

I don't use it, but I believe the file back up function is intended for your user data files.

Windows backup will by default create incremental type images is shadow storage. It allocates up to 30% of your backup disk for this. When that space becomes full it will delete the oldest. How often you backup your system is a matter of choice and how rapidly your system changes.

My backups are stored on a network drive. I thought shadow storage was on the local disk.

I have a single system image from Jan., with all my files being backed up weekly. How can I restore everything up to and including the last backup? I selected both of my hard drives to be backed up.

It doesn't appear that a system image and file backup are designed to be used together. Or am I just missing something?

Either way, what are my options, given I have an unformatted disk a system image from 6 months ago and weekly backups up to this past Sunday?

If your backups are via the network then you are limited to one backup with no incrementals. You need to restore the image first. This tutorial will show you how. System Image Recovery. Then you can restore your files from the file backup.