Windows 7: Backup my C drive

Hi,I want to backup my C drive,Only want to backup the windows 7 OS & programs.
Nothing else all my doc's etc are on another drive.
Is that possible & how to do it please.
thanks.

Standard answer: imaging.

That can be done with the built in Windows Backup and Restore program or with third party programs such as Macrium and Acronis.

Most would tell you that Macrium and Acronis are more flexible and easier to understand. Macrium is probably the simplest to use.

There are tutorials on this site.

The free version of Macrium is all you would normally need.

Get it here:

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

If your C drive has 50 GB occupied, the image file Macrium makes will be somewhere around 25 GB in size. You need to have some other partition on which to store that file---D, E, F, whatever. Preferably on another drive entirely, not just on another partition on the same drive. Most people use an external drive for that purpose.

In addition to C, you need to back up System Reserved, if you have such a partition.

Thanks for reply,Regarding the link you gave,Will that mean that all my programs will be saved as well as the os.Reason is when something goes wrong with C drive and then fit new one I wont have to reinstall any software for printers etc,
Is that correct please?

The image of C will contain EVERYTHING on C. No more. No less.

Imaging is on a per-partition basis. You can image C alone, D alone, E alone, or even all of them in a single file.

You cannot choose to image ONLY CERTAIN THINGS in a partition. It's all or none.

Your programs will be included in the image of the C partition if they are on the C partition. It's up to you to know where they are.

Yes, either of the imaging programs will make a mirror snapshot of your drive as it is when you create the image. It then can be re-written to another hard disk replacement. The replacement hard disk should be the same size or larger than the one that you took the image from.

One caution is to make sure that you create a recovery disk with the imaging software so that you can boot the machine with this recovery disk and then attach the external drive where you parked the image created earlier. It will then re-create your c drive as it was when you initially created the image.

Hope this is not confusing but it is a two part process, make the image and then create a cd/dvd to boot your system in order to restore the image to a new hard disk. Many forget the second part. Acronis has on their web site .iso's of the recovery CD for their different products and I believe that macrum also does.


Rich

I was slow on the trigger
Rich

I recommend using 2 imaging programs in case one lets you down. I use both Windows built in imaging and Macrium. Neither has let me down. Here are detailed tutorials for the built in:
Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup
System Image Recovery

Note: You can also restore images to a new HDD if (when) your existing one dies.

Thanks all very good info

Sorry for hijacking the thread. I want to know that is it possible to image c drive using macrium free version? I have only c drive which I want to backup. It contains all softwares and other stuff and I want to backup them all.
Thank you.

Yes. That's the most common use for Macrium or any other imaging application.

If you have a "System Reserved" partition, you should back it up also.

Imaging can fail, so know exactly what you will do if it fails.

You will need to make a "recovery disk" within Macrium--either Linux based or WinPE based.

You need to boot with that disk to restore. Make sure it will in fact boot and that you can locate your partitions and the image file you want to restore.