Windows 7: What imaging program can do Diffs & auto-backups?

Anyone save me a bit of research time??

What imaging programs can do differential images??
what imaging programs can be preset to backup daily weekly?



Both free or buy.

Macrium reflect standard can do it. (not the free version) Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download scroll down on that page
It can do "Differential and Incremental backups" 45 dollar +VAT

I found a free one called Keriver i click restore

That's sort of "system restore points" used in Windows 7 itself!!! Only advantage is you can rollback all files instead of "registry, exe, dll" etc. But it is totally the same! As far as I can see it uses volume shadowing as well.

Only plus point is... the restore points are permanent. And the can be placed on antoher disk.

But still.... they can only be used to rollback to a state in the past. And for a rollback you must still have a C drive with files on it. C drive corrupt, formatted or whatever disaster... restore points are of no use.

It isn't backup software!!

Keriver used to be an imaging program - unless it has changed.

This might be a good chance for me to learn a little about this stuff.

So...
1. Isn't Keriver & Macrium two birds of the same feather?
2. what I'm trying to achieve - to come up with a better (but similar) solution to 'System Restore'. From my XP days System Restore would often not have a Point ready or would not restore therefore the problem in "C" was often not fixed.

I'm just trying to find a way of not having to 'reformat' - XP's bain. So I'm preconditioned not to trust Windows 7 Sys. Restore. My data is on a seperate partition & you'd have to be unlucky to lose a HDD. for me I'm only trying to 'insure' against "CDrive" dramas.

What is the solution?

System Restore on Windows 7 is much more stable than on winxp. But it only rollbacks dll, exe, registry etc... so only system stuff. And the restore points are on C as well. It must have a current contents so it can rollback. So if C is totally damaged by bad sectors for example or drive is faulty...you're out of luck.

Use macrium and put the backup on an external drive. Imaging with free Macrium
Post screenshot of disk management as well please. I wanna know what's the boot partition and system partition...both should be backupped (and restored).

Hi there
Macrium free has problems at times with combination of USB3, RAID and GPT disks -- and if you have a UEFI boot then I think you're also in trouble.

The only products I know that handles all these are Acronis -- but currently I wouldn't recommend this one since a) the activation procedure is a MESS, and b) it has been known to fail to restore an image and Image for Windows by Terabyte.

(Acronis rather lost its way at about release 2010 -- pity as it used to be 100% exellent).

I'm not sure about whether the PAID version of Macrium reflect handles these - but I couldn't get the Free version to work on W8 with the above combo -- if you don't plan on using W8 any time at all then don't worry about that.

If you want to be a bit "Geekish" -- but it works for all these options and is regularly updated try Image for Windows (IFW) by terabyte

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm

A bit complicated to use compared with the others but IT WORKS. !!!

Cheers
jimbo

Jimbo45: Latest version can read/write usb3 drives without isues as far as I know. Otherwise connect to usb2 (temporary).

What problems with RAID (assuming boot using winpe macrium rescue disk with raid driver included)?

What problems with GPT disks?

Why I do ask.... because I want to make backups using macrium over network at small shop. Of course restore must be possible as well.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx it does support GPT and RAID. At least it says it does.
It doesn't support dynamic disks but shop doesn't use it.