Clone + Win. Ia. Bkup

Hi, its me again.

So I used Macrium to create clone and W7 SystemImage on my two partitions-- 2 and 3 as follows below ---on ext. HD.

1) local disk (C:)

2) Volume #3(F:)
3) Local Disk(G:)


The Macrium clone has exactly same folders as my C disk.

The W7 created WindowsImageBackup has;

"Backup" folder of EXML type
"Catalog" folder
" SPP Metadata Cache" folder.


My questions are, how, when do either of these of any use to me?

My concern here is, that since I cannot boot from either of ext. partitions, if my PC HD goes bad, of what use are this two kinds of backup information?

I also have originaly created restore CD/DVD disk and reapir CD/DVD disk.

I guess if had to get a new HD, and put new W7 on it, I then would find all the info I need, on either the clone or WImageBkup partitions to put on my new HD.

I've probably answered my own questions here. More important, maybe how to do regular partial backup of just some of my most important folders should my internal HD go bad or whatever.

Macrium probably will explain how to do incremtental cloning of some foldwers. Not sure System Imaging does that, and that may be why some use Macrium to create a system of disk image. I dunno

R6

Thanks for advice Mark. MY PC does not have any partitions that i'm aware of. The external HD has the two partitions I created. I will always keep the clone--- is much like the mac experience ---even tho I'm well aware I cannot boot from my clone.

I don't lile the W7 Windows Image folders as the make no sense to me, so, I will probably do similar to what you suggest and use macrium to also do a disk image of my PC.

I like the idea of Linux Boot CD but used W7 to a restore CD/DVD when I first got this PC. Shouldn't I be able to boot from the restore CD/DVD?

If not then I will probably try and find out more about this Linux CD thing.

R6

Mark Phelps said:

In my experience, cloning is only of value if what you want is to migrate stuff from one drive to another, and multiple partitions are involved.

As far as I know, you can't boot a Win7 setup from an external drive, so what you really should be doing is the following:
1) Use Macrium Reflect (MR) to image off the partitions to the external drive. It will do file compression in the process, and since it does not backup unused space, the resulting backup files will be smaller than the partition sizes on your hard drive.
2) Use the MR option to create and burn a Linux Boot CD. You can then boot from this CD and use it to restore your hard drive from the images saved on the external drive.

The purchased version of MR also comes with the ability to install the restore utility to your hard disk as a boot option. In this way, you don't need to have a boot CD. You boot into the Macrium Reflect Recovery Environment, select the saved image, and do the restore that way.