Windows 7: Using System Image on New Hard disk

I am changing to a new hard disk and here's my question. Can I just use the Windows 7 system image which I created from the old C drive to "restore" or image it into the new hard disk? Thanks for all replies.

As far as I know, yes you can do this...

im not sure but i believe so......why else would they want you to copy the image on a seperate hard drive..........

in general that is the main use of the MS backup and restore utility, you will need to put your new HDD in the computer, boot from cd and select the repair option and point it in the direction of the image. so long as you haven't made any major hardware changes everything should go well.

on another note, not that i want to hijack this thread but if anyone has a backup from a compaq presario cq70-220em laptop, or could create me some rescue discs i would be most grateful. it's for my dad's laptop and somehow his d: got wiped so we can't use the HP restore utility.

I've tried to make a system image and that works perfectly.
The image is about the size of my used space (50GB), total size is 150GB.

Then I've disconneceted my HDD and reconnected another empty HDD, this HDD is from another brand and is 120GB in total size. But since my backup is only 50GB it should fit without any problems.
So I reboot with the recovery disc in my drive and I select the repair option, I select the new drive as destination and the image as source.

... It doesn't work! I get an error. Can someone confirm that this isn't possible? A real problem I think, what if your HDD gets broken and you want to replace it without doing a blank install?

I've restored images using the Windows 7 "system image" to other hard drives. However in my case, i backed up a C drive partition (150GB) on a 1TB drive. I then later moved the Seagate 1TB to my Linux machine and put a Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB drive in my box and restore that image.

However, when I moved from the 150GB C drive to my SSD drive, I was unable to restore the image because the drive was smaller.

So, I think as long as the drive is the same size or larger you are fine...but it cannot be smaller.

Yes, leave the new drive unpartitioned and unformatted


Since you answered the OP's question I will answer yours:

Just borrow a Vista disk since it doesn't have to be OEM (as with XP) to activate your Compaq OEM license. Then pull any needed apps or drivers off the support download page for that model.

Hi there
If you work with computers at all a decent robust backup system is a MUST and will save you hours and hours of time etc (and possibly money).

I really would recommend a commercial solution such as Acronis -- you can download the trial for 30 days or so - it's a FULL featured trial not a "Demo hobbled feature locked" version.

The whole program doesn't cost much - even in todays short money supply era. I must have used this program around 100 times last month backing up and restoring images.

The program can change the size of the partition you are restoring to as well and can work also from boot media (inc USB drives). Incremental backups etc are supported too.

As well as imaging it also supports DATA backups too.

While the title here says server - just click the home / office products section when you go to the site.

Server backup and disaster recovery solutions for Windows and Linux OSs, onsite system protection

so

1) create the boot media
2) backup old "C" drive (and any "system partition")
3) boot acronis bootable media on computer with new drive
3) restore - specifying new partition size if you want to change it.

(Note if your old system has a little system partition usually 100MB then you need to backup and restore that as well otherwise your new partition won't boot. This can be done in the same step as 2 as you get a graphical selection of what partitions to image.)

There are Free alternatives out there such as paragon (painfully slow) and Macrium - but Data backup is really important so you need to find one that is robust and reliable --I've found Acronis good over the years. There was one problem with some versions when Windows 7 came out but just changing the name of the AcronisTrueImage.EXE file to TI.EXE worked fine.

Current versions all run on Windows 7.

cheers
jimbo

I am using the new Windows 7 Backup Imaging, have no problems and have been able to reimage my HDD (and a replacement) on two computers flawlessly in 15 minutes.

This is the first time Windows has brought backup imaging to the masses. In the past, mostly only tech enthusiasts and businesses took this seriously.

I use Acronis on an XP computer here and the only differences I see are you can change the file name, it isn't built in and doesn't recover using the WIndows 7 installer/repair disk "Recover Using an Image", which is also available at F8 if you have the 100mb boot partition.

I formerly backed up to external in case of HD failure, but since my only HD failure has been the external during a reimaging operation, I now keep a primary partition on each computer where I first store the image, then copy it to external.

Yeah, my experiences have been very solid with the built in system image. It does exactly what it is designed to do. Backup your hard drive and recover in the event of a disaster. I used it throghout all of my beta and rc1 testing and restored numerous times troughout the process.