Windows 7 - Can I make "Create System Image" use less DVDs?

Hello,
My C: Drive uses 30 GB of data. As this is a recently bought computer, this is 99% Windows OS data.

I'd like to create a System Image on DVDs, but I wondered whether there was a way to exclude any unnecessary stuff. Or is all 30GB necessary? (Remember, this 30GB of used data is pretty much how it was on the day we first bought the computer brand new at the computer store.


P.S. Is the "Create System Image" function provided free in Windows 7 the best application for creating a system image? Or does some other software company have a better (and free) application?

Macrium Reflect gives a little more flexibility in choosing which drives to image, since Windows 7 Backup Imaging requires the System partition to be included,

You really want an external for this job, though. DVD's are unreliable by comparison, esp when you need so many.

gregrocker,
i possibly did not give enough details. Our laptop has only one drive. and that one drive has only 1 partition. So Macrium Reflect won't help, would it?

Is it normal for a Windows 7 Home Premium hard drive to start off at 30 GB (all Windows OS stuff)?

i think is to danger to do like that...

you have to backup your data,,and that's mean you have to external hdd

After the nuisance of reinstalling the OS & applications etc I decided to keep a system image of a stable system so I could get up & running quickly months down the track if I need to. It only took 3 DVDs. I keep this basic image stored away.

I thought name brand (Gold TDK in my case) DVDs (+or-R NOT RW) were reliable for years when stored correctly???? Extrenal hard drives are very convenient and relatively cheap but are they that reliable?
Hope I didn't sidetrack the thread.

Data decay, disc rot, etc.....

Best bet is to pick up an external Drive.

I have been publishing reviews on optical drives for several years now and have burned darn near every MID of DVD±R media available and you can not trust your most valuable information to any disc.

Back to my main question, is it possible to make "Create System Image" more efficient (use less DVDs OR use less space on an external hard drive)? Thanks!

Hi, folks. Just wanted to give an update.

I'm following the advice given on the post "My HomePrem computer takes up 19GB. How to slim down?" to trim excess/unneeded stuff of the computer.

Then, I chose to use DriveImage XML to create a system image. It can even compress the stuff. So hoping my 18 GB stuff will turn out to be 9GB, which will fit on 3 DVDs.

Thanks, SevenForums folks!

OK, know this was three days ago and you're probably NOT reading this anymore ... but ... I regularly visit another Forum where folks discuss problems using disk imaging and backup products utilizing DVDs -- and the consensus there was that using DVDs for backup, if the number is more than a couple, results in repeated swapping in and out of DVDs during the restore. This results in a restore that would take 15 minutes using a hard drive, taking HOURS using DVDs.

So, if you're still reading this, if you can get your image down to below 30GB, look around for a 32GB USB stick. They're selling for $40 or so nowadays.