How to create a full system backup for Windows 7?

Burdus32 said:

Is your backup drive the same type as your main windows drive? Not all imaging utilities can restore to different hardware. Be careful when backing up to optical discs too. If anything happens to the disk like scratches it may not restore. It's preferable to backup to another hard drive.

Like another internal or external?

At the moment i only have one partition on my hdd. One hdd with Windows 7.

So your saying i can't use the same hdd as my windows is installed on?

Yeah, I always image mine on an external drive but you can use a 2nd internal too.

Yes. Another internal or external. You cannot save an image file to any partition contained in the image file.

Optical disks as backup are ultimately more expensive than hard drive space and are not as reliable.

As far as dust goes, you can seriously reduce dust by keeping your PC 2 or 3 feet off the floor and by sealing off any unnecessary entry spots for dust. It may be that you don't need all of those fans and that they are just entry spots for dust. Experiment with turning a fan off and seeing if your temps are still acceptable. If so, consider removing the fan and sealing the opening.

Windows built-in imaging works fair, but is cranky and not easily understood. Macrium or Acronis are more flexible and simpler to use.

Burdus32 said:

Yeah, I always image mine on an external drive but you can use a 2nd internal too.

I'm sorry but if you have you're backup image on an external, if you're main hdd is faulty and you need to format or buy a new hdd, how are you going to install windows if you're backup is on a external?

You can burn a Macrium WinPE CD and use that to do the restore. Boot from the cd and it detects my external drive and restores from that. That's why I use more than one imaging utility.
Have a look on the Macrium Reflect Free site it will give you more information on that.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

That makes sense

I always burn two discs in case one gets damaged or doesn't work for some reason.
I'm going to be buying a 2nd external soon too. So I'll have two lots of backups for both imaging and file backups. You can never have too many backups!