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How much space does a system image require?
Is it big and if it is can i save it on a 16gb usb flash drive?
Is it big and if it is can i save it on a 16gb usb flash drive?
Depends on what program you use to create it, the chosen compression level, and how much space on C is actually occupied.
I have an 80 gig C drive, with about 28 GB occupied. Images of that partition created with Macrium take up about 13 GB.
You could save it on a USB drive, but I'm not sure your imaging program will necessarily see it when crunch time comes. A hard drive is preferable.
If you use free Macrium, it takes about 60% of the amount of data that is on your C partition. If you have something like 27GB of data in C, it might fit - the total size of the C partition does not matter, only the data within counts. But don't forget the little 100MB system partition.
For Windows imaging (which I really would not recommend), I do not know the exact compression rate.
Well actually i want to use the regular windows 7 utility but if it cant save to a flash drive i have a my hp recovery partition i could format and use it has 13.1gb
If windows one isnt a good choice then what is the best option to use
Free download EaseUS Todo Backup Freeware to complete backup & restore Windows system - EaseUS Todo Backup Free at max compression results in an image of approx. 8GB from the 17GB on the C: drive here.
Other programs surely do a good job as well, but am very satisfied with the easeus stuff, have been flawless through years of use here. & got some nice functions, like built-in alignment for HD to SSD cloning. I also like that any individual file or folder inside an image file can be navigated to, accessed and restored to any location using only windows explorer. Some info and screenshots from a previous post.
Not the best idea for 2 reasons:
You may some day need to do a recovery using that partition.
The HP recovery partition is on the same drive as C. If that drive fails, you lose both C and your image.
I'd say Macrium Reflect is the easiest to use.
EaseUS works well too, but as I recall the installed application takes up close to 300 MB on C, more than I would like. My Macrium installation takes up 48 MB.