System Imaging Tool W7

mjf said:

Kado
I have never had a problem with windows locating images but I know some others have. Macrium is fine as well. But I vaguely recall once I had to do something to wake Macrium up.....
was it a refresh button, reconnect the external HDD, reboot the CD ????? sorry for being so vague but it did find it.

Yes. I had to do something like that with Macrium. Switch the drive off and on and refresh but again it would only pick it up sometimes. I just felt too uncertain about it to trust that it would work when I needed it.

Hopalong X said:

If you have room on your back up hard drive as I do then use Windows System Image and Backup and free Macrium.
I have reimaged my C/ Win 7 OS twice with Windows Sytem Image and Backup. Did it just yesterday. They do work.
I also have the Macrium if Windows Image doesn't work.
If you have the space available you might as well use some of it.

Acronis seems to be good by all that use it. I haven't tried it myself. It would also be a good choice in place of Macrium.

Mike

Very good point, noted for future reference.

I had to use the Windows System Image again today. Make it three times. LOL

So far so good!

MSE locked up the whole system. I had to use the Win 7 disk to run the System Image and it worked fine.

I'd use two no matter which two but Win 7 does work but may not every time thus Macrium for me or Acronis.

Mike

In any case, what I recommend is to test whether those backups work for you. Now you do not want to do that on your real system, but on a test setup. I have detailed this little procedure (which looks like a lot but really is very easy) for the students of my classes at the computer club. Takes maybe half an hour to execute, but then you will have a much better feel for it.

Imaging Test (using Macrium)

1. Shrink 2GBs from C and define a logical drive (partition) - let's call it Y
2. Move some files (any files) into Y - I always also move the sample picture folder in (you'll see why)
3. Define a test folder on your external backup disk - call it Mtest
4. Make an image of Y to Mtest - requires that you make a new definition
5. Delete a couple of pictures from the sample picture folder on Y (I always use the 2 animals)
6. Reboot and tap (ESC, F2 or whatever it is on your system) to get into the BIOS boot sequence
7. Set your boot sequence to CD/DVD reader
8. Throw in the recovery CD and let it run, then hit Enter
9. Now you are in the recovery wizard, set it to Mtest where it says "Locate Image" and to Y where it says "Choose partition to overwrite with the image data".
Note: the partition letters may not be the same as on your system. Macrium uses its own lettering. Best is to go by the size of the partitions and open it with the little + in the front.
10. Watch out when it asks whether to replace the Master Boot Record - in this case say "do not replace" because this is only a data partition. If that were your system partition, you would replace the MBR provided you do not have a separate boot partition.
11. When you get the little window saying "Your computer will now reboot", you have to hit "Cancel" (on the bottom" to get it to reboot. That's a little strange way to end the session, but that's the way it is.
12. Check whether the 2 animals in the sample picture folder are back. That shows you that the recovery worked.

When you have done these steps, you did the whole cycle and have learned

1. That your recovery disk works
2. How to recover
3. That things work

Now you can delete the little 2GB partition and add it back to it's originating partition.
If you are not familiar with the creation and deletion of partitions, watch this tutorial: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/72427-data-partition.html

Hi All, reading all replys has got me thinking, and it poses 2 things I'm not sure about.
1, W7 backup & restore, have read BUT not understood. Does a system image,
backup the full hdd or just C: drive.
2, on the same subject, the last time I used it was when running Vista Home Prem., backup to an external hdd seemed to cause a problem with the hdd. What I found when doing a restore, was an unexplainable entry on the hdd. It caused the hdd to ask for a chkdsk to be run every time it was powered ON, the only way I could fix it was to copy all my files to another hdd then format it.
Once bitten, twice shy!

Roderunner said:

Hi All, reading all replys has got me thinking, and it poses 2 things I'm not sure about.
1, W7 backup & restore, have read BUT not understood. Does a system image,
backup the full hdd or just C: drive.
2, on the same subject, the last time I used it was when running Vista Home Prem., backup to an external hdd seemed to cause a problem with the hdd. What I found when doing a restore, was an unexplainable entry on the hdd. It caused the hdd to ask for a chkdsk to be run every time it was powered ON, the only way I could fix it was to copy all my files to another hdd then format it.
Once bitten, twice shy!

Windows 7 backup does two type of backup.

1. An image backup of all partitions to either an external HDD or DVD (Rather a lot of them). You have no control over what partitions it backs up. It also limits the number of images it keeps to approximately one third of the HDD you are backing up to. You have to get creative and do images manually and rename old images to change that.

2. Data file backups which you can configure to backup just the folders you need. These are incremental backups collected into backup sets. You have no control over when windows decides a new backup set is started.

Some people have had problems with windows imaging but I have not.

All the Windows backup and imaging facilities that I have used in XP, Vista and Win7 were flawed. There were always problems of all sorts. That's why I stay away from them and use OEM products that have always worked perfectly. What good is an imaging/backup facility if you cannot be sure what and how it images and cannot rely on it the day you need to restore.