What software do you use?

I was just wonderring,what program do you use,and which one is the best in windows7,to make the image after fresh install,cause I'm planning to make one?

Hi drazen,

The big names in this area are Paragon and Acronis, with Paramount (Macrium) now getting rave reviews.

They all do the job.

Paragon does a free version which images partitions or drives , which you can restore from booting to another o/s or with the bootable disc the program creates. ( 32 and 64 bit available )

Drive Backup Express - Free Download!

Macrium Reflect also does a free version - very small and fast , again creates images of partitions or drives , and creates a bootable disc.

This is the only free version I know of that also lets you mount an image so you can copy & paste back individual files - if you don't need to restore the whole image, and also allows scheduling. (32 and 64 bit )

I have used this as have many other regulars here with great success

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

Hope it helps

SIW2

I myself have not used the conventional software to do an image. What I do use is my Maxtor One Touch USB drive. It came with a software package that allows me to make an image of my drive and stores it on the USB drive. Although i have not tried it, you are suposed to be able to boot from it and restore the image. I have only used it with its companion cd to restore an image.

It works extreamly well for the few times I have had to make/restore an image.

Thank you,I wasn't sure if they are compatible with windows7.

drazenn said:

I was just wonderring,what program do you use,and which one is the best in windows7,to make the image after fresh install,cause I'm planning to make one?

I swear by Acronis True Image Echo WS.
I've used it for years & it makes perfect 1:1 image backups at about half the size of the original partition after compression.
It takes me 3 mins to do a backup of my OS partition which is currently at 20 gigs used.

I have tried that Macrium Reflect,and or even it's me who is doing something wrong and can't find a source file for BartPE on win7 DVD,or it's not compatible with windows 7.

Hi drazen,

Macrium includes a Linux bootable cd creator ( only 6mb) with the free edition - works perfectly on everything I have tried it on including 64 bit Vista and 64 bit Win 7.


BartPE is a freely available preinstallation environment for 32-bit Windows XP or Server 2003. It's a bootable environment created from your exisiting Windows system files.

To create it you need

# Access to Windows XP or Windows 2003 installation files
# The latest PE Builder install file (the BartPE rescue disk creation software). You can download it via Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD

The paid edition also provides a Windows PE 2.0 cd.

Hope it helps

SIW2

why not use the windows backup built in 7? test it.. this IS a beta..... frankly, i rather stick to restore points, as long as they dont disappear on me. no reason in my opinion to make an image of an OS thats in beta stages and will not work in 6 months anyways...