Backup and Restore In 7

[ian1983]

I started a thread earlier asking if imaging programs work in seven which can be viewed Here

After some advice from pparks1 a junior member here

and reading the tutorials by Brink

How to Create a System Image Backup in Windows 7
&
How to Do a System Image Recovery in Windows 7

I decided to give it a try....this is by far the easiest method of doing image/ghost creation and restore

And although on the microsoft website compare editions page it is not mentioned as a feature of Home Premium it is still there although you will not be able to backup to a network location unless you get professional or ultimate

So for me I am ditching third party software in place of the features built into Win7

 

[harpua]

I tried creating a system image using Win 7's backup & restore and when I tried to restore it booting from installation media, it couldn't see or be pointed to the image to be restored from which was located on a USB hard drive. (Might have been an issue with my particular USB hard drive also.) So it was pretty worthless in my experience. It was an early build though, so perhaps it works better now.

I generally prefer to rely on Acronis for hard drive cloning which I have found to be very reliable for that. Before ditching 3rd party software, I would attempt to back up and restore using W7's feature and make sure it actually works for you.

 

[DJG]

I've been using Paragon Drive Backup for years. They're both apparently excellent utilities. I just did a native Win 7 image backup and noticed the core of the backup is a VHD. Cool. Let's see how the restore ******** goes .

BTW, I LOVE Kona coffee! Aloha!

Edit: boy, that's bizarre! I wrote "restore e-x-e-r-c-i-s-e" but it keeps getting **** out, like some lewd word!

Edit 2: OK, I went through the Recovery CD I created. Looks pretty straight forward for the average user. I need to add an additional driver to the CD, no biggie. But the limitation for me is that it will only restore to the original partition volume. It will let you backup / restore all your partitions.

For most people, and even for me on many ocassions, it's enough. It just won't let you play with the disk configuration. Seems like an effective utility.

 

[pparks1]

Ian983:

I'm glad to see that this worked out for you. I'm not usually one to praise the built in tools, but in the case of the system image tool...it did exactly what I needed it to do and was very easy to use. I plan to use it as well and no other 3rd party utilities.

Edit: I'd be sure to do some more research though on which versions of Windows can do this. While all versions can backup data....I'm not sure that all can create a "system image"...which is a slightly different option using Volume Shadow copy which I believe does not come with Home Premium.

 

[DJG]

It looks to me like the only difference is that with Pro you can back up to a network location. However, now I'm getting ticked off . I can't modify the repair CD image to add my drivers because it's copy-protected! What a dumb thing. Now you need separate media and start the disc shuffling shuffle ... what a pain.

 

[pparks1]

It looks to me like the only difference is that with Pro you can back up to a network location.

The key here is wording. I think with Home Premium you can backup to a DVD or a hard drive....just not a network drive. However, I don't believe that you can create a "system image" to anything with Home Premium. I believe this requires features only available in Business, Enterprise and Ultimate.

Read very carefully...we aren't talking about using the backup utility....but rather the "system image" utility within the backup system.

 

[DJG]

I believe you're wrong, but I could be wrong . What good is a backup utility if it can't back up / restore a system image? But read for yourself:

Backup and Restore: Windows 7 features

Back up and restore: frequently asked questions

Be that as it may, I ended up having to recreate the repair disk the long way, extracting the boot image then creating a new ISO with it and adding all the original repair CD files plus a drivers folder using UltraISO. So now I'm all set. I may use this in addition to Drive Backup for the common day-to-day backup scheme. Sort of like having a backup backup contigency. Huh? Who's paranoid? :huh:

 

[pparks1]

I believe you're wrong, but I could be wrong . What good is a backup utility if it can't back up / restore a system image? But read for yourself:

Those links just mention the ability to backup and restore. And then goes on to say that it protects your valuable files and allows you to pick and choose what gets backed up. Nowhere does it say that "all versions of windows" will create a "system image"...that's a different thing altogether. And it does come with Windows Vista as well...but ONLY in the Business, Enterprise and Ultimate editions. I'm afraid the same thing is true in Windows 7.

So, you could backup all of your files....then in the event of a crash you could reload your OS and then restore your files from backup.

With "system image", you boot from the Windows install disc, say "repair" Windows, point at your system image and your hard drive is recreated exactly as it was when the "system image" was created.

I believe we are talking about 2 different things here. Of course, I could be completely wrong...I've seen documents saying completely the opposite. So, it's not entirely clear...for sure. I hope I am wrong, I think this is a great feature.

 

[pparks1]

It looks like I stand corrected, I've found confirmation from a MSFT that the "system image" feature will be in all versions of Windows 7....with networking being the only options brought on by the Business, Enterprise and Ultimate versions.

Sorry for any confusion, this could have been a little more clear in the documentation since it IS different from the way that Vista worked.

 

[DJG]

No problem. It's there but it's all over the place . This forced me to look around some more, which never hurts.

 

[DJG]

I did some more playing around with the Windows backup. Unfortunately it will only do images of the system partition. Everything else is backed up as a file structure, which is way slower. So I may use it for the system portion. Backing up my data would take hours that way, whereas I can do a data image backup in less than 50 minutes. Good news for the average home user though.

Edit: It turns out if you select "Create a system image" link from the left side panel rather than click the main "Back up now" button you can create an image of the system partition plus any other additional partitions you select as a single backup. I'm doing that option now, and it is creating a VHD of the data partition too. Cool! Let's see how long it takes.

 

[masterB]

Is this image compressed and how much?
Thanks.

 

[DJG]

The actual image itself turns out to be a VHD, plus a bunch of supporting small files, and considering it's all 29GB out of the 42GB I'm using minus I assume the hiberfil.sys which is 9GB = 33GB, that''s not great, but at least it's some. And it was quick. My 3rd party BU creates a 26GB image using light / fast compression.

 

[masterB]

Ok thanks.
I am using Acronis for a few years and I like it. I can image my OS partition in 20 min, high compression and restore it in 10 min. Never had a problem restoring an image.
It is working good on build 7232. Couple builds before it did not work, some compatibility issues. Cheers.

 

[DJG]

I did some more playing around with the Windows backup. Unfortunately it will only do images of the system partition ...

See my edited comment on image backup options. Cool!