Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup

How to Create a System Image Backup in Windows 7​

   Information

A system image is an exact copy of a drive. By default, a system image includes the drives required for Windows to run. A system image would include all NTFS formatted partitions with an operating system installed on it (ex: C ), as well as the System Reserved partition. These system partitions cannot be unselected. It also includes Windows and your system settings, programs, and files. You can use a system image to restore the contents of your computer if your hard disk or computer ever stops working. When you restore your computer from a system image, it's a complete restoration—you can't choose individual items to restore, and all of your current programs, system settings, and files are replaced with the contents of the system image.

This tutorial will show you how to create a system image (clone) backup of the entire hard drive or partition that Windows 7 is on, and any other selected drive or partition. You can use this image to be able to do a system image recovery to restore the hard drive or partition at boot back to the way it was at the time the backup image was created.

If you want to include additional drives in the system image, you can manually create a system image. If you manually create a system image, it can be saved on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or a hard drive.

If a system image was created through Windows Backup instead with the Include a System Image of Drives box checked, you can set Windows to retain as many system images as it has space for on the backup disk or to only keep the most recent system image.

   Note

Keeping different versions of system images

If you're saving your system images on an internal or external drive, or on CDs or DVDs, you can keep several versions of system images. On internal and external hard drives, older system images will be deleted when the drive runs out of space. To help conserve disk space, you can manually delete older system images.

Backup images are saved as backup periods in this format at the selected saved to location like the example below.

drive letter:\WindowsImageBackup\computer name\Backup YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS

For example, if your computer name is Computer, your backup image location is on hard disk or partition (network or local) D: , and you backed up on 11/22/2008 at 1:00:50 PM (It uses 24 hour time), then that backup image would be located in the folder below.
D:\WindowsImageBackup\Computer\Backup 2008-11-22 130050
If you're saving your system images in a network location, you can only keep the most current system image for each computer. If you have an existing system image for a computer and are creating a new one for the same computer, the new system image will overwrite the existing one.

   Tip

If you want to keep multiple system image versions on the same drive or partition, then you can use either method below to do so.

METHOD ONE:
Change the maximum space used for system images on the drive letter you are saving the Windows Backup to by changing the maximum space used by System Protection for the same drive letter. This is the same setting.

You do not have to have System Protection turned on for the drive letter, but do need to adjust the maximum space to what you like.

The size of a system image can be quite large since it will include all system drives in the image by default plus any drives you have included. If you want to keep multiple system images, be sure to increase the max size accordingly.

METHOD TWO:

1. Navigate to the backup location above for where you saved a system image that you want to keep before creating a new system image.

2. Right click, or press and hold, on the WindowsImageBackup folder, and click/tap on Rename.

3. Rename it to something like WindowsImageBackup-Copy-1, press Enter, and click//tap on Yes if prompted by UAC.
NOTE: This way you can just easily change the 1 an the end of the name to 2, 3, 4, etc... for each new system image that you make a copy of.

4. You now have a different system image version that you can leave at this location to be able to keep multiple versions.

NOTE: When you want to restore a system image in a renamed WindowsImageBackup-Copy-1 folder in the future, then you must rename the current WindowsImageBackup folder first, then rename the WindowsImageBackup-Copy-1 folder back to WindowsImageBackup in order to be able to restore it. The WindowsImageBackup folder must be in the root directory of the drive, and not within another folder.

   Warning

• Windows 7 can only include drives formatted with the NTFS file system in the system image.
• Windows 7 cannot include the partition or drive that you are saving the backup image to in the image.
• All "system" or "boot" drives/partitions are included in the system image by default, so you will not be able to save the system image to a system or boot drive/partition.
• If you are saving the system image to a HDD or partition, then you can only save the system image on a separate hard drive (recommended) or partition than what Windows 7 is installed on. It cannot be saved to the C: drive.
• Only the Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions can backup to a network location.
• You cannot restore a 64-bit Windows 7 backup image on a 32-bit system.
• You cannot restore a 64-bit Windows 7 backup image with a 32 bit Windows 7 installation DVD or recovery partition, or the other way around. You must use the same 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7 installation DVD or recovery partition as the backup image is.
• A system image that was created on a computer using EFI cannot be restored on a computer using BIOS. It can only be restored on a computer using EFI.
• When restoring a system image from a dynamic volume, the disks on your computer cannot be formatted to match the layout of the disks on the backup. To have full functionality, select a volume (partition) on a basic disk as your backup location instead.
• I would recommend to create a system image on a separate HDD, or a separate partition on a separate HDD, for the best reliability to restore from it. CDs or DVDs are just not as reliable. A scratch one just one of them could ruin the whole image.

Here's How:
1. Open the Control Panel (icons view).

2. Click on the Backup and Restore icon.

3. Click on the Create a system image link. (See screenshot below)

4. If prompted by UAC, click on Yes.

5. Select the location to where you would like to save the backup image at, and click on the Next button. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: See the Warning box at the top of the tutorial. Only the Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions can backup to a network location.

6. If available, check any additional hard drives or partitions (ex: Vista) that you would like to include in the backup image with the Windows 7 (System and C: ) partition or hard drive, and click on the Next button. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: See the WARNING box at the top of the tutorial. If you do not want to add any additional hard drives or partitions, then just leave the others unchecked. You will not see this, if you do not have any other OS installed other than Windows 7.

7. Click on the Start backup button. (See screenshot below)

8. You will now see this window. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If you wish to stop creating the backup image during this point, click on the Stop backup, Stop, and Close buttons.

9. When it is finished you will see this create a System Repair disc pop-up window. Click on No. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: For how to always hide or show this message, see this tutorial.

10. Click on the Close button. (See screenshot below)

11. Close the Backup and Restore window. (See screenshot below step 3)
That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Backup User and System Files in Windows 7
• How to Do a System Image Recovery in Windows 7
• How to Backup and Restore the Windows 7 Registry
• How to Enable or Disable the Ability to Create a System Image in Windows 7
• How to Extract Files from Windows 7 System Image using Virtual PC
• How to Extract Windows 7 System Image Files Using Disk Management
• Imaging with free Macrium
• How to Restore your System with a Broken Windows 7 System Image
• How to Manually Extract Files from a Backup in Vista and Windows 7
• How to Enable or Disable Backing up to a CD or DVD in Windows 7
• How to Enable or Disable Backing up to Local Hard Disks in Windows 7
• How to Delete Windows 7 User Data and System Image Backup Files
• How to Create a "Create a System Image" Shortcut in Windows 7
• How to Hide or Show "Do you want to create a system repair disc?" Message
• How to Fix Backup Error 0x81000019 in Windows 7
• New Installation: How to Create a General System Image in Audit Mode

 

[Brink]

Hello Greg,

Yes that would be the correct folder to best leave untouched.

 

[Greg S]

Hello Greg,

Yes that would be the correct folder to best leave untouched.

Thank you!

Edit: Oh Brink from Texas, Longhorn fan?

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Greg. Nar, I really do not follow sports much.

 

[Night Hawk]

When looking at the backup folder there notice how Windows dated it. The next backup if incremental will see a new date applied automatically.

Leaving that and any other progressive backups untouched to insure integrity is precisely correct as Brink pointed out there. System images as well as other backups are best placed in undisturbed locations for seeing the best results if needed.

 

[s7ven]

hi brink,
i have made a clean install of windows 7 on my hard drive. now i have "c:" and "d: recovery of vista". I now want to make a system recovery of win 7. Will I be able to make a system image of win 7 and retain the system image of vista? one more thing, is it possible to make a system image in portable hard drive with my other files? thanks

 

[Brink]

Hello S7ven,

Yes, you can create a system image backup of all of the selected partitions and drives that you want included in the system image backup. Just do not select the drive or partition that you want to save the backup to. It can be saved to portable hard drive, but just make sure it's plugged in before creating the backup so it will be detected.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[s7ven]

Hello S7ven,

Yes, you can create a system image backup of all of the selected partitions and drives that you want included in the system image backup. Just do not select the drive or partition that you want to save the backup to. It can be saved to portable hard drive, but just make sure it's plugged in before creating the backup so it will be detected.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

thanks what would happen if i didn't select the recovery d: when i made a system image? and after that i tried to recover it,, what would happen to the d: recovery? will it stay on my hard drive or not? do i need to include it on making a system image? i still want to have that vista image around with me. thank you. also in that portable hard drive, is it okay to have some other files in it? thank you very much.

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

You need to make an image of the Vista recovery partition as well. Otherwise, if you restore using Windows system image it will delete all the partitions on the drive.

It will only restore the partitions you have backed up.

In your situation , you are much better using a free 3rd party app. Much more flexible, quicker, smaller backup sizes - and most importantly - you can use them to restore just a single partition - leaving the others untouched.

 

[s7ven]

Hi,

You need to make an image of the Vista recovery partition as well. Otherwise, if you restore using Windows system image it will delete all the partitions on the drive.

It will only restore the partitions you have backed up.

In your situation , you are much better using a free 3rd party app. Much more flexible, quicker, smaller backup sizes - and most importantly - you can use them to restore just a single partition - leaving the others untouched.

thank you that really helped. that was the exact question in my mind, okay so all i have to do now is to include the vista image right? and when i recover my computer i will still have c: and d: recovery? what if i use the vista image to restore my computer? will i still have the d: recovery? thanks

 

[Palustris]

Read all the way through these pages and no one else seems to have had this problem. Ran the System Image facility and saved the Image to a !TB Seagate external drive, so no problem with space. However when the Backup was almost complete, it came up with a message saying Corrupt sectors on Source disc not saved. Now this is a new machine and there should not be any corrupt sectors (will return it to the shop), but did my System Image save? Chkdsk found nothing wrong with the Drive and a Backup which included a Mirror Image did not returrn any errors. Am I worrying without needing to?

 

[Brink]

Hello Palustris,

Since it's a new machine I would have the hard drive checked in your computer to be safe. You can usually go to the hard drive manufacturer's website to download a utility to check the hard drive as well. In addition to that one, here are 7 free ones that you can use if you can't find one from the manufacturer.

If you are able to repair the corrupt sectors, then you should create another system image backup to replace the other one.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Palustris]

Thanks. I will take it back to the shop when I am able to drive. Ran a diagnostic and found no corrupt sectors. Very odd.

 

[Brink]

Ok. Please let us know how the results turn out.

 

[robinb9]

well it actually happened.
My dell vostro 1500 laptop running windows 7 home premium as an upgrade to vista hd died 3 days ago.
I had followed your instructions here in Jan to make a system recovery disk and image to my wd external hd.

Since i have a service contract with dell they shippped me another hd.

I prayed once i put the HD in, changed the boot order to the cd rom and booted to the system recovery dvd that i had created Jan 15 2010. Plugged into the usb the external hd that had the image.
I followed your tutorial and within an hour it had restored everything correctly to the new hd.

This is a live saver because i would have had to reinstall vista sp1 then upgrade to windows 7 again.

Thank you so much for putting this tutorial in.

Once I know all is fine, i will do another system image at the end of this month because the only thing i had to update was the feb security updates.

robin

 

[Brink]

Hello Robin,

I hope all goes well and smooth for you. Please let us know how it went for you.

 

[Palustris]

Further to my problem. As usual on sunday I ran the back up facility to an external drive. It reported that some files were on corrupt sectors and not saved. In Details, it gave a list of the files thus affected. I saved the file, but now it will not let me access it. I do not have permissions, even as admin. I ran Chkdsk which found nothing. However, from memory I checked the files and indeed they were 'corrupt'. So I saved separately all the places mentioned, that is all my music, pictures, documents, Favourites. These went to the external drive no trouble. I then ran the Backup again, this time it found no corrupt sectors and saved everything. I examined the supposed corrupt files and all seem ok. Very odd.

 

[LECVA]

Ultimate Restored to proffessional

Hi
This tutorial says you cannot restore a back up from a 64bit version onto 32bit version of 7 (and vice versa). I am just wondering if you can restore an ultimate backup to a Proffesional installation (both 32bit).
I currently have a beta version of 7 ultimate. I plan to install 7 Proffessional and restore the original backup.

 

[SIW2]

Isn't the beta version going to expire very soon ?

 

[Brink]

Hello Lecva, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Sorry, but a system image backup is a clone of the selected drives and partitions. When you restore it, it replaces what you currently have with the backup image. Because of this, you will not be able to restore your Ultimate image backup into the Professional installation using the normal system image recovery methods.


You can manually copy the files you want from the Ultimate installation into the Professional one though with one of these two options below.

1) Do a custom install of Professional to have all of the files from your current Ultimate installation saved into the C:\Windows.old folder in the new Professional installation, then restore from the C:\Windows.old folder. (easiest method)

2) Extract the files you want from the Ultimate system image backup file, and copy them into the Professional installation when it is through installing.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Buzz]

Please verify

Hi,

Ive read through the guides and wanted to make sure that the following is possible.

So at the moment i have a raid 0 with two 500gb HD's with two partitions. (Windows 7 Ultimate is installed on one of the partitions)

Now i use the backup and restore to create an image of that raid onto my external 2TB HDD. (I guess i will have to select the two partitions)

I create a System repair disc.

Then i delete the raid and recreate it using a different stripe size.

I insert the system repair disc and boot from that.

Then i restore the Image onto my newly created Raid.

Now my system should be back up and running just as it was before.

Could you please tell me if that is all correct?

Thanks.