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

 

[SIW2]

You can easily shrink the C partition and create another from the unallocated space released.

You can save a backup image on that new partition if you wish.

Then you can restore form the new partition as you did before.

[It is better to have one on a separate HD as well - just in case your internal HD fails. ]

 

[etalmar]

Hello SIW2,

Shawn mentioned shrinking the C: partition as well, using the free Paragon program, but I'm not comfortable doing that, as the slightest error encountered could prove to be catastrophic for my OS stability. I have no desire to play around with that.

I will have to purchase an external hard drive (Western Digital or Seagate model) and use it to create system backups for my OS as well as my wife's (who is still happy with WinXP Pro SP3).

 

[Brink]

Etalmar,

The external drive will be a good choice. You might consider splitting it two partitions to have one for your computer and one for your wife's. This way the backups will both be separated and easier to use to restore with.

 

[BlueDove]

Greatings Brink, Iggy-PC, Siw2, Night Hawk, and all the other guru i fell to mention

i read the tutorial and all 35pages of feedback, lots of brain work goes in making a tutorial like this one . Iggy-PC seem to have a good system in place to assure multiple gost images, i 'll have to go back over that and take a second look at it
my OS is Windows 7 Enterprise (x64)

i have 1 hypothetical question to help my understanding

if i fallow the totorial as is without zipping images or renaming image ;
Let say i have been doing a complete back up of my operating system , programs and settings every weeks for the past 6 months and that i come to the conclusion that my system has started to become unstable a month ago ; Could i do a roll back in time .... say? Could i go back 6 weeks in time and restore the system to what it was 6 weeks ago (6 backup ago) or would i be restoring to the latest gost image from last week??

BlueDove

 

[Win7User512]

Does this backup just the data that actually exists or does it also capture the actual size of the drive?

For example, if the data on the disk is 10GB total but the capacity of the disk is 40GB. Which size would the image be?

 

[Brink]

Hello Windows7User512,

The backup image (clone) will only be up to as large as the amount of space used on the hard disk. Free space will not be included in the backup. For your example, it would be up to 10GB in size.

 

[harvey77]

system backup

Hello Brink, you are very very knowledgeable......
We have just got a new pc with Windows 7 Premium so will be going from XP to this, will I in turn be giving myself a headache through the transition and wishing I'd stuck with XP..... There is so much to take in with the 'system backup' , is it not like previous os when you're prompted to insert discs and make your own reboot discs for the very first time on a new pc.

Wish you lived in the UK, the amount of info you know is great. I do have a 'Microsoft Windows 7 In Depth' book, it's as thick as the bible, think I'm gonna be needing it AND your advice.

Cheers.

 

[Brink]

Hello Harvey,

I actually find the system image backup used in Vista and Windows 7 to be quite good if you save it on a separate hard drive than the one Windows is installed on, and do not move or rename the backup folder.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

 

[karlsnooks]

Shawn,

I realize that modifying the tutorial to cover the case where:
a) there are several partitions,
b) the user desires to backup all or selected partitions, realizing that the system partition will be automatically selected
would be a change to the tutorial.

I noticed that in your example, only one partition is shown, thus the screen to select additional partitions is not shown.

What do you think?


Also I feel that the handling of repeated backups does not work as in the tutorial.

And yes, the backups made, etc does agree with a MS write-up, but my experience is "it just ain't so".

I also believe that MS changed the actions from earlier releases to the way the backup works now.

What I've found is that MS overwrites, yep, overwrites the existing system image with the one generated by the system image backup. What is incremental is the backup of data files/folders.

Since I did not desire to have my copy overwritten, I found two different solutions:
1) which I don't recommend is create a new partition on the external and backup there,
2) rename the folder containing the system image (vhd file).

Here are a couple of snapshots to illustrate that approach.

 

[Brink]

Hello Karl,

I agree. I added to the warning box at the top of the tutorial about system partitions being automatically selected and cannot be unselected.


Normally, if you have enough room on the hard drive to store multiple system images, you should be able to select which dated system image you wanted to use at step 5 in the tutorial below.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/675-system-image-recovery.html

You could rename the backup folder, but I find that this may sometimes render the backup unfindable by Windows leaving you not able to do the system image recovery with it. It seems to be real sensitive about this.

 

[karlsnooks]

Shawn,

On my system, every new system image will overwrite the previous one!

This is the reason I've gone to renaming. I have a stand-alone, non-networked Win 7 Ultimate.

My Backup/Restore did work in a fashion similar to your tutorial at one time but no more. The data backups do get stacked but the System Images are an overwrite.

Humor this old man and, to a fresh partition on an external USB, make a system image. Then turn around and make another system image. On my system the 2nd one overwrites the first. I do not end up with two VHD files but rather only one.

 

[Brink]

Karl,

It's included as well in the feature, described more in the tutorial below, about having multiple system image copies. As a test, see if when you create a normal backup with a system image included in it will then keep multiple copies of system images. I believe that it may need to be made with different days and not one after another. I'll do some more testing on this as well to see if I can get multiple system images to select from while doing a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/675-system-image-recovery.html.


http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/628-backup-user-system-files-delete-backups.html

 

[karlsnooks]

Shawn,
I just did it again. My last one was yesterday.

When I went drilling for the VHD file, the VHD has been overwritten. On the entire USB there are only two VHDs, the one from the folder I renamed and the current one.

Here's the result of my VHD search.


The one with today's date did have yesterday's date since yesterday I had twice done a system image backup.

 

[Brink]

I'll check back in to share my results in a day or two. I'll be out of town for most of the day tomorrow, and will not be able to be online until late tomorrow.

 

[karlsnooks]

Shawn,
OK and in the meantime, maybe I can run across some explanation as to why and how the changes have occurred. There is also a subtle change in permissions to be able to access the xml files. But that I'll leave for another time.

 

[tenorman]

I have created this backup on another internal Hard Drive ok. Now I was wanting to upgrade my main C Drive, which has the W7 installed, to a larger, say 500gb drive. Can I now remove the old drive and install the new one and then use the system recovery option on the W7 disk to copy this backup to the new drive? and not lose any of the original installation? TNX

 

[karlsnooks]

yes. I'll gladly go into detail if you would post a fresh post in the Installation and Setup forum. Thanks.

 

[tenorman]

TNX have just done that

 

[Greg S]

Shawn,
OK and in the meantime, maybe I can run across some explanation as to why and how the changes have occurred. There is also a subtle change in permissions to be able to access the xml files. But that I'll leave for another time.

We're you ever able to retain multiple images without having to rename? I haven't and I have tried most everything. My last go at it had something to do with allowing windows to manage it automatically. It took some fiddlin just to get that to work but anyhow it still didn't create multiple's. Presently, I'm just renaming and alternating between two different externals.

 

[karlsnooks]

Greg,
I've not managed to get it work as MS advertises B&R, but I do think that at one time with B&R I did have multiple images.

I've learned to rename a backup, to avoid the problem. I also tried the new partition thing, but finally opted for renaming.