Backup

[lostsoul62]

I want to backup my Windows 7. I have 2 Hard Drive with 2 partitions on each drive. Backup will not let me backup my Windows 7 and put it on my 2nd partition on the first drive. Backup wants to backup my C drive "Windows 7" (first partition) and my data on my 2nd partition (1st drive) and put it on my 2nd hard drive. Vista has a great backup but this backup seems really screwed up. I'm using the 64 bit Windows 7. Anyone can help.

 

[zigzag3143]

I want to backup my Windows 7. I have 2 Hard Drive with 2 partitions on each drive. Backup will not let me backup my Windows 7 and put it on my 2nd partition on the first drive. Backup wants to backup my C drive "Windows 7" (first partition) and my data on my 2nd partition (1st drive) and put it on my 2nd hard drive. Vista has a great backup but this backup seems really screwed up. I'm using the 64 bit Windows 7. Anyone can help.

Golden

In order to help we need system specs, and drive configs use snipping tool (type snipping tool in search) to upload a snip

Thanks in advance and welcome tosevenforums

Ken

 

[nate42nd]

I want to backup my Windows 7. I have 2 Hard Drive with 2 partitions on each drive. Backup will not let me backup my Windows 7 and put it on my 2nd partition on the first drive. Backup wants to backup my C drive "Windows 7" (first partition) and my data on my 2nd partition (1st drive) and put it on my 2nd hard drive. Vista has a great backup but this backup seems really screwed up. I'm using the 64 bit Windows 7. Anyone can help.

I don't think you can use Windows to create an image on the same drive. It would need to be on another physical internal drive, an external or network drive. Another partition on the same drive will not work. I see what you mean though....it should not want it on another partition on the same drive....

 

[zigzag3143]

I was unhappy with the options and reliability of the built in Back up app in W7 so I'm using Acronis True Image Home 2009. Seems to be much more configurable and allows me to make both clones of my drives plus compressed image backups of whatever I want to whatever I want.

Ditti

Acronis or Norton Ghost

Ken

 

[harpua]

As a general rule, it's not ideal to back up to a partition located on the same drive as the material you are backing up. The reason is that if the drive fails and becomes unusable, your backup is trashed too, just when you need it.

So really the OP should be trying to back up to a separate internal or external drive, imo.

I tried to use W7's back up tool to back up my C partition to an external USB drive. It made the back up fine but when I tried to restore it before booting into Windows, Win couldn't find the back up. I never figured out what the problem was, although it probably was something to do with the way the USB external drive powered up. I just moved on to Acronis which is much more configurable and hopefully very reliable.

 

[lostsoul62]

I backup the C drive on the same Hard Drive (2nd) Partition and have been doing it for years with Vista built in Backup so yes you can do that. I also backup on my 2nd hard drive also. I have 5 copies of all my data. I was an MIS manager in San Jose CA so I backup up everything on a half dozen Hard Drive. Yes you do need to backup on a 2nd Hard Drive. I don't understand why system specs since I've been backing up the C drive for 20 years but I will look into Sniping. I too have been using Acronis True Image Home 11 and it's a great backup so I guess I might buy the 2009 version.
Thank You Richard

 

[pparks1]

I want to backup my Windows 7. I have 2 Hard Drive with 2 partitions on each drive. Backup will not let me backup my Windows 7 and put it on my 2nd partition on the first drive. Backup wants to backup my C drive "Windows 7" (first partition) and my data on my 2nd partition (1st drive) and put it on my 2nd hard drive. Vista has a great backup but this backup seems really screwed up. I'm using the 64 bit Windows 7. Anyone can help.

Hmmm...I'll have to test this out at work, because I'm pretty darn sure on my single drive machine at home that I had 3 total partitions

#1). 100MB system reserved
#2). 150GB C drive where Windows was installed
#3). 750GB D drive where my data, downloads and stuff was kept.

I thought during my testing that it allowed me to backup #1 and #2 onto my #3 partition. I think it gave me a warning saying "hey this isn't safe, in the event of a hard drive failure, you would lose this backup". But I'm pretty darn sure it let me continue.

I'll test it on a box here shortly and post back my results.

 

[pparks1]

Well, I looked at my computer at work, it had a 100MB reserved partition and a 150GB C drive. So, I used disk management and shrunk the 150GB C drive to about 75GB...thus leaving 75GB unpartitioned. I created a new partition on the available 75GB.

I ran the backup and told it to backup partitions 1 and 2 onto partition 3 and it worked just fine. It gave me a warning, but did it's thing as shown below

Warning Message
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/pparks1/WarningMessage.png

Confirming what is backing up
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/pparks1/What2Backup.png

Backup complete message
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/pparks1/completed.png

Results on the hard drive partition
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb180/pparks1/results.png

 

[lostsoul62]

Just Backup the C:\

If you have 3 partitions there was no need to do anything to any of them. In a full backup, all you need to do is backup the C:\ because the 2nd partition can just copy however you want to the 3rd partition. You can just pick and choose, copy and paste, no need for a backup. If you want the whole 2nd Partition to be copied to the 3 partition just create a folder in the 3rd partition and copy into it. I have never had a reason to use a backup utility to copy anything except the C:\

 

[lostsoul62]

Spoke to soon

In my last post I mean at home and not at work. Also I mean a major backup as coping data from one drive to another; you don't need a utility backup for that. Incremental and differentials are different. Sometime I just don't think far enough into the further. That 100 MB partition you have came from the manufacture but I think you can just copy that.

 

[iseeuu]

I backup the C drive on the same Hard Drive (2nd) Partition and have been doing it for years with Vista built in Backup so yes you can do that.

I never liked the built-in Windows Backup utility, never used it much. However, after the first lengthy backup, it would do incremental backups, only adding changes. So when you speak about backing up your C:/ drive for example this is what I think you are talking about.

Windows 7, however, also includes the ability to create an image of the entire C:/ drive, and while this may be part of an overall "backup" strategy, it is different than the backup mentioned above. Windows cannot put the image it creates on the partition it is imaging. No one can. A second partition or hard drive is required, and there must enough empty space for the image.

So are you having problems saving an image of your C:/ drive?

Here is some more info from this forum that might help you:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html?filter

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

 

[pparks1]

That 100 MB partition you have came from the manufacture but I think you can just copy that.

No, the 100MB partition comes from Windows 7. I built this computer myself. When you have a blank drive and you install Windows 7, when you create the first partition, it tells you that it's going to also create another partition for recovery utilities and such and that partition is 100MB. If you already had data on the drives, then it would NOT have created this 100MB partition.

For me, the entire purpose of using the "system image" is to install my OS, install the bare drivers that I need to get rid of all exclamation points in device manager, then activate Windows. Once it's at this point, I pull 1 "system image". Therefore, if I ever need to rebuild my machine for any reason, there isn't a need to reload the OS, the base drivers or reactivate it. I've got no problems re-installing apps and I have a file server at home which stores my actual "data files". That server has multiple hard drives that are synchronized to each other approx every 4 hours with robocopy. In addition, that data is synchronized to 2 different external hard drives...1 of which is kept offsite. Finally, the "important stuff" like pictures and the like which can not be recreated are stored on DVD's offsite in case of a major issue at home.

 

[lostsoul62]

When you have a blank drive and you install Windows 7, when you create the first partition, it tells you that it's going to also create another partition for recovery utilities and such and that partition is 100MB.

This is the first time I have ever heard anything like this. I created 2 disks, a system repair and Backup Restore so I can't understand the 100 MB partition.

I would like to put the C drive on the 2nd partition of the 1st drive and I never worked with a backup that couldn't do this except for the built in backup of Windows 7. (At home, not at work) Why Microsoft has done this is beyond me. However Microsoft also wants to take your entire hard drive and back it up on your 2nd hard drive. I don't need a 1/2 TB Backup. Question is can you backup the C drive only on another hard drive regardless of how many partitions you have on each drive?