Creating duplicate installations of Windows 7 on one PC

[martinlest]

I used the disk because, as I said, I already had a Macrium PE disk ready, but the programme is not installed on my PC or laptop. But I found no way to get the MR disk to recognise my external HDD, even though it told me that it had found and loaded drivers.

I also found two posts, Googling this earlier this evening, in which the poster said that, although they found their external HDD listed in backup targets (I didn't), it did not appear on the restore tab, so they were unable to restore their Macrium image :huh:

 

[meebers]

I have been using "CASPER" now for years, making a automatic scheduled clone once per week to D: (separate SSD). If C: stops working, I boot to D: and keep on working. It is less than a 1 minute change over. At the very most, you will be 1 week behind if you are a "non-clouder) then clone it daily if necessary. It uses smart clone, only re-clone's the files that have changed. Typically the cloning process takes < 5 minutes behind the scenes and without any operator intervention needed. I do imaging by using Macrium as a double backup, but recreating the disk from the image takes some time.

 

[martinlest]

Thanks, but at $50 this is not for me at this time... I'll probably try installing Macrium R onto my hard drive and see how it goes.

 

[gregrocker]

Since you have a WD HD in the mix I suggest you use the premium Acronis imaging Suite which is the best by far and normally expensive unless you own a WD or Seagate drive to download and use the free app for them.

The Manual is on the Downloads page and easy to understand: WD Acronis free cloning app.
I have never had Acronis fail, its paid version will convert Windows images to use the more flexible Acronis recovery and can adjust an image to boot on any hardware. But the free versions gives you anything else you need including flexible cloning.
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119

 

[martinlest]

Yes, I have a WD drive and have just received today a new Seagate drive, so will do as you suggest: it rings a bell actually: I think I may have used this app before..

Thanks again.

LATER (edit): I thought this sounded familiar. Turns out I downloaded it last year (I keep all my setup downloads) but not sure if I ever used it. Actually, them: I have the WD and the Seagate versions. Are they exactly the same? Will check I have the latest versions and give it a go, as you recommend it.

LATER STILL!: No, the WD version I have backed up is v.13.0.0 - it's a 100MB exe file. The latest is v.16.00.00 and it weighs in at 259MBs, so they must have really added stuff! Haven't looked for the Seagate version for now, assuming one version is enough!

 

[gregrocker]

Either will work fine. Read the Manual which is on the Downloads page and easy to understand.

 

[Bertison]

I can only speak of my own experiences with Macrium and backups, I don't run 2 copies of Windows7 on 2 drives, but I do have a simple 1-disk NAS, a desktop PC and a laptop, networked with the NAS. I use Macrium Reflect Free Version to make regular image backups of each computer. I have also worked with other family computers on the same network and made images of them to my NAS as I rebuilt them, so that they can get back to the original setup. I have used USB keys, Cd's, DVD's and other hard drives with Macrium without problems. The secret, if there is one, is to read the Macrium Help files and print out anything that will help.

 

[meebers]

Since I have never had to use an image for restoration (knock knock), I have had extremely good luck with a clone restoration. So the question is, typically, if your C: drive goes away, either virus related or just plain hardware failure, How long does it take to load the image SW, get the image back onto the C: drive and become operational again.?