Solved Image your system with free Macrium

[sunnystaines]

I have windows7 starter edition on a samsung nf110 netbook. it only has a single hdd split into 2 partitions C&D would I be able to use w7 backup image to create an image of C and keep it on D?

or do I have to get a external dvd drive or hdd.

[I have used w7 image on a desktop with ultimate copying C to a secondry hdd and on two occasions used restore a backed up image via the w7 dvd and its been first class and quick too]

 

[whs]

With Macrium you could do that - provided the D partition has enough room. D is usually the recovery partition and is small.

I would, however, recommend you get an external disk (e.g. 500GB). They are very cheap these days. Imaging on the same disk will not be of any help when your disk breaks.

I cannot answer the question regarding Windows7 imaging. I never use it. It gave me nothing but problems.

 

[rumpelstilzchen]

i guess i should give up with my efforts :-(

done!!!! ))

 

[sunnystaines]

WHS

thanks for the reply, waiting now to see if anyone replies on w7 image question.

can a laptop be booted up from a cd on a usb cd/vdv drive?

 

[kado897]

WHS

thanks for the reply, waiting now to see if anyone replies on w7 image question.

can a laptop be booted up from a cd on a usb cd/vdv drive?

1. It depends on what the d; partition is. In most cases it is a small recovery partion, in which case it will be too small and you also need it to recover your system if anything goes wrong. So no I think you will need an external USB HDD for your backups.

2. A laptop can be booted from an attached USB DVD drive provided the BIOS supports it.

 

[sunnystaines]

kado
what do i look for in the bios to see if it supports an external dvd player please & usb hdd

 

[kado897]

kado
what do i look for in the bios to see if it supports an external dvd player please & usb hdd

I don't really know on your system. On my HP laptop I was able to get at the boot menu on startup and see that I could boot from HDD and USB sticks and once I got an external USB DVD drive (my internal one was playing up) it was just there for selection. On some systems I know you have to go into the bios first to set the boot order but I don't know your laptop. Maybe a read of your manual will help or perhaps someone else will be able to give you advice.

 

[whs]

As kado says, if you go into the boot order, it will be pretty obvious. Unfortunately every mobo has a different function key to get there and on an HP it is the ESC key to tap when you power-on. But it should be mentioned on the BIOS splash screen.

 

[sunnystaines]

thankyou both for the advice

 

[kado897]

You are welcome. I hope you get it sorted.

 

[bigcitycat]

LOL I am coming in here at a late date. I just backed up with macrium. I have a couple of questions. I have not tried to restore this back up. I have a dual boot system so when I backed up I selected the 100 mb NTFS partition because I hear it contains the MBR. Then I backed up the windows seven partition, as well as my Kubuntu and swap partitions. I did not backup recovery. I really wasn't sure if I needed all of these. I was able to put them all on a 14 gigabyte usb, go figure. My question is what issues if any should I expect if I try to recover my system with this setup? After reading through this thread. I really didn't see much with regards to restoring these backups.

 

[bigcitycat]

I booted the rescue cd but it just gets stuck on a blue screen that says please wait.

 

[whs]

LOL I am coming in here at a late date. I just backed up with macrium. I have a couple of questions. I have not tried to restore this back up. I have a dual boot system so when I backed up I selected the 100 mb NTFS partition because I hear it contains the MBR. Then I backed up the windows seven partition, as well as my Kubuntu and swap partitions. I did not backup recovery. I really wasn't sure if I needed all of these. I was able to put them all on a 14 gigabyte usb, go figure. My question is what issues if any should I expect if I try to recover my system with this setup? After reading through this thread. I really didn't see much with regards to restoring these backups.

If you watched the video, the backup scenario is part of it. There is usually no need to restore the 100MB partition (unless you have to install a brand new HDD). The 100MB partition does not contain the MBR (that is on the first 512 bytes of the HDD) but it contains the bootmgr - which in your case is probably the Linux Grub now.

The fact that you only needed 14GBs is due to the compression of the images. That corresponds to about 26 or 27GBs of real used space.

The one thing you have to watch out for is not to mark the partitions as "active" when you run the recovery. Your active partition is the 100MB partition.

 

[whs]

I booted the rescue cd but it just gets stuck on a blue screen that says please wait.

It says "please wait" for a bit. But if this is for very long, there is something wrong with the CD. Maybe you can burn a new one.

One other possibility is that you have a hardware configuration with which the Linux program on the CD cannot deal.

 

[bigcitycat]

Okay thanks. I guess I missed the video. It was 43 gigabytes that I put on the usb. Hope that doesn't cause an issue.

 

[bigcitycat]

Hmm, not sure why I am not seeing a video?

 

[whs]

Hmm, not sure why I am not seeing a video?

Sorry my fault. I put out 2 tutorials - one in writing and one with the video. I mixed the threads up. But here it is: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I

It was 43 gigabytes that I put on the usb. Hope that doesn't cause an issue.

The 43GBs is a high number. But it depends what the data is. If there is a lot of repetitive data, the compression can be higher. Usually I have observed a 55% ratio. But I would not worry about it.

 

[bigcitycat]

Cool Thanks, but I just waited about 20 minutes on that rescue dvd. Not sure what I am going to do now.

 

[whs]

Just burn a new CD and try that.

 

[bigcitycat]

Okay I was able to get the cd to work after using advanced mode. I also watched the video so thank you for that.