Multiple Disc Images ?

[Mike99]

Can I have multiple disc images on my external HD?

When I created a second disc image there was a warning if there was not enough room on the HDD that older images would be deleted. I have over 800 GB & still have plenty of room.

The WindowsImageBackup folder is dated March 23, 2011. This is when I created my first disc image.

However when I view the files in that folder I only see the second image file.
J:\WindowsImageBackup\Myname\Backup 2011-06-04 032234

This tutorial talks about renaming the image in order to keep multiple versions on the same drive.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html

But in this tutorial they make it sound like it’s no problem to select which image to restore.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/675-system-image-recovery.html

Where is my first image from a couple months ago? Is it hidden somewhere or did it get deleted?

Do I have to rename images in order to have multiple copies on the drive??

 

[mjf]

Can I have multiple disc images on my external HD?

When I created a second disc image there was a warning if there was not enough room on the HDD that older images would be deleted. I have over 800 GB & still have plenty of room.

(1)
Yes you can make multiple Windows System Images on the same external HDD and restore them. The tutorials you refer to tell you how.
Windows imaging will recognize a folder called precisely WindowsImageBackup in the root of any partition as a valid image. If it lives somewhere else or is called something else Windows just treats it as a folder with subfolders and files.
When it's moved or renamed back to WindowsImageBackup in the root of a partition Windows will recognize it as an image folder. Clearly at any point in time you can only have one with this name.

If you use "Create a System Image" Windows will overwrite any existing image folder called WindowsImageBackup in the nominated partition root. I always manually delete an unwanted image.
If you create multiple images within the backup schedule, Windows appears to use a form of differential imaging which effectively allows currently plus older images. I would not rename or move images made in this way.
I personally don't like this approach because there is too much to go wrong. I prefer single, manually created images. These can definitely be moved, renamed and this allows easy management of multiple images.

(2)
The issue concerning disk space appears to be a separate imaging issue. Can you provide more information?

 

[marsmimar]

Let's suppose your external hard drive is empty. The first system image you create with the built in Windows 7 imaging tool will automatically be called WindowsImageBackup. If you want to store multiple images you can simply rename this first WindowsImageBackup to something distinctive like WIB-011511-InstalledAdobe. The second image will now be called WindowsImageBackup. On your external hard drive you will see two entries:

WIB-012511-InstalledAdobe
WindowsImageBackup

If you create a 3rd system image and leave the external hard drive exactly as above, the 3rd system image will over-write WindowsImageBackup. If you want to save the second image it too must be renamed to something like WIB-062611-InstalledJava. Then you can create the third image and your external drive would look like this:

WIB-011511-InstalledAdobe
WIB-062611-InstalledJava
WindowsImageBackup

Now let's say you want to restore your computer back to the very first system image. You would have to rename WIB-011511-InstalledAdobe back to WindowsImageBackup. Since the third image is also name WindowsImageBackup you can either rename it to something distinctive or, during the restore process you can select which one of the WindowsImageBackup files you want to use. Personally, as soon as I create a system image I immediately rename it so I can remember what prompted me to make the image in the first place. Hope this helps.

 

[kado897]

The warning about older images being deleted is standard. Notice it only says might delete older images. Windows imaging will set aside 30% of your disk to hold images before it deletes any old ones. The reason you only see the newer image is that the differencing procedure uses shadow storage to hold the image set. The only way you can really see what is going on is to start the restore process and instead of selecting the latest image ask it to look for others. As mjf says not a very good system. At least with the single image renaming system described above and in the tutorial you know what you have and the 30% limit does not apply and you can manually delete older images.

 

[Mike99]

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

Step One refers to if you renamed or moved the image.

But Step Two, number 5 states “To Use the Latest System Image”. And number 6 “To Select a System Image”, which lets you choose the date & time of the image you wish to choose.

The screen shot does not show any filename, it shows the date. I’m not trying to be argumentative, but I don’t understand. That would seem to imply the system is letting me choose which image to use. Why would it let me choose if it only recognizes the one name of “WindowsImageBackup”?

 

[kado897]

Yes it is confusing. That is the step you go through to get at the other hidden images on a standard backup. It can also be used to locate an image on another drive. It will only find images named WindowsImageBackup in the root folder. If you follow the renaming procedure it will not find the renamed images. For it to find these you must rename them back to the original before starting the restore.

 

[Mike99]

Yes it is confusing. That is the step you go through to get at the other hidden images on a standard backup. It can also be used to locate an image on another drive. It will only find images named WindowsImageBackup in the root folder. If you follow the renaming procedure it will not find the renamed images. For it to find these you must rename them back to the original before starting the restore.

What do you mean by "other hidden images on a standard backup"?

 

[Mike99]

Can I have multiple disc images on my external HD?

When I created a second disc image there was a warning if there was not enough room on the HDD that older images would be deleted. I have over 800 GB & still have plenty of room.

(1)
Yes you can make multiple Windows System Images on the same external HDD and restore them. The tutorials you refer to tell you how.
Windows imaging will recognize a folder called precisely WindowsImageBackup in the root of any partition as a valid image. If it lives somewhere else or is called something else Windows just treats it as a folder with subfolders and files.
When it's moved or renamed back to WindowsImageBackup in the root of a partition Windows will recognize it as an image folder. Clearly at any point in time you can only have one with this name.

If you use "Create a System Image" Windows will overwrite any existing image folder called WindowsImageBackup in the nominated partition root. I always manually delete an unwanted image.
If you create multiple images within the backup schedule, Windows appears to use a form of differential imaging which effectively allows currently plus older images. I would not rename or move images made in this way.
I personally don't like this approach because there is too much to go wrong. I prefer single, manually created images. These can definitely be moved, renamed and this allows easy management of multiple images.

(2)
The issue concerning disk space appears to be a separate imaging issue. Can you provide more information?

(1) The Microsoft tutorial that I saw on their website never mentioned or cautioned that old images would get deleted.

(2) When I went to create an image a message came up stating if there was not enough room on the hard drive that older images would be deleted. I believe it was only a single sentence. But that would/should mean if there is enough room then the old images would not get deleted. So I proceeded. And consequently lost my original image.

 

[marsmimar]

(1) The Microsoft tutorial that I saw on their website never mentioned or cautioned that old images would get deleted.

(2) When I went to create an image a message came up stating if there was not enough room on the hard drive that older images would be deleted. I believe it was only a single sentence. But that would/should mean if there is enough room then the old images would not get deleted. So I proceeded. And consequently lost my original image.

(1) You might find these tutorials a bit more "user friendly".

How to Create a System Image in Windows 7 - How-To Geek

How To Restore Windows 7 from a System Image - How-To Geek

(2) If the old image was still named WindowsImageBackup then it would have been over-written by the new system image. Did you rename it before creating the new image as I suggested in my previous post?

 

[kado897]

Yes it is confusing. That is the step you go through to get at the other hidden images on a standard backup. It can also be used to locate an image on another drive. It will only find images named WindowsImageBackup in the root folder. If you follow the renaming procedure it will not find the renamed images. For it to find these you must rename them back to the original before starting the restore.

What do you mean by "other hidden images on a standard backup"?

You cannot see the previous images by looking in the file system. They are held in shadow storage (where restore points are held). I don't know the details as to how this is done but the file system only shows the vhd files for the latest image, the previous images are reconstructed from this and data held in shadow storage.

 

[mjf]

Firstly you need to be aware that these are fairly large tutorials that have grown over time. They were not produced in one sitting and therefore some confusion may have crept in. (I hope I'm not taking a liberty with the comment Brink).

Here is some more detail:
I tried to explain in an earlier post that you can effectively adopt one of 2 approaches to making multiple images. Using Windows imaging alone will rely on a differencing VHD approach that uses Shadow storage. I believe this to be too risky and don't use it.
Here is a further explanation of the approach.

A second approach is to make single images and manage them by deleting, renaming or moving. I always use this approach. I store and have restored many full system images and never once had a problem.

 

[kado897]

Thanks for the link mjf. Much clearer.

 

[richnrockville]

Welcome Mike99 to the windows 7 forums.

Not to sound like a broken record, BUT, for a better solution, I use Acronis home 2010 which allows me to create images as I wish and give them a unique name. I normally create an image each week on an external usb hard disk in a sub directory on the external hard disk. I have 4 or 5 of them and image each of my systems each week. Finding and keeping track of which is which is easy as Acronis allows you to name the image. I normally name it machine, date and time so that I can restore the correct one.

I buy my copies thru the User Group store (which I have no financial interests) for around $25.
they are located at ugr.com

I have had acronis saved my bananas many times after installing some program to test... It is a real warm fuzzy
which sometimes makes me over confident knowing that I can recover easily.

Rich

 

[Mike99]

(1) The Microsoft tutorial that I saw on their website never mentioned or cautioned that old images would get deleted.

(2) When I went to create an image a message came up stating if there was not enough room on the hard drive that older images would be deleted. I believe it was only a single sentence. But that would/should mean if there is enough room then the old images would not get deleted. So I proceeded. And consequently lost my original image.

(1) You might find these tutorials a bit more "user friendly".

How to Create a System Image in Windows 7 - How-To Geek

How To Restore Windows 7 from a System Image - How-To Geek

(2) If the old image was still named WindowsImageBackup then it would have been over-written by the new system image. Did you rename it before creating the new image as I suggested in my previous post?

(1) The Create tutorial does not mention anything about multiple images.

(2) The Restore tutorial shows the ability to select an image.

Consequently I did not rename my original image. I figured a new file would get a new name, or a date as shown in the tutorials. Again, the only warning I got was older images would be deleted if there was not enough room on the HDD. After I could not find the original image is when I started to investigate where it went. I may not ever have used that original, but it would have been nice to have.

 

[Mike99]

Yes it is confusing. That is the step you go through to get at the other hidden images on a standard backup. It can also be used to locate an image on another drive. It will only find images named WindowsImageBackup in the root folder. If you follow the renaming procedure it will not find the renamed images. For it to find these you must rename them back to the original before starting the restore.

What do you mean by "other hidden images on a standard backup"?

You cannot see the previous images by looking in the file system. They are held in shadow storage (where restore points are held). I don't know the details as to how this is done but the file system only shows the vhd files for the latest image, the previous images are reconstructed from this and data held in shadow storage.

I guess I'm still confused about "other hidden images". How can there be other images if the system recognizes only the name "WindowsImageBackup", and there can be only one file with that name because earlier ones get deleted?

I was reading through other threads & it looks like I can do weekly or monthly images along with the scheduled backups. I'm left with the impression that the system will save multiple copies of these images. Am I understanding that correctly? Do these scheduled images get different names that are somehow recognized by the system? Is this what you are referring to?

 

[marsmimar]

(1) The Create tutorial does not mention anything about multiple images.

(2) The Restore tutorial shows the ability to select an image.

Consequently I did not rename my original image. I figured a new file would get a new name, or a date as shown in the tutorials. Again, the only warning I got was older images would be deleted if there was not enough room on the HDD. After I could not find the original image is when I started to investigate where it went. I may not ever have used that original, but it would have been nice to have.

Hello again, Mike. I realize that sometimes figuring out how Windows 7 works is a mystery. Having a recent system image is usually more valuable than having one that is several weeks or months old. To that end, I'd respectfully suggest you make a new system image as soon as possible and store it on your external hard drive. At this point, don't concern yourself with following any tutorial. Just do the following: If your external drive already has a file called WindowsImageBackup, please rename it to something else. Then create a new system image by clicking on the "Create a system image" link.



Follow the prompts (including the one to create a System Repair Disc if you haven't already done so.) When the new system image has finished you'll get a screen that says "The backup has completed successfully". At this point check your external hard drive. It should have your renamed system image and a brand new one called WindowsImageBackup. If it does, you're finished, unless you want to also rename the latest image. I further recommend creating a new system image at least once a week or once every couple of weeks, depending on how many changes are made to your computer. If you need to restore your computer it'll never be more than a week or two outdated. Just make sure that whatever system image you choose to use is renamed back to WindowsImageBackup.

I'd also suggest not relying on a scheduled task to create your system images. It would be a shame if you had a system image scheduled to be made at 3pm (just as an example) but your machine wasn't turned on or you were in the middle of some major project like a term paper and the system image wasn't made. Like Murphy's Law says, "If something can go wrong it will happen at the most inconvenient time."

 

[Mike99]

Firstly you need to be aware that these are fairly large tutorials that have grown over time. They were not produced in one sitting and therefore some confusion may have crept in. (I hope I'm not taking a liberty with the comment Brink).

Here is some more detail:
I tried to explain in an earlier post that you can effectively adopt one of 2 approaches to making multiple images. Using Windows imaging alone will rely on a differencing VHD approach that uses Shadow storage. I believe this to be too risky and don't use it.
Here is a further explanation of the approach.

A second approach is to make single images and manage them by deleting, renaming or moving. I always use this approach. I store and have restored many full system images and never once had a problem.

In the tutorial section titled “What is a system image and how does it work?” The second paragraph states “The next time a system image is created, only new and changed data is written to the .vhd file,…”

Is this an incremental image backup, vs. an incremental data backup?

If I did the single image renaming method & my HDD crashed, & I had to boot from the recovery disc in order to re-image, how would I be able to change the name of the image back to "WindowsImageBackup" in order to restore it?

 

[kado897]

You can run a command prompt from the recovery disk and rename it from there.

 

[Mike99]

I renamed my previous image. When I went to create a new image the system searched & came back & said my last image was 6-3-2011, which is correct. But since it was renamed, how did the system find & recognize it?

Is this normal behavior? My concern is that since this image was found that it will get deleted when I create a new one.

 

[mjf]

The tutorial points you to:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/675-system-image-recovery-16.html#post1079794
for moving images
and describes the renaming process using the command prompt.

As I have said I would not mix the two multiple imaging strategies described in my earlier post. Exactly what MS do in terms of image differencing I don't know. I think the following gives some insight
VHD (file format) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and
"What are the Different VHD File Types"
These have the concepts of Parent and Child images and renaming/moving can obviously get you into trouble.

When you make single VHDs delete, rename or move them I believe you are working with what MS refers to as "Fixed VHDs". From practice I find this robust.