Partition Windows 7 hard drive and run a full image.

[Paul Black]

Good evening,

I have spent the last couple of days cleaning up my computer.
It's amazing what you keep because you think you might need it one day.
Weekly housekeeping is certainly the way to go from now on.
What is the best way please to partition my C: drive and fully image my system to that partition.
Can this be done as the hard drive only has C: at the moment or is it best to reinstall Windows 7 and create two partitions on reinstall.

Thanks in advance .

 

[samuria]

You can't image to the drive in use is c you can shrink it create another drive and image to that

 

[Paul Black]

Thank you for taking the time to answer samuria, I appreciate it.

I do realise that I can't store an image on the same partition as the OS.
I want to partition the C: drive to setup a partition Z: for example, and then save the image there.
What I really want to know is can I, and how do I go about this please?
Is Windows 7 adequate to do this within its system or is there another more stable and better alternative?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SIW2]

Aomei partition Assistant ( Standard edititon is free). Let it create bootable media.

Free Partition Manager Software - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard

 

[Paul Black]

Thanks for the reply, I will look into that later.

I have spent the afternoon playing detective with regards to this.
Can I not though use the Disk Management to shrink C:?
Then could I not though use Partition or Volume - Create New and then image to that?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SIW2]

Can I not though use the Disk Management to shrink C:?

Possibly, but Diskmgmt is very limited. 3rd party programs do more.

 

[Paul Black]

I just read...

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2672-partition-volume-shrink.html

which does seem to do what I want, which is just to make a new partition, say Z: and then image C: to it.
Is the Windows 7 Disk Management not sufficient for my needs?
I was hoping to get this done tomorrow if possible.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond to my request, it is appreciated.

 

[YaMoonSun]

You just go to the start menu, right click my computer, and go to manage, and disk manager is going to be on the left-hand side near the bottom. It should tell you how much you can shrink to a new partition. Shouldn't take long at all. The full system image can likely be speedily copied to the partition using CloneZilla. I'd recommend looking up some tutorials.

 

[SIW2]

Diskmgmt may be able to do what you want.

Then just run windows system image.

If you prefer more flexibility and ease for your imaging, you can use Best Free Backup Software for Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, XP

Creating the partition takes a few seconds. Making an image takes a few minutes. Depending on the speed of your machine and how much data you have, likely do the whole job in 10-15 mins.

I just read...

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2672-partition-volume-shrink.html

which does seem to do what I want, which is just to make a new partition, say Z: and then image C: to it.
Is the Windows 7 Disk Management not sufficient for my needs?
I was hoping to get this done tomorrow if possible.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond to my request, it is appreciated.

 

[Paul Black]

Thanks SIW2,

I have just read both articles from AOMEI with regard to partitioning and imaging, they both sound extremely good. I will do some more investigating this evening with the view to using them tomorrow maybe (I can't believe they are both FREE).

One quick question please.
If I was to go with the Windows Disk Management and Imaging, and in three months time I wanted to do another Image, can I overwrite the previous Image or will I have to name it something else, ending up with two Images, and also using more disk space?

I know AOMEI also covers Full, Incremental and Differential Backup which is attractive.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SIW2]

Windows imaging does differential. It works ok.

Aomei is simpler to use and much easier if you want to e.g. restore the image somewhere else - a different or new drive for example. The image files are also smaller. You can select for even more compression, but it takes longer. The default settings are fine.

The free version sounds like all you need. There are paid versions with esoteric features for advanced users.

 

[SIW2]

It seems you are planning to store an image on a different partition , but same hard drive. All imaging programs will take a bit longer to do that, because they are reading from and writing to the same Disk.

That will help if your windows installation is corrupted, you can restore from the image.

It won't help if your hard drive fails.

In the longer term, it makes sense to store images(s) on a separate drive.

 

[mjf]

Before you undertake any repartition operation ensure your data is backed up in case things go wrong. When repartitioning your OS drive you should have a reliable system image stored on an external HDD.
When you store system images on an OS drive partition be aware that if/when that drive fails you have lost your image.
In addition to Windows Disk Management other popular disk management software include (free) Partition Wizard mini Tool.

As for system imaging the Windows inbuilt software is really quite limited. When using this software I would make single images. To make multiple images rename [WindowsImageBackup] or store the folder in a separate folder eg Image1_1_xx. An image must be renamed to [WindowsImageBackup] and moved back to the root directory. To make multiple images Windows uses difference imaging and shadow storage. I would not use this approach - just make multiple once off images.
See these tutorials if you haven't already:
Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup
System Image Recovery

Many forum members (including myself) use the flexible and reliable free (or paid) version of Macrium Reflect for system images:
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

[Paul Black]

Thank you SIW2 and mjf for taking the time out to answer me.

I will consider the options given and hopefully make the right choice tomorrow.
There is a lot to think about when you do something like this, isn't there?
What size is an image in general?
I just have Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 and Office 2010 with very few extra installed programs.
I have a Kingston 32Gig USB, would that be sufficent to hold an image, or maybe even a 8Gig stick. Both are firmatted as NTFS.
Then this would obviously not need me to partition my C: drive.

Thanks again.

 

[SIW2]

Imaging is a very simple process, particularly with Aomei - the easiest to use, which is why I suggested it.

Just follow the simple GUI.

Click System Backup.




Select where to save the image ( it will probably have suggested your new partition - for me, it suggests W because there is lot of space on W )



Click Start Backup.

That's it.

 

[SIW2]

You always make boot media for your imaging program. If you install Aomei Part assist as well - that will create boot media including both Part Assist and Backupper.

Aomei part assist is the best free partitioner - it includes partition recovery and works in pe boot media

 

[SIW2]

The size of the image depends partly on what compression level you choose. More compression takes longer. Aomei is already set at medium by default. It is fine as it is.

Some files can't be compressed much, if at all - photo and video files, iso files, wim files etc.

On average, the image will be about 50-60% the size of the used space on the source partition(s)

 

[Paul Black]

Thanks again SIW2,

I might just try imaging to my 32Gig USB using Aomei and Backupper to get a feel for it then.
Will it also create a bootable file as well please, and if so, will I be able to burn it to a CD?

Thanks again.

 

[SIW2]

To create boot media you need either a usb or a cd/dvd.

The advatage of using part assist media creator is that it will include Backupper as well

From Part Assist , select


Click Next if it asks about windows to go ( that is only for win8 &10)

Then

 

[SIW2]

Or you could borrow a copy of my boot media as an iso file (lots of extra tools on it ), and burn it to cd/dvd or apply it to a usb stick.


Writing an image across a usb2 connection will be fairly slow, it is a lot of data to copy. Nevertheless a lot of people do it.