windows backup

[wakinews]

guys i want to update my vista home premium to win 7 and i need to do a system image backup jus incase things get nasty. but there is no option for system image backup in home premium. I am used to doin windows backups. What good third party tools can i use to do the backup and if i need to do a system restore can i boot from windows disk and choose system image restore or the backup wont be recorgnised?

thanks guys

 

[kado897]

Hi wakinews and welcome to Seven Forums.
There are many third party imaging solutions you can use. The one which is recommended by many here is Macrium Reflect. The link is in my signature. You will need to create a Macrium recovery disk in order to restore your image. You can't use the Windows disk for that. There is a good tutorial here which also includes a link to a pre-built recovery iso which you would need to burn to disk.http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?filter[2]=Backup%20Restore

 

[marsmimar]

Agreed. Macrium is a great tool.

 

[whs]

As Kado has said, familiarize yourself with the operation of Macrium with my tutorial that Kado linked. It also contains the link for a video tutorial that Kado made. It describes the recovery process. I recommend you study that too.

Then download the WinPE .iso from this link and burn it to a CD (e.g. with ImgBurn). You can then use this CD to make images (and, of course, recoveries) - no need to install Macrium for only occasional use.

Btw: Operation and recovery are the same for Vista and Windows 7.

 

[wanchoo]

Also agreed that Macrium is very good and free in addition. However I find Acronis TrueImage Boot Disk even better though not free. I suppose it all depends on what one gets used to.