Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup

Hello Stasioau,

Answers inline. :)

stasioau said:

Question 1
As I understand Image Backup is important when for some reason I cannot start my computer. And here I have question. How I can use “WindowsImageBackup” where something is wrong with my comp?

You can do a system image recovery to select the image backup to restore your hard drive(s) and Windows 7 back to the way they were when the system image was created.

Question 2
Cannot understand how I can automatically update “WindowsImageBackup” let say every week or so?

For a automatic system image backup, you will need to create a backup on a schedule (step 12 in tutorial below) with a system image included (step 9 in tutorial below) instead of only creating a system image backup.

Backup User and System Files

Question 3
When open Control Panel--All Control Panel Items--Backup and Restore, have information "Windows could not find a backup for this computer" ?

This would only be because you created a system image backup instead file backup. If you created a file backup, then you would see one listed in Backup and Restore.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thank you Bring very much.
I did as you said. Works great.
Regards

You're most welcome Stasioau. :)

I have been using Win7 Home Premium 64-bit for about 6 months, on a brand new Compaq Presario tower. I attempted to create a system image, but soon found out that I could not copy the entire contents of my C drive to my D drive, as I had been easily able to do for years with my reliable and recently retired Win98SE OS.

The only option that I was given was to burn a copy of my C drive on to several DVDs, which seems like a complete waste of time, as I have a 500 GB hard drive and I am only using a mere 28 GB out of the 454 GB that is allotted.

Does the only workable solution for creating a complete backup entail that I will have to get over it and purchase an external hard drive? I feel that is an unnecessary expense, as I have plenty of room on my hard drive, but Win7 Home Premium does not allow you to copy your C drive to another partition on your system. The D drive already contains a factory image of my OS, which was automatically created when I turned on the new PC for the first time.

Suggestions? Is it still possible for me to create a complete system image on DVDs that I can rely on, in the event that I would need to reinstall my OS, or is the new trend to buy an external hard drive for backups?

Hello Etalmar, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Could you post a screenshot of your Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) showing all of your hard drive layout? This will help us to see what other options you may have to use to save a system image on.

Here is a screenshot of my diskmgmt.msc - thanks for any suggestions.

Etalmar,

The D: drive is your OEM factory restore drive used to reinstall Windows 7 with. You will not be able to select it to save a system image to.

Instead you could shrink your C: drive by about 50GB (a little larger than what is being used by the C: drive) using a free program like Paragon Partition Manager Express to create unallocated space that you can then use to create a new partition to save your system image to.

The best solution would be to add a second hard drive to save the system image and other backups to instead. this way you will not lose everything if the other drive ever dies.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

etalmar, to add to Brink's response, the Windows 7 doesn't allow you to make a system backup in the same drive since that is not a reliable backup. If your drive presents any problem, you are in real trouble, since you cannot reinstall your system. And a hardware problem is usually worse than a software problem, since you might not have access to the files anymore, so they "force" you to use a different piece of hardware