Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup

kado897 said:

Method 1 will save multiple backups. It will use up to one third of the partition (drive) size to do this. You have no control over this. Older images will be deleted when there is no more room for a new one. The images are incremental. It's a long time since I have restored one of these images but if I remember correctly RPs are not backed up.

So if my image was containing DATA files then I could have easily exceeded the 1/3 criterion; hence, the OVERWRITE?

+ I think you confirmed what my previous experience was with the RESTORE PTS.

THANX

I think this topic is relevant to this tutorial. If not, I can create a separate thread if informed to do so.

I have 2 image files of the same machine & apparently at the same time because they are both identiufied as "Backup 2015-03-07 082043". The 2 images exist on 2 different hard drives. I was going to delete 1 of the images, but upon examining the VHD files I noted they had different sizes. That puzzled me so I investigated further & it appears the discrepancy resides in the Sys Vol Info directory. Why would that be?

I can say on 1 of the 2 drives is that I have a more recent image within the WindowsImageBackup that is the same machine, but I repartitioned the internal drives. However, creating the newer image should not have changed a VHD file that already exists for a previous image?

Aside from the Sys Vol Info differing if all else is = are these images intact? Also, how can the previous VHD file get changed? I did use DISK MGR to examine the contents.

If I am correct the Sys Vol Info pertains to Sys Restore Pts which do not get preserved when recovering an image anyway. This is an extension with my previous comments with KADO.

Thanks

I don't know much about Windows Backup, but I've created 2 images of the same C drive recently--one on April 27 and one about 20 minutes ago. I've never restored a Windows Backup image.

I used this command, from a prompt:

wbadmin start backup -backupTarget:E: -include:C: -AllCritical -quiet

The images were written to the E drive.

Here are some facts about those 2 images that may help you make some inferences.

Before I made the second image, the WindowsImageBackup folder contained a folder named Backup 2015-04-27 234425. That folder has been renamed 2015-05-06 070051. It shows a creation date of April 27, but curiously does not have a modified date of today.

The VHD file has also been renamed and is 700 mb larger than on April 27. I have only one VHD file.

The Backupspecs.xml file appears to have been overwritten with new data. It still has a creation date of April 27, modified today.

The other 10 xml files in the 2015-05-06 070051 folder appear to be brand new, not modifications of earlier files. None of them has a creation date of April 27.

I'm guessing I no longer have any way to restore to April 27.

I'm not sure about that as I think the "incrementals" are held in shadow storage. I think the only ones who really know how Windows backup works are Microsoft and I'm not even sure of that.[/QUOTE]

I guarantee if I post this to answers.microsoft.com I will get the formed letter response from an overseas responder (English as their 2nd language) with direct links to MICROSOFT literature which yields no answers to the situation.

kado897 said:

I'm not sure about that as I think the "incrementals" are held in shadow storage. I think the only ones who really know how Windows backup works are Microsoft and I'm not even sure of that.

I guarantee if I post this to answers.microsoft.com I will get the formed letter response from an overseas responder (English as their 2nd language) with direct links to MICROSOFT literature which yields no answers to the situation.

Does the Vol Shdw Copy service have anything to do with creating a system image per this tutorial? If it does will it generate a failure message if the service is off?

The reason I ask is that I got an error message 0x80042302 when I attempted to recover (NOT restore) an image of a laptop. When the image was created I am pretty sure the dialog box indicated that the system image was created successfully. If I had gotten the error at the time of the image creation I could have taken corrective action. Getting this error message when trying to recover the image is completely useless.

If this service does need to be enabled should this tutorial mention that up front?