Is "System Image Backup" the thing that I need?

[GeKKo525]

Hi! I have my windows installed on C drive (about 30GB space is used on that drive) and what I want to do is back my C drive up to an external hard drive to be safe. What I mean by that is completely backing up EVERYTHING that's in the C drive, so if something happens I can just format my C drive and restore via the backup to get all my files and settings back. Is it even possible? What I've found so far is System Image Backup, but I don't know if this is the thing I'm looking for.

 

[mcnumpty23]

i do it with macrium reflect--its free and in my opinion far better than the built in windows backup

can even install windows pe with it so if pc wont boot you get the option to boot straight to pe where you can troubleshoot or load your image

no need for a dvd or usb

can also mount their images using macrium viboot as virtual windows as well

 

[GeKKo525]

i do it with macrium reflect--its free and in my opinion far better than the built in windows backup

can even install windows pe with it so if pc wont boot you get the option to boot straight to pe where you can troubleshoot or load your image

no need for a dvd or usb

can also mount their images using macrium viboot as virtual windows as well

Sounds cool! Downloading it right now.

 

[martinch]

The Windows System Image backup can create a clone of your boot drive and libraries, and when you use it to restore a PC, should give you a fully-functioning PC in the state that the backup was made (i.e. with patches and applications installed).

Personally, I don't trust backup software that makes archive files too much (a colleague had a backup taken Acronis True Image, and the disk it was on got a bad sector somewhere in the ~1.5TB file - the entire archive was unreadable), so I tend to use a program like SyncToy (free from Microsoft) to simply create a clone of my documents, etc, on another (external) drive (this would be in additon to making a system image backup).

 

[mcnumpty23]

i find it excellent

i installed the pe then when you boot you get the option of windows or pe--default gives you like 10 seconds to choose

i just went to msconfig and dropped that to 2 seconds so doesnt slow booting too much

then i made an extra partition on C drive and copied my image to that

this way means everything is contained all in one place so no need for dvd/usb/external drives to do a recovery

i also copied the image to an external drive just to be doubly safe

the restore is so much faster than windows does it as well

 

[mcnumpty23]

The Windows System Image backup can create a clone of your boot drive and libraries, and when you use it to restore a PC, should give you a fully-functioning PC in the state that the backup was made (i.e. with patches and applications installed).

Personally, I don't trust backup software that makes archive files too much (a colleague had a backup taken Acronis True Image, and the disk it was on got a bad sector somewhere in the ~1.5TB file - the entire archive was unreadable), so I tend to use a program like SyncToy (free from Microsoft) to simply create a clone of my documents, etc, on another (external) drive (this would be in additon to making a system image backup).

i have had plenty windows system images fail to work as well

macrium does give to option to verify the image once its created

also it allows mounting it as a virtual system to check your image works ok

and the ability to browse it using explorer

guess nothings totally 100% reliable but it hasnt failed me yet unlike windows system restore or image backups have

 

[GeKKo525]

Just finished making the backup via Macrium Reflect, it took it 5 minutes to make a 15GB image of my 30GB drive. Seems real good! Thanks

 

[mcnumpty23]

Just finished making the backup via Macrium Reflect, it took it 5 minutes to make a 15GB image of my 30GB drive. Seems real good! Thanks

yeah even though it compresses the image its not slow

and think it restores even faster than it creates