How do you backup Windows 7?

yaschan · Sep 2015

I am a mac user. But recently I started using PC for xNormal baking and such. Basically I have now a machine in which everything works as I want.

Is it possible to make a clone or somehow back up the entire system so that if the hard disk fails or something goes wrong I can get back? This is a silly question but we Mac users have it easy since we have apps like Superduper. Cloning and swapping drives is super easy.

There are some third party apps to do it I guess, but is the Windows 7 built in system image any good?

thomasp · Sep 2015

yaschan wrote: »

I am a mac user. But recently I started using PC for xNormal baking and such. Basically I have now a machine in which everything works as I want.

Is it possible to make a clone or somehow back up the entire system so that if the hard disk fails or something goes wrong I can get back? This is a silly question but we Mac users have it easy since we have apps like Superduper. Cloning and swapping drives is super easy.

There are some third party apps to do it I guess, but is the Windows 7 built in system image any good?

There are dedicated tools for drive cloning on Windows as well but personally i use a Linux bootable USB stick for this. I can clone drive or partition with it and it also serves as a general tool for drive checks and Data rescue. Not as straightforward as something like carbon copy cloner though.

Kridian · Sep 2015

I use freefilesync to back up work. Pretty simple.

thomasp · Sep 2015

i use that too, to mirror/sync files but it's not suitable to backup a system drive with. you'll want something that does an exact block by block copy of whatever is on that drive/partition no matter the filesystem contents so you can unplug a failed drive, plug your clone in and be up and running again in minutes as if nothing happened.

yaschan · Sep 2015

thomasp wrote: »

There are dedicated tools for drive cloning on Windows as well but personally i use a Linux bootable USB stick for this. I can clone drive or partition with it and it also serves as a general tool for drive checks and Data rescue. Not as straightforward as something like carbon copy cloner though.

This sounds pretty good. Is it possible to download image for the USB stick somewhere?

thomasp · Sep 2015

sure, i'm using this but there are plenty of options to choose from - http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-knoppix-6-to-a-usb-flash-drive-in-windows/

the command used for disk cloning is named 'dd' in the shell - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/19141/clone-a-hard-drive-using-an-ubuntu-live-cd/?PageSpeed=noscript

yaschan · Sep 2015

thomasp wrote: »

sure, i'm using this but there are plenty of options to choose from - http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-knoppix-6-to-a-usb-flash-drive-in-windows/

the command used for disk cloning is named 'dd' in the shell - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/19141/clone-a-hard-drive-using-an-ubuntu-live-cd/?PageSpeed=noscript

Huge thanks!

kolayamit · Sep 2015

i am using the default drive backup in windows 10, works for win 7 also. Just create system image backup and create a system repair disk(usable when you are unable to boot). This works pretty well i have done system restore from the saved system image twice. What is did was i clean installed windows, installed all the drivers and finally install all the softwares then i do a system image backup and save it on an external drive.
Detailed info here :
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/

spacefrog · Sep 2015

I would'nt go the lowlevel route via dd etc... Too much can go false with only a small typo...

There are special linux live iso's available (write and bootable via USB stick )
I would use Clonezilla, it's a bootable linux dedicated for disk imaging like ghost or Trueimage. All free/opensource of course ...

http://clonezilla.org/

yaschan · Sep 2015

kolayamit wrote: »

i am using the default drive backup in windows 10, works for win 7 also. Just create system image backup and create a system repair disk(usable when you are unable to boot). This works pretty well i have done system restore from the saved system image twice. What is did was i clean installed windows, installed all the drivers and finally install all the softwares then i do a system image backup and save it on an external drive.
Detailed info here :
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/

I have done this too.

If I was to upgrade my SSD to a bigger drive, would this work? Is it possible for the system to realise that anything has changed, therefore making applications require re-registration etc?

kolayamit · Sep 2015

I have the same question, i never did any restoration on a new SSD.

yaschan wrote: »

I have done this too.

If I was to upgrade my SSD to a bigger drive, would this work? Is it possible for the system to realise that anything has changed, therefore making applications require re-registration etc?

How do you backup Windows 7?

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