Win 7 imaging

hello I have been trying to satisfy some questions I have about this program to no avail. Does anyone know: 1-do you have to image the entire C: if you have one partiton, or can you just back up your active system? 2-can an image be verified if it was on an external hard drive. 3-can compression be used 4-words like clone and iso are being used. I want an intelligent copy,ie, only my system as stated in #1. I now use Acronis and Macrium and both image my system to my external hard drive in 8 minutes then verify in the same amount of time. I would like to avoid 3rd party issues and use Windows if it has integrity. I hear Acronis is having some problems with 64 bit at times.. Any clarification would be appreciated..

Hi Peter!,

Both Acronis and Macrium Reflect are excellent programs.
I have been using the free version of Macrium Reflect for a couple of years and it has never put a foot wrong with XP or W7 back-ups/restore. I only chose Macrium over Acronis because it was free and Acronis never had a free version (they might have now).

If an image copy of your active OS is required, yes the whole drive needs to be copied.

Image verification can be done regardless of media copied too with either program.


A full list of features, support and tutorials can be found for both Acronis and Macarium Reflect at these links:

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

Cheers,
Lee

I tried the backup that comes with Windows 7 and did not like it. It was very slow and the interface was not comfortable. Both Acronis and Macrium are much better. I use Acronis at home and Macrium in the shop.

Having said that, here is a good tutorial on Windows 7 Backup: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/615-b…stem-files.html

"If an image copy of your active OS is required, yes the whole drive needs to be copied." >>So if my harddrive is 1T it all has to be imaged - that would take forever. Sounds like I be sticking with Acronis and Macrium - too bad M$ could not go a bit further with the program. For those who are more skilled than I, I guess there are work arounds like creating partitions so you don't have to image the entire hard drive. I thought this was supposed to simplify things for those of us who are not trained or skilled. Sure wish I had the $ for a Mac. I tried a friends and it is ez!

Hi again Peter,

PC customization can be very tedious for those who don't have the spare time for it. However, When/if your HDD decides to suddenly break down, apart from having to install and format a new hard drive, a LOT of time is going to be required to deal with a new OS install and set-up. Especially the set-up

What I would suggest if you haven't the time to make a drive image of your 1TB drive and if you haven't already done so, is to back-up all important data including passwords, email ect. ect. and then resize your HDD into 2 partitions. One small one for your OS for quick future imaging and the rest of the drive for data.

With today's huge HDD's coming as standard with most PC's, they should all come set-up as above, straight out of the box!

For W7 a 30GB - 50GB partition would be plenty of drive space and for XP, 20GB - 30GB.

Under Disk Management in W7 you can shrink your OS to a manageable size, leaving the rest of the HD free to format as a Data drive or whatever. I've only used this feature a couple of times, but not to shrink a valuable OS drive, so I can't recommend it (others might though).

I only use 2 partitioning tools (both freeware editions), G-parted and Easeus. I'm going to recommend Easeus here as I've used it over 50 times on lots of PC's, with XP, Vista and W7 OS's. It's VERY simple to use and has been 100% reliable for me so far and no 'Techy' requirement is needed.

Download and install Easeus Partion Master home edition.
http://www.partition-tool.com/

1. Click on the Shortcut to open Easeus

2. Left click anywhere on the boxed drive space which will highlight it in grey.

3. At the top left of the page, left click on the 'resize/move' symbol.

4. In the box that opens you will see a box 'Partition Size' that will contain your unpartitioned C: drive size in MB units. Delete this number.

5. Decide a partition size in GB and multiply it by 1024 (1024MB = 1GB) and type that number into the now empty 'Partition Size' box.

6. Click on the 'Apply' button at the top left of the page.

7. Restart your computer when advised.

That's all there is to it and you now have an OS drive size that can be imaged very quickly indeed

Cheers,
Lee

Hello Lee Where to begin? May I back up and ask some rudimentary questions? I currently have a 40 GB hard drive on both desktp and laptop and name them in My Comp as 'My Acronis backup' and 'My Macrium backup'. If my hard drive were to fail would I type these same titles in my Comp to establish a pathway for recovery to the formatted, new hard drive? I do not know what actually resides on the hard drive but I thought when I did a system image that everything, including the o.s, data and all was included. Now when I get Win 7 with a larger hard drive, if time were not a factor, would it not take just as long to image the separate partions as it would to image the entire o.s? I want to learn to create partions but I do not see the big picture yet regarding partitions. Incidentally, I keep all sensitive data on two flash drives and not in the pc. My pc has a lot of notes about coputers and other files and folders of a general nature. Any comments you have to offer up would be appreciated, keeping in mind I am still in elementary school. I will now read up on Easus and try to begin this new quest. Thank you

"If an image copy of your active OS is required, yes the whole drive needs to be copied."

>>So if my harddrive is 1T it all has to be imaged - that would take forever.
Sounds like I be sticking with Acronis and Macrium - too bad M$ could not go a bit further with the program.
For those who are more skilled than I, I guess there are work arounds like creating partitions so you don't have to image the entire hard drive.
I thought this was supposed to simplify things for those of us who are not trained or skilled.
Sure wish I had the $ for a Mac. I tried a friends and it is ez!

"my harddrive" (1TB) sounded like present tense as did your reference to W7 Peter, not future tense. You made no mention of your 40GB drive and I'm not really sure what your question(s) or problem is (?).

No 'skill' beside being able to follow a few basic step-by-step instructions are required to.
A. make an image copy of a drive.
B. Create a basic partition

If you have a specific problem with your current Desktop or Laptop computer Peter, please let us know the actual details. If you would like to 'shoot the breeze' or 'speculate' about possible future PC scenario problems you might encounter, this section of WTT is not the place for it and If it is I'll be swiftly corrected by a moderator. Until then, your time is not the only valuable commodity here and I don't like to waste mine addressing someones PC issues that don't actually seem to exist.

Cheers,
Lee

I currently have a 1T external hard drive but both pcs have 40 GB drives. The reference to a 1T hardrive was for the pc I am about to buy with Win 7. I did not know that only current issues could be discussed here as I have learned from others about theoretical issues. They were discussed prior to my getting involved in a new product, just as an example. I did not come here 'to waste your time or mine' or 'shoot the breeze' as you so politely put it. My intention was purely educational and this is the first response of its kind I have ever received in any forum I have been involved in. I would be happy to receive replies from other members of the forum in the future.

The reference to a 1T hardrive was for the pc I am about to buy with Win 7.
I did not know that only current issues could be discussed here as I have learned from others about theoretical issues.
They were discussed prior to my getting involved in a new product, just as an example.

Peter,

You misunderstood my post. I was just pointing out in that post "this section of WTT" is not the place for theory regarding possible upgrades. I believe this section is for actual current problems.

The appropriate place in WTT forums for thread queries about theoretical issues involved with future upgrades can be found here::

'System Building & Upgrading'
'
http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showforum=127

Cheers,
Lee