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File and PC Backup (part 3) - Backing Up the Entire PC: System Image

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9/28/2011 5:41:18 PM

3.4. Backing Up the Entire PC: System Image

Backing up and restoring data files is important and should occur on a regular basis; but over the past few years, a new type of backup utility that backs up entire PC systems using system images has become quite popular. These types of backups protect against a hardware disaster: if your hard drive completely fails, for example, you can purchase a new drive and use the system image to restore the PC to its previous state.

System imaging utilities aren't actually all that new; corporations have been using them for years. But now that consumer-oriented system imaging utilities have gained in popularity, Microsoft has created its own version, which it includes with Windows 7.

NOTE

The system image utility was called Windows Complete PC Backup in Windows Vista.

NOTE

System imaging utilities typically compress the data on your hard drives so that the image file takes up a lot less space than the original installation. Various solutions use different compression schemes, but you may be interested to know that Windows 7 uses the tried-and-true Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format that Microsoft also uses in Windows Virtual PC and its server-based Hyper-V virtualization solutions. That means system images created with Windows 7 will be supported for a long time to come.

NOTE

System images contain complete PC environments. You can't arbitrarily restore only parts of a system image, as you can with data backups. Instead, when you restore a system image, it restores the entire PC and overwrites any existing operating system you may already have on it. That means you should be careful before restoring a system image: any data you have on the disk will be overwritten. Of course, you're using automatic backups, too, right?

To create a system image, launch Backup and Restore and click the Create a system image link on the left. This launches the Create a system image wizard, shown in Figure 16, which walks you through the steps needed to completely back up your PC system. You can save system images to hard disks or optical storage (such as recordable CDs or DVDs), as well as network locations (Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate only). However, network-based system images cannot be securely protected, as hard drive–based and optical disc–based backups can.

NOTE

You can only write a system image to a hard disk that is formatted with the NTFS file system. That's because system images often exceed the 4GB file size limit imposed by the older and less reliable FAT32 file system.

Figure 16. System Image is one of the best features in Windows 7.

Click Next. As shown in Figure 17, the wizard will give you a chance to confirm the backup settings and remind you which partitions are being imaged. It will also provide an estimate of the amount of space needed to create a system image. The required storage space varies according to the size and usage of the hard disk on your PC.

Figure 17. System Image is ready to go.

Click Start backup to begin the system image process.

NOTE

Two file system locations must be included in the system image—what Microsoft refers to as the boot partition and the system partition. The boot partition is always C:\, whereas the system partition is the drive with the Windows 7 Windows directory. This is typically C:, but if you installed Windows 7 in a dual-boot setup with a previous Windows version, the system partition might be in a different location. If you have other drives or partitions, you can optionally choose to include them in the system image as well.

As the image is created, Windows Backup will provide an ongoing progress indicator, as shown in Figure 18.

Figure 18. Though complete PC backups are huge, they are compressed and therefore much smaller than the actual disk to which you are backing up.

This process could take some time, especially on a heavily used PC. When it's done, Windows Backup will prompt you to create a system repair disc (see Figure 19). You should do so: While Windows 7 does install recovery files directly into the boot partition, in some instances, these files will not boot the PC. If that happens, you can use the system repair disc to boot your PC, a requirement for restoring the entire PC with the system image (as you'll see in the next section).

Figure 19. If you don't have one already, be sure to create a system repair disc.

NOTE

You can use any writeable CD or DVD for a system repair disc.

NOTE

If you have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 7 on different PCs, you cannot use the same system repair disc for each. Instead, you must create separate system repair discs for 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

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