You can use this disc to start your PC and restore from your image backup in the event you ever need to replace your hard drive and can’t start Windows. When the backup is complete, Windows gives you the option to create a system repair disc.
RELATED: How to Create and Use a Recovery Drive or System Repair Disc in Windows 8 or 10 Your time will vary depending on your PC and the type of storage to which you’re backing up. It took about 2.5 hours when backed up to an external hard disk connected to our PC via USB. In this example, we’re backing up a drive with about 319 GB of data. You’ll see a progress meter as the tool creates the image. If everything looks okay, click the “Start Backup” button. If anything doesn’t look right, you can still go back and make adjustments. Typically, we like to create separate image backups for each drive.Īt the confirmation screen, notice the amount of space the image may take. You can include other drives if you want, but remember that this will add to the size of the final image. Select where you want to save your backup and then click “Next.”īy default, the tool only backs up your system drive. It can be to an external drive, multiple DVD’s, or on a network location. You can then decide where you want to save the image. When you first open the tool, it will scan your system for external drives.
The process of finding the System Image Backup tool is different in Windows 7 than in Windows 8 and 10, so we’ll show you to find the tool in all versions, and then explain how to create and use the system image.
But free is free, and if you don’t need the extra features, the Windows tool offers a solid way to perform a full backup of your system.
For example, both support incremental backups, password protected images, and the ability to browse backups for individual files. Third-party apps like like Macrium Reflect or Acronis True Image-at least, the paid versions-do offer some advanced features you won’t find in the Windows system image backup tool. RELATED: How to Use All of Windows 10’s Backup and Recovery Tools With that in mind, though, image backups can still be really handy. It would be like trying to plug your hard drive into another PC and expecting everything to load well. Benefits of creating system image to USB. This article will guide you to resolve this issue in three parts: Part 1. You’re creating an image of your full Windows installation and, since Windows is set up specifically for your hardware, it just won’t work as-is in another PC. If you need a complete guide to create a system image for a USB drive, stay here. The biggest disadvantage with system image backups-other than taking a bit longer-is that you can’t restore the backup to a different PC. No need to reinstall Windows or your apps. The advantage of a system image is that if a hard drive crashes, you can replace it, restore the image, and have your system right back to where it was when the image was captured. A system image backup, on the other hand, is like a full snapshot of an entire hard drive. Normal backup programs, like CrashPlan or Windows’ built-in File History feature, essentially copy your files to another location. Optionally, create a system repair disc that you can use to start your computer and restore a backup image.Choose where you want to save the backup image.In Windows 10, head to Control Panel > Backup and Restore (Windows 7) > Create a System Image. Let’s take a look at how to create a full backup image of your PC without the need for a third party utility. I also tried Raw Copy 1.2 on Windows PE 3.0.The built-in backup utilities in Windows are pretty solid. Raw Copy was originally designed for NT/XP/2000 but it also appears to work on Vista and Windows 7. If your disk finally dies during the copy process, then you have saved at least some of the data. In most cases, it makes sense to start with the end because valuable data is more likely to be found there. You can also choose where you want Raw Copy to start, whether at the end of the disk or at the beginning. I recommend rebooting after the cloning process.
If the target disk is at least as large as the source, you will get an exact clone of the source disk including the file system.
Raw Copy won't complain if the destination disk is smaller, but the drive will appear as unformatted after all bytes have been copied. The size of the target disk should be at least equal to the size of the source drive. The target disk can be a raw disk, that is - it doesn't have to be formatted. Everything on this destination disk will be erased, so be careful to choose the correct one. All you have to do is select the source disk and the target disk where the raw image will be created. Raw Copy doesn't have many options, but it has all the features such a tool needs.