Consufed about creating Windows 7 drive image (Screenshot included)

Hi guys,
I have Asus G53JW notebook, and you all know it (and the others) have a factory-recovery partition image on the physical drive. I installed many apps, created some stuff and have some documents and what i want is to create a 1:1 system image (sector by sector) of used space of my physical drive (only one physical drive is present), which can be done using Windows 7's built-in "create system image" stuff.

The problem: Though i only want to create an exact copy of partition C: and D:, i wonder why_and_if the hidden recovery partition is NOT listed in "partitions to backup" and why it isn't included on that image?

Can someone enlighten me, whether built-in recovery (factory) image will (or won't) be included in Windows's system image?

Thanks a lot!

 

A system image is not a disk image, it will only image your Windows installation and not the hidden partition. You need anoteher tool à la Macrium Reflect, Acronis,e tc. to make an actual image of the entire drive, including all partitions hidden or not. Also, not that the Windows 7 imaging tool will image every drive that has system files on it. That means that if you have a 256 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD with system stuff on it, it will image both drive partitions that contain Windows components, user files and programs.

 

Hi tijo, thanks for your answer!

Now i'm a bit more confused than previous. Here is why; as i know, and as the following links indicate that the "system image" option is a literal copy that includes the data bit-by-bit (sector-by-sectory) which i would like to have. Links:

http://www.howtogeek.com/192115/what-you-need-to-know-about-creating-system-image-backups/

http://serverfault.com/questions/38...age-a-literal-copy-of-the-sectors-on-the-disk

However, based on your statement, only Windows installation is included on system image, for the sake of distinction, i interpret your answer like this: "Windows 7 built-in system image copies everything (sector-by-sectory) of ONLY the visible partitions, in such case, partition C: and D: will entirely be backed up, and NOT the hidden recovery (factory) partition".

Did i understand correct?

Note: I'll try Macrium, EaseUs or Paragon, but just wondered whether built-in Windows imaging does the basics.

Thanks!

 

That was my understanding of how the Windows 7 backup tool functions. When I looked into it, what I could find on the Internet pointed to it being a way to backup your Windows install and your files, not as an actual disk cloning tool.

The Windows tool does the basics that your average Joe would need and does it pretty well. It remains limited compared to cloning software if you want to copy a drive in its entirety.

I have tried EaseUS and Macrium both. My verdict, get Macrium.

 

Another vote for Macrium Reflect. The free version is more than adequate for general imaging and cloning of drives and partitions.

 

I just clone to a spare drive using Acronis software for win7, on win8 and 8.1 I use Paragon, software handles 64b OS,s with uefi and GPT partitions exceptionally well.

 

Thanks guys for the replies...

I wonder such thing about Macrium...As i want to make an exact copy (image) of my physical drive (it has C: and D: and hidden recovery partition including MBR stuff), can it exclude unused (free space) within the created image file? Actually, it's a bit different than cloning, i want to backup all the sectors in a single image file but not free space, to reduce image file size.

Can it be done?

 

Here's the scoop:

• Windows' built-in tool is a backup tool, not a disk imaging tool. It will create a backup of all the files that are known while the system is running, in other words, everything you can see from within Windows. That excludes partitions hidden from or not recognized by Windows, partitions that are not mounted, etc., but it does include Windows' own "hidden partition". Note that it will not, ever, create a sector-by-sector system image. In that sense the words "system image" are used somewhat improperly. Note that, if you want, you can make your factory recovery partition part of the backup that Windows Backup creates, by making the partition visible and mount it in Windows, using Windows' Disk Management tool.
• Disk imaging programs, by contrast, will create "sector-by-sector" images of any hard drive partitions you choose, including the entire drive. All of them will, by default, exclude space that is not in use by the filesystem. In other words, unused space is of course never included, unless you ask for it. In addition, drive imaging programs will also not copy the content of page and hibernation files, although the space for them will be allocated. Finally, all disk imaging programs use compression techniques to further reduce the size of the disk image, so your image file will be substantially smaller than the total of the allocated space on your drive.
  
  Including unused sectors in the image is possible, but quite unusual. There are applications for this, however, in forensics, for example, or if somebody wants to make sure certain evidence is hidden...

 

Great answer, +2 pt rep. Thanks mate!

 

One thing to remember the difference between an image and a backup. To create and image you have to boot into the Cloning software. The reason when Windows boots it opens files and locks them. Which means they can be copied while they are locked. So when I use Acronis True Image i put the DVD in the drive and boot into Acronis which will allow me to select source drive and a destination drive. Typically i use a drive in an external case. I did this last week with my Alienware moving from a 256 MSATA SSD to a 1TB MSATA SSD. I have to purchase an external MSATA drive case from Tiger Direct 29.00. Backing up backs up files like picture, movies, music and docs.

 

No, this is not true, and has not been true for many years. All decent disk imagers can use Windows' VSS service to image live filesystems from within Windows. There is no need to boot into the cloning software.

I will say, however, that Acronis has this reputation of massively screwing up any system it's installed on, so the recommendation is to only install Acronis in order to create boot media, and then immediately uninstall it. In this scenario you will exclusively use the boot media to create images from there on out. All of the other features that Acronis offers are worse than useless, in my experience, even though it's excellent when used in the above "stand-alone mode".

 

Can I use this image to install windows on Virtual Box? anyone?

 

Yes, some imaging programs allow for conversion of a disk image to a virtual disk that can be used in a virtual machine such as VirtualBox. See the documentation of VirtualBox and whatever imaging program it is you are considering. Also note that tools exist to directly convert (live) Windows volumes into VHDs.

 

How does Acronis mess up your system? I just cloned a drive and I tried to do it with Acronis installed version and got an error. I then used the method booting up with Acronis and I was able to clone the drive.

 

Just go to the forums on their website. I have to admit I haven't been there in a while, but I looked a few months ago, and it was the same I had seen a few years ago. The stories of users I have seen there really make your skin crawl...

Mind you, I have been using Acronis as my only disk imager for many years (still using the 2010 version as of now), and it has saved my skin more times than I want to remember, but I only ever use it in offline mode.

 

I've been using it only for cloning. I had an older version and just bought the newest to clone my AW 18 SSD. I've used Acronis 4 time and all successful. But I used it after booting to Acronis. I did install this new version and the install failed. I contacted their support because it wouldn't uninstall either even after running a repair. So they lead me to a Microsoft tool that I was able to uninstall Acronis. I attempted to clone a drive from the app and did get an error. That's when i just booted to the Acronis DVD.

 

Yep, that's exactly the kind of thing I was referring to. Their Windows installs are so unbelievably bad it just boggles the mind. You were even lucky with yours. I have seen stories of users that, after a botched install of Acronis, were forced to reinstall Windows...

 

At work we use Symantec Ghost to do images.

 

Thanks all for the answers and i want to know this vital thing about Macrium, or about other 3rd party imaging softwares.

My physical harddrive on my Asus notebook is configured in AHCI mode, either in BIOS and also in Windows, using Intel's AHCI driver, so here question comes:

Can Macrium Reflect FREE (or others, free is the one i'll use) detect AHCI-configured drives during boot up using Rescue CD created with WinPE 3.1 or 4.0 in Macrium ?

Rescue CD (live bootup Windows CD) of Macrium FREE is meant to restore the image file without having to going to Windows, but i'm not sure whether AHCI (SATA) drives are successfully located with WinPE versions? You know MS has generic AHCI driver like "msahci", can Macrium use this during boot up from Rescue CD?

Thanks a lot!