How do I image my hard drive for backup? Or do I just need to backup the files?

Posted by NoCatharsis on Super User See other posts from Super User or by NoCatharsis
Published on 2009-11-09T20:17:28Z Indexed on 2010/06/11 10:43 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 191

Filed under:

Windows

|

backup

|

image

|

freeware

I have never imaged a hard drive, so I don't know what software to use or how to prepare my system for imaging. Is this the best way to backup? In the past, I've always just kept a copy of my important files on an external drive and in Gmail or DropBox for smaller stuff, but it would be nice to just take one image and restore from that if something ever goes wrong.

Thanks for the help.

EDIT: I'm sorry, I forgot to mention the OS. I would like to do this for my home and work computers, which are Vista and XP respectively. And actually I'm about to upgrade to Windows 7 at home, so details on that would be appreciated too.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about Windows

Server 2012 DFS New Member Issue

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am trying to add a new member to our DFS topology. We have 3 DCs (VMs - VMware) running Windows server 2012, two servers are located in or Primary site and the third at our DR site. Currently the two servers at our primary site are currently replicating DFS (full mesh) and are working fine. I have… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
Microsoft Management Console stops working when I add snap-in to it

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have Windows 7 Ultimate OS. I'm opening mmc.exe as administrator and trying add Certificates or any other snap-in, then while loading that snap-in MMC breaks and displays following message and after that it closes automatically once I click on close button on that message. What could be the problem… >>> More
Handling keyboard and mouse input (Win API)

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
There is a number of ways to catch mouse or keyboard under Windows. So I tried some of them, but every of them has some advantages and drawbacks. I want to ask you: Which method do use? I've tried these: WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP - Main disadvantage is that, I can't distinguish between left and right-handed… >>> More

Related posts about backup

backup exec - backup to disk offline

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi We are running backup exec 9.1 doing a backup to disk to portable hard disk drives. When we run the backup manually it works fine. But when the backup is setup to run in the evening on a schedule it does not run as the backup to disk folders goes offline and therefore has to be switched back… >>> More
Ideal backup appliance for backup software like Bacula?

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm at a small company and we (the IT department of two) manage <100 client computers and a handful of servers. Currently we're using a company's appliance to handle backup; it does a small backup every night and a full backup every weekend, and a guy comes on Wednesday to take an offsite backup… >>> More
Symantec Backup Exec Error on backup

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Recently we have moved some of servers from real servers- into virtual servers. Since then, we are getting errors like the following: Error category : Resource ErrorsError : e000fed1 - A failure occurred querying the Writer status. For additional information regarding this error refer… >>> More
Windows Server Backup - Recover only shows the latest backup

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
We're having quite some trouble at work using Windows Server Backup. We have a HyperV server (Win 2008) running 8 virtual web servers, these are running a variety of OS'es: Win 2003, Win 2008 and a lone Debian. Each virtual server has a separate partition on the physical HyperV server, so e.g. E:… >>> More
Failed Backup Job With Backup Exec 12 and AOFO

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am backing up a Windows 2003 Small Business Server with SP2. We are running Backup Exec 12 with SP4. Recently the backup job started failing on backing up the system state with the following error: V-79-57344-34110 - AOFO: Initialization failure on: "System?State". Advanced Open File Option… >>> More