How To Create a Full System Image

In the last article, I wrote about how you could backup your individual files. Very easy right? But what if we wanted to take it one step further? What more is there possibly to backup?! Worry not. This is clearly an optional task and certainly not required by any means. However, by creating a system image of your computer, it will save you a lot of time (and I really mean a lot) when it’s time to reinstall your operating system. I will explain what a system image is and how you can create one.

If you are a Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate user, you no longer need to use Macrium Reflect! These versions of Windows 7 have a built-in imaging system that you can use. Obviously, it doesn’t contain as much options as third party imaging alternatives but it gets the job done. Read about it here in this article.

A system image can be thought of as a ‘whole or complete PC backup’. Basically, you’re taking a snapshot or a baseline of exactly how your computer is configured at the time of saving that image. Everything on that computer will be saved including your applications, your system settings and your personal data. Now you might be wondering why in the world would I ever need to do this? It’s quite simple. Now what happens when you have to reinstall the operating system because your computer crashed and there is no way of recovering? Well, you reinstall the operating system! Correct. But what happens afterwards? Why, you reinstall back all of your applications and updates, configure the computer the way you want it to look, import back all of your data from backup and uninstall whatever I do not need! Correct again. The better question I should ask is, how long did that take? Very long I would imagine! Now my last question is what would you say if you had to do that all over again? Very torturing isn’t it?

If you have created an system image, it would drastically cut down the time it takes to get you up and running again if disaster strikes on your PC. With a system image in hand, you could simply revert your PC ‘back to the way it was’ when you created that image. For example, lets say you reinstalled your operating system, installed Firefox, Adobe Reader, the most current Windows updates, Photoshop, configured your wallpapers and application settings. Now you created the image. The next time you need to reinstall the operating system again, you could use the image instead and blast the image back onto your PC. That way once you log in again, all of the applications I’ve just mentioned will still be there, in the exact same location, configured the exact way you had it previously! When doing Windows update, you only have to install 3-4 missing updates instead of 60-70 updates because you already had all the previous updates installed when you made the image! Can you finally see how big of a time saver this can be?

Companies use systems images because they need to get their workers up and running as soon as possible whenever a system crashes. Whenever they buy new computers or laptops for their workers, they can instantly blast a system image they have created beforehand onto the computer instead of manually installing one application, rebooting, install another, reboot again, etc etc. However, you don’t have to be in a large corporation to create system images for your home computer. A free software that I use and recommend to a lot of people is called Macrium Reflect Free edition.

Once installed, you can use it to create a system image of your computer. It’s really easy and it allows you to store the image either on DVD or onto a external hard drive. Obviously, the more data you have on your hard drive, the bigger the system image will be. Luckily though, Macrium has some compression technology to reduce the size as much as possible. Alright, so lets get down on how to actually use this software.

Users of the Windows Vista Ultimate version, you’ll want to check out this method instead.

# Installing the software and identifying your hard drive
Download the software and install it as you would with any other application. You will need to be connected to the Internet when you first start it up because it has to validate your license. This is a one time process only. Fire up the application and after a couple seconds of scanning, you should be presented with the main menu page. Here, you will see all of your physical hard drives (including your USB external hard drive) installed as well as all of your partitions. What you want to look for is your main partition, which is usually the C: drive.

# Creating a Rescue CD
Before you actually make a system image, you should make a rescue CD. This is used to boot your computer into a pre-configured Linux environment so that you can actually start the Macrium restore process. Insert a blank writable CD into your drive. Click on the ‘Other Task’ menu option and select ‘Create Rescue CD’. You will be presented with two options. I would recommend creating the Linux rescue CD. Next, create the CD. The burn process should be really fast as it is a really small file.

# Creating the image
Now with the rescue CD out of the way, we can finally proceed on creating the actual image. It is important that you have customized the computer to the exact way you want. It’s a real shame if you finish creating the image (which can take some time) only to find out that you forgot to install a important application you use (therefore, it won’t be in the image). Also, remember that an image captures the exact state of your PC. This can also be a hazard if you have viruses or other malware already in your system. Why is that? Well, after making your image, that image file will also contain all the malware! The next time you blast the image back, all of your applications will be installed but so will the bad stuff so make sure your computer is clean before proceeding!
To create the image, simply right click on the hard drive you want to create an image for and select ‘Create Image’ from the menu options. Now you will be presented with a dialog box asking you where you want to store the backup image. You can choose a folder on your external hard drive, a folder on another physical hard drive (not the one holding your boot files), to a network drive on another computer, or to DVDs.

# Other options
After choosing your backup destination, click on the ‘Finish’ button on the next screen. Now you will be presented with a dialog box giving you two options. ‘Run this backup now’ and ‘Save this backup as an XML file’. Normally, I uncheck the XML file option because I never tend to run a restore process inside Windows. I normally restore the image by using the Rescue CD and booting from it. However, this is up to you.

# Wait for the image creation process to finish
That’s it! Now you just have to wait until the image creation process to be complete and you will then have a complete image backup of your computer.

# Restore process
If you have burned the image file to DVDs, please put them, along with the rescue CD in a safe place! This would be pointless if you needed to one day restore your system but couldn’t find the restore disc or file!
Using your image to restore your computer is also very easy. Simply pop in the rescue CD, set your computer to boot from your CD/DVD drive instead of the hard drive (you do this in the BIOS) and follow the on screen instructions. It will basically just ask you to point it to where you have the image files stored. So if you have it on an external hard drive, plug it in and point it to the first backup image file (if you have multiple files). Then you sit back and let it do its thing. Once it finishes, your computer will be restored back to the day you have created the image with everything intact.

As side note, here is my recommendation if you are new to this. If you have the knowledge, reformat your computer by using the restore discs given to you by your computer manufacturer. If you don’t have the disc, the information could be installed on a hidden partition. Consult with your documentation. Of course, you would want to backup all of your data before doing this reinstall. This procedure gives you a fresh start. If your computer was slowing down or if you had too much junk to manage, doing this can be a simple way to give new life to a slower PC. Now, configure the computer the exact way you want to. Install back all the applications that you use and import back all your important data if you so wish to. Also, uninstall all the unnecessary junk that came bundled with your computer. Create the image and now you have a image baseline of your PC. It is a hassle the first time around but it will save you a lot of time in the future.

One more thing to remember and although I have mentioned it earlier, it is imperative that I repeat it here. Your image only contains the data at the time you created the image. For example, lets say you made the image in January. It’s now March and somehow, you need to reinstall the OS by using the image you created in January. You must backup all of the new data that you have created between January to March because it’s not going to be in the image! Some people like to create full system images of their computer after so many months to have a recent copy. It’s up to you how you create your strategy.

For Windows Vista Ultimate users, you don’t need to use Macrium Reflect as there is already a built-in Complete PC Backup and Restore feature that does the exact same thing described in this article. For detailed instructions on how to use that feature, take a look at this article by Bleepingcomputer.com.