Well here we are again, another article on system image backups. I've talked about it before but I don't believe I actually went into details on how to actually create one. With the arrival of Windows 7, the timing couldn't be any more perfect. In Windows Vista, only users with the Ultimate edition were allowed to create a system image backup. If you don't remember, a system image is a full backup of your entire computer. All of your applications, data, files are backed up. This allows you to quickly restore your computer in the case of a disaster or when you want to reformat your computer. Rather than installing everything again, simply use your system image to restore the computer (a perfect way to create baseline images).
The good news is, with Windows 7, Home Premium members are also allowed to enjoy this feature! That's right. No need to pony up additional money to purchase third-party software. Even the lovely and free edition of Macrium Reflect will have to take a back seat. Read on to see how you can easily start creating your own system images in Windows 7!
Whether you hate Microsoft or not, you have to give credit to where its due. By giving Home Premium users the ability to create their own system backup image, they are basically saying that they actually care about the computer users rather than just trying to squeeze every penny out of them as some so often would think. Let's break this down a tad bit so you understand where I'm coming from.
With Windows 7, as with Vista as well, there are several different editions available for purchase from a regular consumer point of view (I'm not talking about the Enterprise edition along with other versions that are not directly available for public purchase). You have the Starter, Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate edition of Windows 7. Obviously, the higher you go up the SKU level, the more features you will get to utilize. For example, only Professional and higher gives you the Windows XP mode as well as the ability to join to a domain. When we talk about the different versions relating to backup and restore features, you'll begin to appreciate what Microsoft has given us. With Vista, there was basically only two editions that were popular: Home Premium and Ultimate. Whatever you couldn't do in Home Premium, you had to spend money to upgrade to the Ultimate edition. As far as creating system images go, only Ultimate users was offered that awesome feature. Here is the major problem: most users are Home Premium members! With Windows 7, Microsoft finally realized this and decided to give Home Premium users more leisure. Because backing up a system is equally important to home users as well as to corporate customers and advance power users, it was only fair for Microsoft to include the feature in Home Premium as well. However, if you wanted other extra features like joining to a domain or utilizing Bitlocker protection, then of course it makes sense to purchase a higher SKU because not ever home user will need them. I know, I may have written otherwise in previous articles but I understand that it's a business decision at the end of the day. Anyways, as you can see, the concept is not hard to grasp. Microsoft did the right thing by including the system image backup feature in Home Premium.
Notes to Go Over
Before we actually begin creating system images, there are a couple of notes you should be aware of. By going over these notes, it will help you have a better understanding as to what system images can and cannot do for you.
- System images captures your entire computer state. Basically, everything gets backed up into the image file. Let's say you decide to create an image of your system today. How your computer operates and functions today is how your computer will be when you decide to restore it at a future date. For example, if you create the image today and install Photoshop tomorrow, the program will not be included in your system image because the program wasn't installed during the image backup process.
- If your computer has malware installed at the time of the image backup creation, that image will also contain the malware. Remember, everything on your computer is captured in the image. There are a few exceptions such as not backing up the hibernation file and system restore points. When you restore the image at a future date, the malware will still be present. The same goes for whatever problem you are also experiencing at the time of the image creation process.
- With Windows 7 backup, it will help you create incremental system image backups. This essentially helps cut down the time it takes to back up your entire system because only the changes that were made to the system (new files, programs, etc) after the initial full backup will be backed up. Of course, the initial backup will take some time though. Incremental backups in my opinion encourages users to back up more often as the time to do so is dramatically reduced.
- Because creating a system image backup includes everything in your computer, be prepared to have ample storage on your backup media (the location where you plan to hold the image files). As time passes by and as you add more and more files to your system your image backup file will increase as well due to all the new files being added to the original image.
- Windows 7 Home Premium users are allowed to create system image backups, just like how the higher editions could. One key difference however is that with the Home Premium version, you are NOT allowed to backup your images over the network. Therefore, you must use either an external hard drive, a separate internal hard drive (you cannot store the image on your system drive), DVDs or other type of storage media.
- Incremental backups only applies when you store your backups on removable media or on another internal hard disk. When you choose to store your images in a shared network folder (Professional or Ultimate edition only), only one image can be saved. If you create another backup to the same shared folder at a later date, the original image will be deleted with the newly created image taking its place. That wouldn't be a problem if creating a system image from scratch didn't take so long! If you want to keep the original image, you need to store the new image in a new folder. The downside to this method is that now both images, both the old and new, will take up hard drive space. Remember, doing a network image backup does not allow you to take advantage of incremental backups. Therefore each image you create over the network will be a full system image, every single time.
Image Creation Process
Now that we got the details out of the way, it's time to start creating our backups!
In this tutorial, I will go over how to create and save your image backups to a external hard drive connected via USB.
1. First thing you need to do obviously is plugging in your external hard drive! Do not worry about creating a folder and whatnot because Windows will do it for you automatically. In fact, I don't think you even have a choice to specify which folder you want to store it in. Take note that whenever you perform a system image backup, your system drive (usually C:) must be included in the backup. You can choose to backup your other drives as well but they are optional.
Next, we need to open up the Backup and Restore menu. Head into Control Panel and look for the menu item labeled accordingly. Alternatively, type the word 'backup' in the Start menu search and the item should be on top of the search list. Once the Backup and Restore center is opened, simply click on the Create a System Image link in the navigation pane on the left hand side.
2. Windows will then automatically scan your system for compatible devices to store the image files. At this time, if you have more than one hard drive installed in the system, Windows will present you a dialog box. Here, it shows you all of the drives that can be included in a system image backup. As mentioned earlier, your system drive must be a part of the backup. You can uncheck or check the boxes for drives you wish to remove or include in the backup, respectively. Anyways, in my scenario, I only have one hard drive in my laptop so I don't get to see that dialog box. After the scan, Windows picked up my external hard disk which can be used to hold the image backup. I'm also allowed to store the image on one or more DVDs. If you are using Professional or Ultimate, you have the network option as well.
3. Once you have chosen your backup location, hit Next. In the next screen, you are allowed to confirm your settings. It is also here that Windows will give you an estimate of how much space the image backup will consume. As you can see in my scenario, creating my image backup on DVDs is not really feasible as the image will take around 70GB of space. I would need about 16 DVDs to fit everything! Once you confirm everything is correct, hit the Start Backup button to begin the backup process.
Using DVDs is a feasible option if you plan on making a baseline image of your PC. For example, if you frequently reformat your computer, the next time you do so, you can install just the applications you use along with all of the drivers for your hardware. Do not restore your music library or other media files as they take up more space. Once you have the PC configured just the way you like, create the system image and store them on a couple of DVDs. Store those DVDs away in a safe place. After creating the baseline image, you can then restore all of your other personal files and create whatever backup scheme you wish. In the future, if somehow your computer gets corrupted, you can use your baseline image DVDs to restore your computer to the way it was when you first created it (alternatively, you can use another image if you created one after the baseline image). This way, you save a ton of time because now you don't have to reinstall the same applications again. Convenient? I think so!
4. As soon as the system image is created, a dialog box pops up advising you to create a system repair disc. If you haven't done so in the past, I recommend you create the disc now by hitting the Yes button in that dialog box. As stated, the repair disc is needed in the event your computer cannot boot up. If your computer cannot boot up, how will you restore it using your newly created image? The answer lies in this repair disc. I've written more about this repair disc and it's functions in this article. You will need a blank DVD to create the repair disc.
5. Once the backup completes, you will see a new folder on the drive you have designated as the backup location called 'WindowsImageBackup'. Within that folder is a subfolder with your computer name on it. It is here that all the backup information is stored.
Long story short, you shouldn't need to edit any of these files yourself! So, stay out of this folder!The format Window 7 uses for the backup image is VHD (Virtual Hard Disk). When you run the backup process again (specifying the same location) in the future, the changes are actually written to the same VHD files and not to a new folder as some would believe. The next time you create a system image, it will perform an incremental backup and not a full backup. Repeat steps 1-3 to do so. In the confirmation screen, you'll be presented with a warning message:
The warning is basically telling you that your image file will now be 'patched' or overwritten (just not from scratch). If you recently contracted some malware after the last system image backup, you are now overwriting that good backup with this new malware infected backup.
If you noticed, I've now added around 2 more gigabytes of data and so Windows is telling me that it will take around 72GB for the image file. As soon as I start the backup, Windows will automatically go to work. At first, it would seem that Windows will begin the entire process again from scratch. However, after a minute or two, you will see the green progress bar creep a lot faster (actually, it depends on how much files you've added since the last backup) towards the finish mark. That's because it is only adding the new files to the backup.
Restoring
1. What good is a backup if you don't know how to restore it? With a complete system image, Windows doesn't just allow you to pick out individual files to restore from in the .VHD files by default. (However, this is made possible using Disk Management, another built-in tool in Windows 7.) Instead, it's a all-or-nothing ordeal. To utilize your image backup files, you will need to restore your entire computer using that image file. Hopefully, you have already created a repair disc because you will need it when your computer doesn't boot properly into Windows 7. If you haven't yet created the restore disc and you can't get into Windows, don't panic just yet. You can simply create the repair disc on a friend or co-worker's Windows 7 computer and use it to boot your own computer.
2. Once you have loaded the System Recovery Options using the repair disc, simply select the System Image Recovery option. You will then be able to specify a image file to use for recovery. Obviously, you will need to connect your USB external hard drive to the system for it to be recognized. Just remember that the entire computer will then be restored to the point when the last system image was created. If you can't get into your computer but have important files that you must backup before performing the restore process, you will need to use a Linux boot disc to help you out. Read this article for more information on how to do so.
Well folks, that was easy wasn't it? Gone are the days where you need to actually purchase third party backup software to get the job done. With Windows 7, a nicely built-in backup program is installed by default and if you take the time to learn how to use it, I'm sure you can get a lot out of it. It certainly isn't a perfect system but as average users, it should suffice. If you need more advance options and features, then that is where your favorite past time backup utility comes into play. Whatever the case may be, the same can be said every time: YOU MUST CREATE BACKUP'S BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY NEED THEM! Good luck!
