Backing up is something we all know we should do but somehow
we never quite get around to. With Windows 7 built-in backup there’s now no
reason to put off backing up your data. Windows 7 comes not only with a simple
and effective backup program but it also allows you to make a full image of
your system. What’s the difference between backing up and imaging? Well put
simply Windows 7 backup makes a copy of your Documents whilst Windows 7 System
Image makes a complete copy of your hard drive. With the latter if something
goes terribly wrong you can easily and relatively quickly put it all back as it
once was. I said relatively… The advantage of Windows 7 Backup is that it is
much faster. What I would recommend is that you image your system perhaps once
every couple of months or just after installing some new software and that you
backup your documents every day.
So how do we go about creating a System Image with Windows 7.
The backup and restore options can be found by going to
Start, Control Panel, Backup and Restore . If that’s a bit too much like hard
work you can just go to Start and in the Search Programs and Files window type
in “Back” and select from the options Backup and Restore. This will open the
window shown below.
To create a System image select Create a System Image from
the top left of the window and in the next window choose where to save your
image to.
In this example I am using an external hard drive,
specifically a Western Digital My Passport USB 3 drive. The 1TB ones are now
quite inexpensive and have tons of space. Should you want to you can create an
image on a network drive or on DVD. But if you chose to make the image onto
DVDs I suggest you make your self comfortable as it will take a while and a LOT
of DVDs. In the next window you are shown what is going to be imaged and
offered the option to include additional partitions. In this case I chose not
to add the D partition to the image.
Click next and confirm your choices
And then start the backup
As the imaging process proceed Windows will show you its
progress. Upon completion of the imaging process you are asked if you want to create a System
Repair disk. If you don’t already have one then make one now. You’ll need a DVD
for this.
Pop a DVD in and click Yes
Then click Create Disk
And that's it! Microsoft have made the process quite simple to
follow.
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