Hello guys, I'm constantly reinstalling my OS and messing around with certain things. However every time I do a fresh install I'm spending hours reinstalling software to my main OS Drive. My drive with the software I use is around 200-300GB. Is there anyway I can make a constant backup image of this so I can load the image every time I go to do a fresh install to save time. Maybe make a 'ISO' I know I can make a complete backup of my drive to an external but the problem is that it would make my whole external unusable as It would have the image loaded. If you get my drift.
Backup Hard Drive OS Image?
- Thread starter AlphaDawg
- Start date
With a disk clone can I make a image that doesn't clone my whole external hard drive? If so maybe I could partition it?
It creates one file that can sit anywhere you want it to. It won't affect any other files on the disk drive as long as you choose the correct settings
You want to image the disk and not clone it. Clone will wipe the destination.
You want to image the disk and not clone it. Clone will wipe the destination.
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Brilliant. Yes I just want to image my current setup as we speak with all my programs installed as a complete backup. If I can do this with this software that would be great. Is the image file a ISO? If so how would I transfer this to a Boot drive in the future?
Macrium will prompt you to create a bootable CD or USB Stick. You boot from this and navigate to the file you want restored.
It's not an ISO file. You won't be able to burn it to a disc and boot from it.
It's not an ISO file. You won't be able to burn it to a disc and boot from it.
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See that's my problem. If I make a bootable USB stick from my 2TB External the whole 2TB will be used for the image. That's why I was suggesting if I could partition the HDD? Reserve 300GB of it for my backup.
No I don't. I'll need a lot of disc's for a 200gb image haha. If a bios can read mulitple partition's that would be great. However, literally what I could do is put my hard drive in a caddy then image the file over from my external? That could well work.
The optical disc would hold the boot software enabling you to access the image file that you have stored on the usb stick. It's no more than 750MB in size, it's a cut down version on Windows. PE, I think it's called.
Can't you just buy a second memory stick. 2GB ones are peanuts
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I have a memory stick but I am not 100% sure what you mean. My file size for my image is 200GB+
When you install Macrium it prompts you to create a bootable disc. You use this disc to boot your computer (if for example, the hard disc inside your pc is broken, or there is a virus on the Windows installation). Once booted using the disc created my macrium, you navigate to the backup image that you created, be it on a usb stick, external hard drive, nas etc.
The 2GB stick would only hold the software required to get you into a position to be able to pull the image you created back onto your pc which you will have stored on your 2TB usb stick
The 2GB stick would only hold the software required to get you into a position to be able to pull the image you created back onto your pc which you will have stored on your 2TB usb stick
Most HDD/SSD manufacturers either have their own drive cloning utility or a rebranded version of another drive cloning utility which is normally Acronis True Image which when creating a backup image of a drive puts everything into a single file (which is likely to be less then the actual space used on the drive) and won't allocate the entire drive the backup is being stored on.
Oh I see! That sounds more like it! Any chance you could link me a youtube tutorial or a tutorial of some sort?
I have used True Image before for a disc clone. I have a question regarding backup. Say I make a backup to my external hard drive. And later on down the line my C:// Drive goes a knacker or I completely wipe it how do I then install the backup of my External?
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Download the program and install it. The first thing it does is asks you to create your bootable cd/usb media. After that it's just making sure that you know what letter is assigned to what drive. As I said in post #5, as long as your using the image function and not the clone function there's not much to go wrong. Cloning will wipe the drive your writing to but I'm sure you'll get plenty of warnings in the program if you select this option.
You boot from the rescue media you create at the beginning when you install the software. This then gets loaded into memory where it acts as your temporary operating system. In Macriums case it's Windows PE, a stripped down version of Windows.
Within this temporary operating system, you then navigate to the location where your image is stored, be it on an external hard drive, usb stick or on your network on a NAS, if you have one.
This image is then copied over to your hard disc. You'll need to buy a new hard disc if the old is broken.