Best way to create an image of entire Hard disk?

Buchanan0204 · 6 Jan 2011 at 01:48

Hi,

I have two SSD's in Raid0. I am getting really low performance out of them recently and would like to reinstall my operating system.

However, incase nothing improves I would like to make a complete image backup of the array. What is the best way of doing this, using what software? It's around 100GB, so would have to be stored onto an external drive rather than dvd's.

I would everything stored, not just the main system files etc. How would I go about restoring it? Would it be done from a boot drive etc?

Any help?

Thanks.

Buchanan0204 · 6 Jan 2011 at 01:58

Went from this a couple of months ago.

To This!

pmbuzz · 6 Jan 2011 at 02:04

I've used Acronis True Image for this, it worked fine for me.

BlackAle · 6 Jan 2011 at 02:12

If you're using Windows 7 you can use the built in facility to create an OS image.

Buchanan0204 · 6 Jan 2011 at 02:42

BlackAle said:
If you're using Windows 7 you can use the built in facility to create an OS image.

How would I go about restoring that image to an empty formatted drive?

I think there has to be an OS already installed to replace that image. Not sure though.

BlackAle · 6 Jan 2011 at 02:52

Buchanan0204 said:
How would I go about restoring that image to an empty formatted drive?

I think there has to be an OS already installed to replace that image. Not sure though.

Boot from the Windows 7 CD... http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/7702/restoring-windows-7-from-an-image-backup/

Dr_Watson · 6 Jan 2011 at 09:16

pmbuzz said:
I've used Acronis True Image for this, it worked fine for me.

Same here, works a dream. Took me a few mins to find the correct option to do the copy, think its called "clone hard disk", its inside some option menu's.

I just went from x2 250Gb to x2 1TB without a hiccup.