Which Image software for backup? Cant use Macrium or Built In Windows Option

liamcrane · 11 Aug 2012 at 20:16

Hi guys

Looking for some advice on an alternate software to make image backups of my main desktop machine.

I have just installed the new Macrium V5 but it appears i cannot backup my Windows 7 SSD drive as its installed with the 100mb EFI partition. For some reason the free version of Macrium V5 does not support this, my C drive does not even show up in the menu just my other SSD and an old hard drive with 3 partitions.

Windows built in image software would do the job just fine but i cant save to a network location which is where all my free space is. I believe this is because i am running home premium. I find the other annoying thing with it is it seems you have to save the image in the root of a HD and i like to keep things organized in sub folders etc

Be greatful for any suggestions, i may be wrong but im sure i read somewhere that you can get a free copy of Acronis i believe its called if you have a western digital drive or something like that, either that or it was something to do with having a bank account somewhere. Really cant remember where i saw it, i may well have just been seeing things i dont know

Hope you can help

jbloggs · 11 Aug 2012 at 21:22

Seagate's DiscWizrd

WD's ATI WD Edition

Also have a look in the Partition/HDD Backup/Management section...

thenewoc · 14 Aug 2012 at 12:40

Take a look at Clonezilla. Worked for me as a great free alternative to Acronis True Image. It's a while since I've used it so I don't know if it would cover all your needs but from what I remember it does a lot of detecting when booting into it so I would be surprised if it didn't support network drives. It certainly managed my standard partitions fine with XP on one and user data on another, I just imaged the OS partition and restored from it fine.

I'm assuming you have your user data on a separate drive to your OS, even if its only a separate logical drive, otherwise multiple image backups are going to eat up space and be more time consuming than having a separate backup routine just for the user data.

MikeTech · 17 Aug 2012 at 12:17

Handy Backup 7 can make drive image and store it basically anywhere you have access to. Although, as I understand you're looking for a free software, which isn't exactly the case here.