Windows – Making a backup of the system image in windows 7

backuprestorewindows 7

I am trying to make a backup of my windows 7 system and am trying to use the external hard disk to back up the data to. Looking at a couple of guides on google http://www.aclasspc.com.au/tutorials/59-pc-tutorials/132-how-to-backup-to-external-hard-drive-in-windows-7 I see that we can actually make a system image of all the drive on the computer to an external hard disk. But will this erase all data on the external hard disk and reformat it so windows can boot from it or will it retain the data? Also at some point of time if I want to get back to the orginal image I made a backup of should I use the system image or should I use the external hard disk copy? Also I have other partitions on my disk where windows is not installed. If I create a system image will these be backed up? If not how do I use the backup and restore options to restore backed drives completely?

Best Answer

A Windows backup will create a set of files and folders that will not erase your backup media. Why? So that you can store multiple backups on the external disk.

Another method of backing up is to use a WinPE disk, DISM and capture WIM files of your Windows partitions. You can then use DISM to mount your WIM files on your restored computer to restore your personal files.

There are many ways to backup/restore...