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How to create a bootable backup disk

9 years ago

After a recent episode where my C: (system) disk failed, I had to reinstall everything on the new disk. There must be a way to copy everything on my C: disk to another one so if the first one fails, I can simply replace it with the new one, but I don't know how to do that.

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Comments (7)

azinoh
9 years ago
It sounds like you want to create a "clone" image of your C: drive. But my understanding is that the ideal thing to do would be to store that image on an external drive...not copy it immediately to another hard drive. As time goes by, you may want to create an updated clone image and save it too, or delete the first one if it no longer suits your need. When/if a failure occurs, you'll probably want the most recent image to copy to your new drive. Why copy the first image to a new drive now if it may not be the image you need to use?
mtvhike
Original Author
9 years ago
So, how do I create a clone image? Is that procedure part of the standard Windows applications?
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Owbist, thanks I do like the fast boot on W8 - even with the switch to Desk Top, which to my simple needs is like being back in W7, it is a much shorter wait to start browsing or getting email. Mikie, not sure I "know and love" playing with the BIOS, but in the past I have had occasions to need to. Mostly that goes back to W95 days. Or even the 3.x whatever was before '95. You seem to be suggesting a 3rd party recovery tool. As I noted Gateway provides a tool to image the HDD as well as restore to factory fresh - as I have already uninstalled Norton I assume that would be Factory Fresh less Norton which is fine with me. What I miss was W7 had a DVD boot capability and Toshiba provided me with the tools to create a repair DVD, separate from a restore DVD... I liked that, it prevented me form doing damage by clicking on the wrong button. I suppose the Gateway restore doesn't proved direct access to F8. I do recall tapping F8 during a boot in XP and earlier to get into the BIOS..you seem to be saying (to my reading) that W8 doesn't let one get to the BIOS until the password is satisfied. I don't know if that is different in W7, I have never gone to the BIOS in my W7 machines. I have had to boot the Toshiba notebook off of the Repair DVD a couple of times and it saved my "bacon". On Password, in W7 I could easily change or remove the password.. that seems to be buried deeper in W8. Is it even possible to run W8 without an administrative password protected logon? My giant 17.3" Gateway will likely not be taken out of the house, a password isn't needed - well if a crook breaks into my house it would be better if I has some protection on all computers... problem is W8 ended up with a very complicated password that resulted from my initial start up of the machine..as I recall it had something to do with a password for my Microsoft account, and being external I wanted a secure PW, in fact MS may have required it.
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System Restore is usually from your "C:\System Volume Information" a hidden folder by default. Sounds like your D has the OEM install files on it.. to revert your computer hard drive back to Out of the Box new condition. If you didn't delete any of it :) .... An image of your C drive made by a program like Macrium will usually compress to about half the total used bytes that that drive shows as currently used in windows. Usually too big to image to DVD's unless you don't mind spending the time it would take to do,,, and of course the cost of several DVD's. My C drive is small compared to most peoples on win7 and shows 60gb used .. divided by about 4.7gb per DVD.. thats a lot of DVD's and lots of time sitting there changing those disks. fwiw Paid about $11 delivered from newegg for a usb hard drive enclosure and stuck an old laptop hard drive in it & use that here to save system images to weekly. Think DVD-R's cost me about $0.40 each in a pack of 50 including tax from Office Depot.
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Your Toshiba should have come with recovery Cd's or DVDs and will allow you to reinstall the system very easy back to just like factory new should something go drastically wrong. Plus you should be able to load individual componente too - when you start it you will have some options on what do you want to do. My Toshiba with Vista has the Recovery Environment and all needed windows files/drivers on a hidden drive partition and amazingly when you really screw up something to a non start-able state the Toshiba will automatically fix the boot/startup process without you needing to do a thing, for many if not 'almost' all startup problems. Plus on F8 window you should see 'Repair my PC' which runs the automatic startup fixit which checks things and fixes. Of course if you lose hard drive access and then it would be nice to have that bootable CD ravencraven linked to burn the recovery environment to CD/DVD so you can hopefully fix things, should you delete your boot-loader or something that makes the hdd lost.
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I'll answer part of your question by saying that RW DVDs become less reliable over time as you write over them. Since I presume these are important files that you want to save, rather than change all the time, go with regular, name brand, good quality, single use DVDs...they're cheap. One DVD typically holds about 4.7 GB, and I presume that you will be prompted if you need more discs, but I don't know exactly how this works as I backup on an external hard drive. You might wish to consider that option as you can get a good, large hard drive for under $80 and it will do all of this automatically for you.
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azinoh
9 years ago
I won't speak to Windows since you did not state which version you are using. But there are multiple backup programs available in both paid and free versions to accomplish this. Acronis True Image and Macrium Reflect are the first two that come to mind.
zep516
9 years ago
Macrium Reflect Most recommended by people who know.

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
mtvhike
Original Author
9 years ago
azinoh: Due to our institutional restrictions, I can only use Windows 6 (Vista), 7, and 10 and I wish to use it on 7 and 10 (separate computers). The backup utility help file on my Vista computer mentions "Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore" and says that it is not included with Vista, but my Windows 7 computer just says that "Windows Backup provides you with the ability to create a system image...". Perhaps I should try that before asking more questions. Thanks
mikie_gw
9 years ago
You can make a system image in Vista with the WbAdmin command. Here's some info on how to... https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/11017/back-up-a-complete-vista-pc-across-a-network-using-wbadmin/

Keep in mind you probably will want to also have for Vista/Win7/Win10 0 the Repair disks for eash or full install dvd's which have the repair link built into those to easily access & install your system images.
User
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
I use something similar to this: IDE to USB Adaptor to hook to my computer Instead of opening the case up every time I need to make a Clone of my Drive. Once I have the drive hooked up, I use AOMEI Backerupper to Clone my Hard Drive with. I found this Software to be as reliable as Acronis True Image was for me in the past.

I use to use Acronis True Image, but my Acronis Version I was using wouldn't work with Windows 10 after the upgrade. I didn't have money at the time for a New Cloning Software so I went looking for and found AOMEI Backerupper. I did try one other Cloning Program before trying AOMEI, but AOMEI worked great so I went no further.

Western Digital does offer a Free Version of Acronis True Image if you have a Western Digital Hard Drive installed in the computer you want to clone. Doesn't matter if it's C: Drive or if it the Drive you're Cloning to, as long as one of them is a Western Digital Hard Drive. In my Laptop, my 500gb Western Digital Black (7200rpm) Hard Drive is used as a Storage Drive, C: Drive is a 256gb Crucial mSATA SSD Drive. Just having the WD Drive in my Laptop Qualifies me to use the WD Acronis Software!

I'm currently happy using AOMEI Backerupper Software, use it monthly!

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