Micrsoft Virtual PC backup image of my C: hard drive

[Steve Miller]

Hello NG!

I haven't found an other more specific NG on the question I want to ask. That's why
I'm going to ask my question here.

Can I restore an image of my pc with Microsoft Virtual PC so I'll find everything
as I left it?

I know it's said to function but I hardly can think it's true. I have reinstalled
Window several times after hard drive failures or on new computers as well.

I made backups of my files and I'm also familiar with restoring these files. Only thing
are program settings I had to restore manually, which was getting tiring today (
due to the number of programs installed ).

Steve

 

[Michael Jennings]

You certainly can restore an image of your PC so that you will find
everything as you left it when you made the image if you buy an imaging
program such as Acronis, Ghost, or BING (BootItNextGeneration).

Who says you can do this with Virtual PC? "It is said to function..."
I can hardly believe it either - it sounds like a run your car on water ad.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Virtual PC is not used for 'backing up' or 'imaging' your hard drive. It is
virtual machine software that allows you to run another operating system on
your pc at the same time as your default operating system.

If you want to backup/image the whole of your drive (or jut a partition)
then you need third party software such as Acronis True Image currently
version 11 is available, but a newer versions - version 2009 is in current
beta test.) Acronis is the application I use to image my hard drive.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurferguide.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
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[Steve Miller]

Virtual PC is not used for 'backing up' or 'imaging' your hard drive. It is virtual machine software that allows you to run
another operating system on your pc at the same time as your default operating system.

If you want to backup/image the whole of your drive (or jut a partition) then you need third party software such as Acronis True
Image currently version 11 is available, but a newer versions - version 2009 is in current beta test.) Acronis is the application
I use to image my hard drive.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurferguide.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

Thank you both.

It's here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_imaging_software#Hard_disks

Listed under hard disks.

How do I have to visualize how his works.

Steve

 

[John Barnett MVP]

You create a backup image and store that image either on another hard drive
or a set of DVD's. When you need to re-image your hard drive just re-start
acronis (if you are able to access your PC and point acronis to the backup
file and acronis will re-image your drive with the copy stored in the backup
file. If you can't access your operating system use the emergency backup
disk which you should create. This allows you to start he process of
re-imaging from within the pre-windows environment (bit like the old DOS)
The same applies to using the DVD's. make sure you tell acronis to install
the recovery manager files onto the DVD then it is simply a case of
inserting the DVD into your DVD drive, restarting our PC, booting to the
Acronis menu and selecting Restore. All you do then is follow he onscreen
prompts. Incidentally, with DVD's after booting to the acronis menu using
your first disc, you then put the last disc into the drive 'before' trying
to access your DVD-ROM.

To be honest it is harder to explain the process than actually, physically,
doing it.

I suggest you visit www.acronis.com for more information on the product.


--

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurferguide.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[Rob]

Hello NG!

I haven't found an other more specific NG on the question I want to
ask. That's why I'm going to ask my question here.

Can I restore an image of my pc with Microsoft Virtual PC so I'll find
everything as I left it?

I know it's said to function but I hardly can think it's true. I have
reinstalled Window several times after hard drive failures or on new
computers as well.

I made backups of my files and I'm also familiar with restoring these
files. Only thing are program settings I had to restore manually,
which was getting tiring today ( due to the number of programs
installed ).

Steve

There's also a free program called Drive-Image XML. There's a video on
YouTube on how to use it:

Personally I use R-DriveImage, but it isn't free.

It is an excellent idea to make an image as soon as a new setup has all
your main programs on it and is running well. Then if you have to
reinstall most of the spade work is done.

I recommend keeping at least 2 copies of the image (or making 2 images
at different times) and making sure they both work. I once got caught
when my only copy somehow got corrupted.

It's also a good idea to keep your My Documents on a different
partition, then you don't need to image this folder. Just back it up in
the usual way.

 

[AJR]

Last experience with Virtual PC - USB ports were not active - therefore
doubt value of use as backup.

 

[Michael Jennings]

If you click on the wiki pages's History tab, you'll see that there have only
been a couple of contributors - you could ask the original contributor,
Ham_Pastrami, how he figures virtual machines are the same as disk imaging
programs, and where to go to get instructions on how to use them that way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Ham_Pastrami

Or you could just remove VMware, VirtualBox & MS Virtual PC
from the Hard disk list of disk imaging software, referring to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/disk_image vs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_disk_imaging_software
to justify your changes. I have found that correcting ignorant editors
of wikipedia isn't worth the trouble, so I'm not going to bother.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

That's the problem with Virtual PC it doesn't have USB support. I much
prefer VMware Workstation which does have USB support. Unfortunately VMware
is not free.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurferguide.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[Alec S.]

Steve Miller wrote (in

Can I restore an image of my pc with Microsoft Virtual PC so I'll find
everything as I left it?

I know it's said to function but I hardly can think it's true. I have
reinstalled Window several times after hard drive failures or on new
computers as well.

I made backups of my files and I'm also familiar with restoring these files.
Only thing are program settings I had to restore manually, which was getting
tiring today (due to the number of programs installed).

Your intentions are not clear. Which system are your referring to, the host or
client PC? The host is the one that’s running on your hard-drive and has the VPC
app running, the client is the one running INSIDE VPC. Which one do you want
restored? Which one have you reinstalled several times?

What you may be asking about is the revert option. With virtual machines, it is
possible to set the VM’s disk drive to not store changes. That is, it will undo
any changes that have been made to the client OS’s drive when you shut it down,
so that when you run it again, it is exactly as it was last time.

 

[Steve Miller]

Thank you all. I just wanted to make a backup of my computer so I don't have to be
doing manuell restorings of my settings.

About it I have run in several problems. One was I have not enough space left on the
other external hdd since there are backup files yet.

The other one was the computer froze on trying IRestorer which was no good. But
as I said I haven't had suficient space left anyway. Bad was I couldn't see if the
program was still doing something as the computer stopped responding. I stopped
the whole process with the help of the reset button.

The other thing was I could only restore the files also to the same program, which
was unfortunate in case I would get an other operating program. When I would have
some more gigs left I would go for an image backup of my hdd as well, that just
dosn't work right now.

Steve