(OT) this is for Bill or anyone else that has windows 7

[robinb]

I used the system image backup in windows 7 home premium.
i backed it up to an external HD
It made a folder with several subfolders after the backup and was about
55gigs
Now it is next month and i added programs, updates etc and i want to make
another image
does it go over the existing image backup or does it create a new folder
with new subfolders?
I would like to understand this because i plan on purchasing a bigger HD and
want to estimate how much I need

Also when i get the bigger external HD and do another backup image since it
will not see the first one will it make a new beginning one? or will it have
a fit and look for the old one on the other smaller external HD- then what
would I do?
I did the first one just so i could see how it is done and to have something
until I get a bigger external HD.

I posted this in the windows 7 forum this morning, but no one has answered
me yet and since a few of you have windows 7 I am wondering if any of you
knew the answer.

robin



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[Bill Sanderson]

I'm afraid I haven't used the backup in Windows 7. Instead, I use a Windows
Home Server to maintain backups.

However, I suspect that the Windows 7 backup is much like the Windows Server
2008 backup--and both are much like what the WHS does:

The first backup to a given media is a full backup of all the relevant
clusters on the drive. Subsequent backups are just the changed clusters.

The system tracks the clusters so that a bare-metal restore can be done from
any of the backups.

This is very space-efficient.

Try it out--I suspect you'll find that the incremental addition of the
second backup is small compared to the first backup.

I'd be interested to hear about it--I'd like to know how this works, too.

 

[WTC]

I used the system image backup in windows 7 home premium.
i backed it up to an external HD
It made a folder with several subfolders after the backup and was
about 55gigs Now it is next month and i added programs, updates etc
and i want to make another image does it go over the existing image
backup or does it create a new folder with new subfolders?

No, every Image backup created by Windows 7 must be a FULL Backup,
Windows 7 backup will only let you backup one image at one location. If
you want to keep two images of a back then you must use two locations.

Also, Windows 7 Image backups are wrapped in a VHD file which can be
mounted as a drive through Disk Management.


The file backup system of Windows 7 will create a FULL backup first
then on backups for files Windows & will use a incremental or
differential backup ( not too sure which method is used for Windows 7
Backup ). The file backups are in a Zip format.


Also I believe the File System for the backups to be store on must be
NTFS.


Lots of great info in the Windows 7 Help and Support.

 

[robinb]

I did get the answer from windows 7 official forum
once I put it on a new external hd it will create a brand new backup image
because it will not find the original one.
I cannot (which I did not plan to do) take the old backup and bring it to
the new external hd and let "7" make an incremental to that one.
When I purchase the hd this week and try it I will let you know what
happened
robin

 

[Bill Sanderson]

That sounds like what the backup in Server 2008 does, and indeed it is
similar to what Windows Home Server does as well.

This is a very space and time-efficient backup scheme. I would urge folks
to try this out--you may find that weekly or even nightly backups are quite
efficient.

On the server I see most often, backups happen 3 times a day, and take about
15 minutes each.

Backups will be quicker the more frequent they are--but the process of
selecting what to back up may be processor and disk intensive--it isn't
noticeable on a server, but the WHS backup process makes some client
machines unusable during the backup.

 

[robinb]

remember this is not a regular backup but a system image backup
it makes a clone of the entire OS
robin

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Given the other response, I think I need to test this out myself and see
what it does. I have found that the documentation is at such a high level
that it doesn't really answer the questions that you and I have.

WHS effectively does both image and file by file backups as a single
operation, and the Server 2008 backup does the same--the backup can be
mounted as a virtual (VHD) hard disk file, and you can restore a single
file, or you can do a bare-metal restore of the whole system.]

So---it is possible for a system image backup to do both jobs--but I'm not
clear how the Windows 7 native backup app works. The other response
mentioned ZIP files--and that would not be involved in a WHS style backup.

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Thanks - I clearly need to test this out myself--your description doesn't
match what I was expecting.

 

[robin]

let me know what you find when you do it.
when I first did it on the external hd it makes a folder with subfolders in
it and when restoreing this you need to first make a system repair disk.
You can make it prior to the system image backup or you can make it after-
it will ask you to make it.
This disk goes in first when putting back the image on bootup to the DVD
drive. One of the options on this recovery tool is System Image Recovery.
This disk has system recovery tools and can restore your computer from a
system image

I got a wealth of info from this site and the backup is here

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html

I also got the answer here

http://social.technet.microsoft.com.../thread/a05d57cc-b7af-4cfc-8885-d1ebd3b490a4/
robin

Given the other response, I think I need to test this out myself and see
what it does. I have found that the documentation is at such a high level
that it doesn't really answer the questions that you and I have.

WHS effectively does both image and file by file backups as a single
operation, and the Server 2008 backup does the same--the backup can be
mounted as a virtual (VHD) hard disk file, and you can restore a single
file, or you can do a bare-metal restore of the whole system.]

So---it is possible for a system image backup to do both jobs--but I'm not
clear how the Windows 7 native backup app works. The other response
mentioned ZIP files--and that would not be involved in a WHS style backup.

remember this is not a regular backup but a system image backup
it makes a clone of the entire OS
robin

 

[WTC]

After reading this blog post:
http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/archive/2009/10/31/learn-more-about-system-image-backup.aspx

It appears a System Image Backup can have incremental backups but I was
sure I had to create a Full System Image Backup everytime. Anyways, I
have not use this feature for quite some time now in Windows 7 as I
have a Windows Home Server and use the backup feature with the
Connector.