Backup: Create system image on external or network drive

Question

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit and I have 2 internal HDDs plus a networked Windows Home Server.

When I go to Backup and select Create System Image I am only shown the option of backing up the system drive (C drive) and not the other HDD (D drive). And as destination for the backup of the system drive I am presented with no option other than the D drive. I am not shown the option of an external drive or the WHS network drive.

Apparently the option of an external or network drive should be available as long as they are NTFS formatted.

Could it be that these options are not available for the Home Premium edition?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Hi Brovig,

1.     How many drives are there in the computer?

2.     Can you see the external hard drive in Disk management?

To open Disk management follow the steps below.

1.     Open Computer Management by clicking theStart button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Security, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clickingComputer Management.‌ If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

2.     In the left pane, underStorage, click Disk Management.

A system image is an exact copy of a drive. By default, a system image includes the drives required for Windows to run. If you select an another drive to backup, then you may get the option of  D drive to backup.

You can only save your backups on a network location on Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, and Windows 7 Enterprise.

You may refer the below mentioned links for more information.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/backup-and-restore.aspx

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/backup-and-restore

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Back-up-your-programs-system-settings-and-files

Thanks and regards,

 Fouzan – Microsoft support.

 Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum 

 http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-%20US/answersfeedback/threads and let 

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Answer 2

My latest laptop runs Win10 on a 32gb SSD drive with noptionsl SD card for data storage.  Win 10 created an image file on my network drive after several tries involving cryptic error messages that flash across the screen and disappeard. But I could not restore from the NAS drive. Same with the SD card.

I saw a mention of "wdadmin" command line, and tried it out  It actually found the image on my network drive Western Digital MyBookLive (Can recover: Volume(s), File(s), Application(s), Bare Metal Recovery, System State) and a second image on "removable media" on my computer (Can recover: Volume(s), Bare Metal Recovery).  I'm pretty familiar with command line but can't imagine this method as a realiable way to recover the operating system.

Moving on - I'm now testing Macrium Reflect Free.  It can't access my NAS (or my SD card) either, but it seems more stable creating and verifying image files to an external USB drive.

For worst case restoration of your Windows 10 system (when nothing else works), I needed to create a bootable "rescue" drive (a USB stick created as bootable media that can access the image file).  I first had to edit the computer BIOS "boot order" to move a "USB HDD" before the hard drive (computer manual said to press F1 function key to enters the BIOS editor during boot).  Macrium website provide instructions to format the USB stick - I formatted the USB stick to FAT32 format with a MBR (master boot record).  They provide instruction to create the rescue disk (2 methods) I chose the method that puts WindowsPE and Macrium Reflect on a 4gb stick (smaller one would probably work but didn't record t size). After I boot from it. After Macrium started, I removed the USB stick and plugged in the USB drive with the image file on it.  I used Macrium to locate and restore the image file.  I also tried out "explore and mount the image" to access individual files in the backup image. You can also create an image file (from outside Windows).  If I had a larger USB stick I probably could have stored the image right on the stick instead of the external USB drive.

I'd prefer a  backup program that just created and restored system image files to/from my network drive. If anyone knows of one, please shout!

Answer 3

Used Macrium Reflect Free to clone HDD to new SSD on a Win7 Home Premium laptop - worked much better than software provided with Toshiba SSD.

Disappointed that MS does not provide image backup to a network drive (Doh!) but Macrium Reflect Free DOES appear to have the option to write an to any file location recognised by the Win 7 filesystem, including shares on a Home Group network PC (Win7) or a local SD card (Macrium Reflect Free v6.1.1196).

Answer 4

I'd prefer a  backup program that just created and restored system image files to/from my network drive. If anyone knows of one, please shout!

Although plain Win 10 "home" does offer network locations for system images, it stops halfway during backup creation to my Synology NAS with various errors (as did the previously installed Win 8.1 "home").

These errors might be related to settings on the NAS concerning MTU and SMB version. As I am not sure whether I want to delve in there,

I am happily using the  free "Arcserve® Unified Data Protection Workstation Edition" version 5. Easy to setup and no probs accessing my NAS. They offer a recovery disc / stick option, too but I haven't tried that yet. Recovering a single file has worked fine, though. Was working fine on Win 8.1, too.

Answer 5

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit and I have 2 internal HDDs plus a networked Windows Home Server.

When I go to Backup and select Create System Image I am only shown the option of backing up the system drive (C drive) and not the other HDD (D drive). And as destination for the backup of the system drive I am presented with no option other than the D drive. I am not shown the option of an external drive or the WHS network drive.

Apparently the option of an external or network drive should be available as long as they are NTFS formatted.

Could it be that these options are not available for the Home Premium edition?

Thanks for your help.

My case is somewhat similar. Mine is Windows 10. Network option is shown on the Destination options but could not be activated while I click to save the backup. What steps do you recommend to proceed?

My gratitude for your assistance beforehand.

Moges from Ezthiopia