Best way to Disk image and store on a network share

Question

When reinstalling PC’s we occasionally experience the sad user missing something important from his/her old installation.

We would like to create a “fast snap” of the drive to a network share before reinstalling and hold on to it a couple weeks..

What would the best way be to do this?

Answer 1

Just received the latest version of User Profile Central (UPC) today!

UPC now simply has a built in feature to create a VHD backup of the C drive!
One tick in a box and along with a backup of the selected user profile(s) it also creates a VHD disk backup on the backup network share.

To limit space usage (to not kill our storage) the specific share now is set to delete all files more than 90 days old.

Answer 2

You could:

1) Use Robocopy to copy their files to a network share.

Documentation:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/robocopy

Example:

https://pureinfotech.com/robocopy-transfer-files-fast-network-windows-10/

Alternatives

1) Use OneDrive to sync their known folders:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/redirect-known-folders

2) Turn on Windows Backup in Windows 11

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/about-windows-backup-in-windows-11-2ed5c7af-055e-44e8-839e-20124b641795

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If this is helpful please accept answer.

Answer 3

Simple really:

Use Disk2VHD64.exe from sysInternals?

• Note that Disk2VHD does not support UNC paths, so you need to map a drive.
• Also Disk2VHD runs elevated, so:

Open an Admin command prompt and map the drive from there (x: for instance)
(elevated users does not share mapped drives with non-elevated users)

Net use x: \server\share

Then run Disk2VHD
disk2vhd64 s: c: -h x:\%computername%.vhd