Advice on Windows 7 backup software

Hi there. Yesterday I backed up my system on an external 1 TB drive (WD elements) and decided to do a full image using Windows 7 backup program. Inadvertently, I must have imaged both my current hard drive I use Windows 7 on (C drive)(WD RAPTOR 300GB), and my old drive with windows xp on it (WD 500 GB)(D drive). These are both retail versions of the OS I bought and installed myself, so I know that D: is not a partition on the same Windows 7 drive.

Questions:
After taking about 8 hrs to do this and then seeing it copied both drives, I read that using an image is not very efficient, and I am also thinking imaging both drives onto the same backup device might be problematic. I am wondering if I should wipe the external and just image the drive I use (C), or maybe just some photos and documents.

*I noticed putting the drives in parenthesis with a colon ) after the letters is making smiley emoticons, so I left out the proper terminology.
I am wondering if a drive image goes faster each time or if it will take roughly the same time it took the first go around. I might just buy a higher end 100GB flash drive for family photos and some word docs if this becomes a tedious weekly task.
I can post more specs if needed, But basically I am running on some older hardware:

Mobo: ASUS RAMPAGE FORMULA LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU: Intel Q9650 3.0GHz
Windows 7 64 bit
8 GB RAM

Old Hard drive (windows xp 64 bit): Western Digital Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Newer hard drive (Windows 7 64 bit): 1 x Western Digital WD VelociRaptor WD3000HLHX 300GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive


Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. I have read this forum for years, and the folks here seem to have the best handle on these questions. Thanks in advance.

 

Just so we're in no doubt at all as to what we are dealing with here can you post a screenshot of disk management please? If you are not familiar with this, type diskmgmt.msc into start. Maximise the diskmgmt snap-in so we can read all the info.

 

http://i58.tinypic.com/2hft4z9.jpg

 

It's getting late here so I can't spend long on this tonight but the reason your image included both drives is because the Win 7 boot files are on the XP drive. This always happens when you allow Windows to create a dual boot, and it means that although you could just image your Win 7 using a different imaging program, it would always need that XP drive to be present to be bootable. That isn't satisfactory at all - you want both systems to be independent of each other. I'll give that some thought and hopefully have some suggestions tomorrow. Of course, others may solve your issue before then.

 

Now this makes sense. I was not familiar with the disc management program. But you confirmed what looked curious in there about the "boot files." I didn't realize this happened when I installed Windows 7, as the Raptor drive was brand new. I'm wondering if there is a way to fix this. I do get a message in what I thought was the BIOS asking me which drive I want to use when I boot up, and I thought that might be a Windows 7 thing. Very rarely I boot up the Xp drive on this screen. I am wondering what the implications are, and the pro/cons to this "dual boot" system I am using. Thanks for the reply.

 

You could leave things as they are but would have to accept that in order always to be able to restore your system should the need arise, you would need to go through this tediously slow imaging process. Changing to a 3rd party imaging program might speed things up a little but it would still be very slow, especially as you are backing up to a slow external drive.

But you have choices. If you are happy to wave goodbye to XP we could make the Win 7 drive bootable without the XP drive, and convert the XP drive to a data drive. That would be my choice I think. Or we could make each drive bootable with 7 as default. If you wanted to boot XP you would have to override the BIOS boot order with F8 and choose the XP drive. That would be my second choice. Or we could install EasyBCD in 7 and see if we can get it to boot either drive without making any other changes. I'm not sure this would work as there are two physical drives, but as you have a backup we could try it. EasyBCD is a very clever boot manager and can do much more than just boot installed OSs. It can boot bootable CD/DVD ISO files for instance.

Whichever way you want to go you should ignore any advice about not using imaging. Imaging is used by all the more experienced users here as their ultimate safeguard against system corruption or drive failure.

 

Sorry for the slower responses. I'm on Eastern Standard time in the US, and had to wait for a break. I see you are on UK time so I understand the time differences. Reading over your ideas and doing some reeducation on the internet, I see others have mistakenly done what I have done.

I actually thought I was doing a fresh install only on the Raptor (newer drive) because when the boot menu comes up, it asks me if I want to boot the Windows 7 drive or another drive, and if I don't choose anything in a certain time frame, it auto boots up Windows 7. If that is what you are describing I'll see as the second choice in your ideas, or just the old fashioned, mash F8 to get the XP drive, that is no problem for me. What would be the difference from now, though? Would it basically be that I would now have the correct boot files also located on my newer drive, so I could correctly image just that drive as a backup?

My system boots up pretty quickly as it is, and I thought it was the Raptor drive and Windows 7 + 8GB of RAM. I'm wondering now if it's because I have the boot files on another drive? Would boot performance slow any, or would it stay the same, and still use the old XP drive to have a speedy boot up, but now be able to image/backup just the newer drive because there are also boot files on it, like there should be? Sorry if I'm being confusing. I was always an amateur at this.

I'm not that interested in using the old drive for Data only because I think it's from 2008, is aging of course, and I like the speed of the newer drive for games and such. The "newer" drive is already about three years old.

However, this sounds like some possible reformatting and risk is involved, so I think what I will do is order up that large flash drive, take some time to go into the old xp drive when booted, as well as the new drive, and backup all of the family photos and any important documents before proceeding. This might take a few days to get done. I appreciate your help and patience. I am learning something here. Thanks.

 

Your two systems are clearly running satisfactorily and boot times are OK so all you really stand to gain by changing anything is the ability to image Win 7 only and so reduce to some extent the time it takes to create an image (or restore one should that ever become necessary). Boot times would not be perceptibly changed by moving the boot files to the Win 7 disk so imo it's a bit of a marginal case for messing around with the boot files with its attendant risks.

If it were mine, and unless I had some real need to retain XP, I would definitely convert the 500GB XP disk to a data disk and relocate my user profile folders to it. This would almost certainly reduce the used size of the Win 7 partition from its current 250+ GB to way under 100GB and imaging then becomes more a matter of minutes rather than hours, especially if you image to the new data drive rather than to an external. But as it is, and bearing in mind the risks attending steering you remotely through reconfiguring a boot setup, I'm not going to recommend you to change anything. However if you want to proceed anyway I will post instructions on making your Win 7 disk independently bootable providing you can assure me that should it become necessary you have both the means and the knowhow to restore the image you have recently created.

 

I have to think about this. I'm wondering if maybe I should just use the external drive for simple photos and small document backups. I think its 16gb of photos on the new drive and probably no more than that on the old one. I should probably wipe the WD external and do that for now. Considering a lot of the space on both the drives is just a lot of games that could easily be replaced.

I just want to know I'm reading what you said correctly. Basically you are saying to use the old xp drive as a backup data drive for imaging from the new windows 7 drive? The part about the user profiles being moved there threw me a bit, that's why I ask. I'm not sure what that would mean. This would also mean wiping the old 500gb drive first, correct? Thus keeping all of the other programs, photos, games, etc on the newer smaller, faster, 300 GB drive?

Thanks for your patience.

 

Yes, that's more or less what I would do. After backing up any personal stuff I would delete all the files on the XP drive (but not format it initially as that would wipe the MBR Win 7 currently needs in order to boot). Then I would move Docs, Pics, Music etc from the Win 7 drive to the 500GB drive. Each of these folders that make up your personal profile has a Move tab in its properties, and by using that instead of c&p the system and your software knows where they have gone. This slims Win 7 down to a size that makes imaging it a practical proposition but for imaging I would use Mactium Reflect rather than the inbuilt Backup and Restore. With Macrium you could image the two drives separately and then subsequently update the Win 7 image only as and when. With Win 7 now much reduced in size, and backing up to an internal SATA rather than to an external it should be quite quick.

Once all that had settled down I would take a look at removing Win 7's dependency on the 500GB by moving the boot files but there need not be any rush to do that.

You would also want to create some sort of backup routine for your personal stuff on the 500GB drive but not by imaging. There are many far better backup methods for files than imaging.

Hope all this helps.

 

This helps very much, thank you. The idea being ultimately to use a chunk of that big 500gb drive for a ln image of windows 7 and its app data which would be located on the raptor drive. Keep room on the 500 gb for personal files, and use something like a fast external storage to backup those files. A piggyback situation. I'll first sort out the old drive's contents. Maybe when I'm ready I'll pm you for the method if you're willing. Thank you, again.