Saving restore points to external storage media

Microsoft Support Forum states that on Windows 7 it's possible to save restore points to a drive other than the system drive (i.e. to an external HDD, Flash drive) as long as that external media is formatted NTFS. Unfortunately, they don't explain how one would go about doing this. I've researched the matter and can't find any useful info about this subject. I have plenty of free HDD space to accomodate the restore points on my system drive where Windows is installed but when I create a disk image for backup purposes, all of these restore points get incorporated into the disk image. This can easily double the size of the image (and it does since I like to keep at least the last dozen or so restore points). Ergo, I would very much like Windows to save the restore points direct to an external drive so that I'm not backing up backups with each disk image that I create.

When "system protection" is turned ON for my external HDD, Windows creates the necessary doubly hidden "System Information Volume" folder on the drive (where restore points are stored). Unfortunately, I don't know how to get Windows to save my system drive restore points to this special folder on the external HDD. Because of the nature of these special Windows folders, it's impossible to manually move the contents to a different directory/drive. Anybody know how to get Windows to save restore points to external storage media?

I am running Windows 7 Premium Home Edition (sp1) 64-bit on a Hewlett-Packard desktop PC with HDD free space of >850 GB and I'm trying to copy to a Seagate 3 TB NTFS-formatted external HDD.

 

I'm frankly dubious about the statement that this is at all possible. If your imaging program allows you to exclude specified file types and/or folders, as does Acronis, this might be a better solution I suggest. I haven't actually tried this in Acronis but when I get a minute I will, and let you know the outcome. Certainly the System Volume Information folder is included in Acronis backups by default, it's just finding the correct sysntax to exclude it, and having the time to test it of course.

 

I have Acronis TrueImage as well and in the past I've contacted Customer Support to see if there was some undocumented method to exclude the System Volume Information directory from disk image backups. They told me there was no way to do that. I'm not sure that I believe 'em but unless one of us is willing to waterboard a member of the Acronis support team, we'll probably never know

 

I've left the question on their forum where some of the guys are pretty smart. Let you know if anything turns up. In the meantime I'm testing it myself though it's a tedious business at about 16 min per backup. :zzz

 

No useful reply yet but looks to me as if Acronis are right - not possible. If you exclude the System Volume Information folder Acronis hangs indefinitely, both in Windows and when booted to the rescue media. So it's back to your original question and hoping someone knows how. I certainly don't.

 

Thanks for giving it a try. And hey, we did learn that you are a very patient person. I very much appreciate the feedback. I'll try to monkey around with it too and will let you know if I discover anything useful.

 

It looks like you two have come to a solution, but I wanted to let you know that this is possible.

The problem is, and I didn't read the article in question, is that it is not easily done by an end user. When I did MS support, we backed them up when we could.

 

Found quite a few articles about copying restore points and all talk about using the volume shadow copy service, which makes sense. I haven't found any that address the OP's question though which was how to create restore points on a different drive.

I'm still very dubious

 

Oh, saving as in, moving the protection for one drive to another?

Yeah, not possible I don't think.

It thought he meant to back them up.

 

>> I would very much like Windows to save the restore points direct to an external drive so that I'm not backing up backups with each disk image that I create. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get Windows to save my system drive restore points to this special folder on the external HDD. <<

Regarding saving, relocating and then restoring Windows System Restore data to any different (including external) drive. Last night and today I researched saving/backing up and then restoring data for use at a later date, such in the event of a hard drive failure, etc. however from what I can gather it is unfortunately not possible. This is because the individual system restore file data (System Volume Information) must be on the drive/partition it is protecting. Each drive/partition will have its own System Volume Information folder for recovery of that particular partition/drive. This is the way the Windows OS is designed, so you cannot move it to another drive and then restore them later.

And therefore the answer to your question is: No you cannot move Windows Restore Points from C to either another separate internal drive or an external drive.

>> I have plenty of free HDD space to accommodate the restore points on my system drive where Windows is installed but when I create a disk image for backup purposes, all of these restore points get incorporated into the disk image. This can easily double the size of the image (and it does since I like to keep at least the last dozen or so restore points).. <<

In order to "save room" on your disk image backups it is possible to choose to selectively remove individual restore points that you no longer want (to save space on your disk image) by using a program to do so, such as Restore Point Creator. By using this program it is possible to delete selected points with the click of a button, as well as to schedule additional ones for creation. You can download Restore Point Creator from right here at Major Geeks. This program might help you to make the disk image back-ups smaller in size.

Side Note: As for backing up Windows System Restore points to another place on the SAME drive it is protecting; while researching this subject for you I came across this "possible" method for backing up on ghacks.net regarding copying a restore folder and saving it into a different location (on the same drive). Of course, the article does not apply to saving the restore data to a different drive; whether an external or internal drive. However I should note, this 'back up' method seems to me to be pretty complex for the average user and may not be reliable. Additionally, it involves changing some settings that most users shouldn't change in my opinion. Anyone trying it: Use at your own risk.

Good Luck! -- COMP
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Thanks Computable, for the time you put in on this one. Looks like all three of us (you, me and Earthling) all concluded that backing restore points up to external media is not possible. Interesting to know that it is possible to move restore points around on the system disk but I can't think of a reason why I'd want to do that, especially given the potential risks you've described. In any case, thanks for the info!

 

>> Thanks Computable, for the time you put in on this one <<

Anytime Rusty... Always happy to help.

Good Luck! -- COMP​