Image backup for win7 home prem 64bit

Just bought a HP puter that has win 7 home premium (64bit) installed and running.... no win DVD naturally but has a recovery partition.

(mixed answers) thru a google search about this issue:

Is it a big deal to get a image backup working on this version of windows?

I want to backup (a image from time to time) to my regular backup USB drive ??

 

Do I have to purchase a 3rd party application or what.......??

 

Hello,
You do not have to purchase anything. Windows 7 has a very good system image backup program built in.

System Image Backup

System Image Recovery

How to create a system Repair Disc

 

There are also free imaging programs available which offer much greater flexibility than the win 7 built-in software in how you manage your backups. Have a look on MG for Easeus Todo Backup and Macrium Reflect.

 

Hi

Both third party programs mentioned by Earthling are great for keeping image backups of your drive.

Also, if you want even more flexibility, etc. there IS a paid program called Acronis True Image. That's what I use, personally. It all comes down to preference/need.

 

I would like to add this. Which ever program you decide to use, make sure that the restore CD the program lets you create in order to do a restore if your computer does not boot is able to detect all of your drives including any external drives you are using for backup. You do not want to be in a position where your computer does not boot and then find out your restore CD cannot detect the hard drive your image is on.

My preference between Todo backup free and Macrium free would be Todo. Todo now lets you create a WinPE disk using the Windows AIK. This is much better than the linux CD created by Macrium when it comes to recognizing devices. The only drawback is the AIK is a 1.7GB download. Todo also lets you create a linux CD similar to Macrium and I have found that it is better than the Macrium CD in detecting different hard drives. Todo also lets you do scheduled backups along with incremental backups of both system images and file only backups. For a free imaging program it cannot be beat.

Another option is available from the hard drive manufacturers themselves. If you go into device manager and find that the hard drive you have installed is a Seagate, you can download Seagate Disk Wizard which is a slimmed down version of Acronis.

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=218619&Hilite=

If you have a Western Digital drive, you can use their software also based on Acronis.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en

In closing, I have also done images with Windows own imaging program and never had a failure. For being just a basic imaging program it is very good at what is does.

 

I have bought the paid Acronis true image prog but it's on my XP partition, ?? wonder if they care if I use / re-install it on my Win7 ?

 

From what I've read, the license is for one computer. So, if the installation you're referring to is on the same computer you would like to install it to, just a different version of Windows, you're fine. If it's on another computer, as long as you uninstall it from that computer, you can install it on the computer you are referencing without issue.