System Restore / Windows 7 Backup

[CurseTheSky]

Hi guys,

I currently have System Restore enabled on my OS drive (SSD), and would like to switch it to another drive to save precious space. If I turn off System Restore on the OS drive and turn it on on the secondary hard drive, will it still function properly? I want to make sure that it would actually be backing up the OS files and not the junk that's on the other drive instead.

Second, the little white flag in my system tray has been nagging me about setting up a backup since I installed Windows 7 on this computer. I haven't really had time to research it. I can set it up to use either an external drive or a secondary internal drive, but what exactly is it backing up? Do I get to specify which files / folders are to be backed up, or is it more of an automatic "copy the entire C drive" type of thing?

Are both System Restore and Windows 7 Backup recommended, or are they junk compared to commercial / free programs out there? Currently I do manual backups of my documents and media, and don't bother backing up my OS drive (as it's not a critical system, and fresh reformat / reinstall doesn't bother me; having an extra "oh shit" button is never a bad thing, though.)

Are either designed to completely restore the OS in the event of a HDD failure (like many imaging programs), or is system restore strictly designed to fix a corrupt OS / missing files, and backup strictly for just keeping a few odd files in two places at once?

Thanks.

 

[Ksyder]

bump... needing to find out the same things you are regarding the backups.

Currently just tried Windows 7 backup for the first time. Running laptop with Windows 7 Pro. Started the backup from the action center. My hard drive is a 160 gb. The backup target is a 160 gb external. The system drive is show 148 gb total. The external drive is 149 gb available. When I tried to start the backup, it would not work. The dialog box said it is recommended that I have at least 163 gb to store the image.

I instead went into control panel and started the system backup from there. This time it said it only needed 136 gb. Currently it is creating the image on the external hdd.

I don't understand why it wanted 2 different amounts of space each time I tried it. If anyone knows I'm all ears, otherwise I'll be figuring it out as the process goes on.

So far the only helpful information I've gotten is found here http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Back-up-and-restore-frequently-asked-questions.

The big question which would dictate which software I use is, Knowing that I have 2 identical drives, one installed in the laptop, and one in a usb enclosure, Does any backup software allow me, in the event of my internal drive failing, to simply remove the backup drive from the enclosure and install it inside the laptop and boot up as though it was the original drive? I'm getting the feeling that is not how it works, at least with Windows backup. It looks like I have to boot to a Windows disc, and then I can restore the image.

It is backing up over usb now, and if I go to view the files on the backup drive, it is in a folder called Windows Image Backup. I am guessing possibly there is some encryption, compression, or both going on there?

 

[Chiefcrowe]

on the backup question: I use Acronis True Image to make a complete clone of my HD onto an external and it also lets you compress it a good amount. I'd look into that program, i think they have a free trial also. In the event of a drive failure, you can replace it and then restore the entire drive from the cloned backup.


As far as i know, turning system restore off of the C drive will not allow you to use system restore on the main OS drive even if you enable it on another partition/drive.

 

[homercles337]

For my Win7 machine i made a mirror using the "Windows backup/restore option." Thats it for that thing. For incremental backups i dont like using this application because it is a proprietary file format, thus "browsing your back up" is not possible (AFAIK). I also use backups as archives. For incremental backups with file browsing (in case you want to restore just one file) i use GFI (http://www.gfi.com/backup-hm). It has a TON of features (but i would avoid using the encryption option--set up truecrypt and back up to that if you want security) and its free, but it cant create a mirror or backup an entire drive (which you would not want anyway).

 

[Blazer]

the backup and imaging on win 7 and also vista works very well, i have used it several times and never a failure so no special added programs needed, you should decide on what strategy you want to use and go ahead and setup the schedule, i use an internal hard drive for my desktops and a usb drive for laptops, its always a good ideal to clean a system from unneeded files and applications, do a full system scan for virus and spware, delete all temp files and defrag, then create a system image, from then on you can schedule timed image backups, there are many schedule tasks to take advantage of, vista and win 7 is very good with schedules.