how to make win backup image

5/21/2018 How to Make Win Backup Image

1/7

How To make backup "image" files of your entire Windows "C:" drive.(HowToMakeWinBackupImage beta v0.8, Bill Day 2007 compteam AT chem.duke.edu).

A short, illustrated, step-by-step procedure for any windows user on how to make a backupimage of entire C-drive. For the impatient, jump down to QUICKSTARTsection. Fornewbies, before running on important pc, try it on a pc you don't care about (or an emulatorlike free Vitrual PC.)

INTRODUCTION/ OVERVIEWIf you google for "cloning hard-drive" or "imaging hard-drive", you'll find mention of widely-used imaging/cloning software including:

"Ghost" from Norton/Symantec"PartImage" (included on most free linux live-cd's such as knoppix)"Drive Image/Drive Deploy" from "Powerquest" (now owned by Symantec).

All of these products can be used to efficiently clone one pc to another, and/or save an

"image" of the hard drive to a set of compressed files. Such files are the best form ofbackup, especially if/when your hard-drive fails. With those image files and a boot-cd, intypically 20-30 minutes you can do a "bare-metal" restore: that is, starting with a blank,new hard drive, your computer will be restored to the exact state it had when you createdthe image files. That includes ALL your software, updates, files and settings: everything isback, and bootable. (This is much preferable to re-installing your operating system and allyour software from scratch!)

In the example below, we'll backup a C-drive with about 2gig to a set of image files of a sizeto fit on cd (each image file is 660meg, except the last one which is less). If you have amore likely 20gig used on your c-drive, your image files would likely total about 10gig,taking about 16 cds, or about 4 dvds.

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTSThis how-to document describes how use the software Duke folks can obtain from http://www.oit.duke.edu/site/ You have to get right version for your Windows per below. (To findout which Windows you have, open "My Computer" and do Help: About.)

Vista (This document does NOT apply to Windows Vista)Windows XP Get "Drive Deploy" ($4). Already on all duke-owned pcs.Windows 2000,ME,98,95,3.1 Get "Drive Image"

If you have a duke-owned box, you may already have above software. Others shoulddownload and install the above software. During install, it may prompt you to make 1 or 2

boot diskette(s): if you don't have diskettes or drive, you can skip that step. If you want tomake a boot cd, it can be made from the boot diskettes: contact support.

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

Any windows pc listed above, and a drive-letter other than C with enough free space. Thatis, image files cannot be written C-drive: but instead must be written to an external drive (orseperate partition, that is, a drive-letter other than C in "My Computer"). Contact support to


2/7

borrow an external drive (or if any questions).

To find out how much space will be needed:

1. Right-click on your C-drive, then Properties, for a pie-chart showing how much space isused (figure 1). You can click on "Disk Cleanup" to free up space.

In above example, the C-drive is using 1.8gig, which is the amount we'll backup.For many modern XP installs, you could easily have 10 or 20 times these numbers, such asC using 20gig in which case you'll need 10gig free on the other drive.

And give the C-drive a short label with the size and type, such as 32GIG-NTFS for a 32gighard-drive (the type is usually NTFS but could also be FAT32 or even FAT). The exampleC-drive is labeled "3GIG-NTFS". For a 24gig drive, use 24GIG-NTFS.

2. Repeat step 1 for the other drive (where we'll store image files): it will need to have Freespace of at least half the amount we'll backup. In our example, half the amount we'll backupis half of 1.8gig, or 0.9gig (=900 MB). And again label the drive with a name such as10GIG-FAT32 for a 10gig drive. In our example, the lable is 1GIGFAT-IMG for the partitionwhere image files will be written.

QUICKSTART... Backing up entire C-drive just boils down to steps A-F.

(A.) Start the imaging software, which will notify you that it is going to reboot your pc. (Itboots just this one time from a "virtual" floppy or your actual floppy or cd) by any of thefollowing methods.

On duke-owned windows-xp boxes, search for "deploy.exe" ,run it and hit "RebootNow" button.


3/7

If you've installed drive-image or drive-deploy software run it from the Start:Programs: menu, and hit "Reboot Now".

If you have a diskette or cd, you can restart your pc, and hit F12 (or maybe F2 or del)to choose to boot from cd or floppy.

(B.) Your pc should boot to Drive Deploy (or Drive Image) screen, where you see 3 buttons:

Create, Restore, and "Disk-to-Disk. (Optionally select Display Drive Info.)

(C.) "Select Source Partitions". (If you are in Drive Info, Hit "Close" to exit back to mainmenu.). Now hit "Create Image" button, then put a check-mark in box for 1st NTFS partition:


4/7

Our example shows a 4gig drive, divided in 2 parts: 3gig-NTFS & 1GIGFAT-IMG.

The NTFS partition is the "Source", in other words, what we are going to backup.So it gets the check-mark in box at left. Then hit "Next".

NOTE: If you see a "DellUtility" or any other small partitions before (on top) of the NTFSone, put check mark by those also.

WARNING! Always go by the disk-label(s) when selecting the Source and Desitination. Andalways Ignore any drive-letters shown in imaging software: drive-c in the imaging softwareis usuallly NOT drive-c in windows.

(D.) In "Name Image File" window, hit the "Browse" button, to bring up "New Image File"window. At the bottom of the window, in scroll box, select the drive where we'll write the

image files by it's label (not Letter).


5/7

We selected 10GIGFAT-IMG partition to write those image files to. You'll probably have toscroll down to get to external or other drives. (We tend to prefer to write images to FAT32rather than NTFS partitions).

Finally type in a simple filename (max of 8-characters, no spaces, ending in ".PQI"),Again, note that in the example, it shows "C:\2007-05.pqi" but the file is not being written tothe C-drive in Windows, but actually to the drive labeled 10GIGFAT-IMG.Optionally add a short comment with info on sw and hardware. Then hit Next.


6/7

(E.) In Compress Image Filewindow, click"High" (smallest image file size). Hit Next, and

"Advanced Options", to put check in box of bottom item "Split Image File into Multiple Files"(leave the default File Size, 670,000,000, which is cd-sized).Do NOT select any of the Verify options... it is better to verify after image is made.

(F.) In "Ready to Create Image File", review the info. Use "Back" if you need to double-check or change anything. Once everything looks ok, hit the "Finish" button to start makingthe image file(s). Stick around for the first few minutes to make sure it is off to a good start...if problems occur, they tend to show in first few minutes (while checking integrity) . If you


7/7

have 10's of gigabytes, it may take a while to finish, especially if writing to an external USBdrive.If you get any errors, contact support folks. And, if your display goes to sleep during along backup, do NOT hit "Enter" key to wake it up, as this may in effect hit the "Cancel"button: it's safer to hit the spacebar or move the mouse

When done, a message saying "Image was copied succesfully to file: xxxxxxx.pqi" stays onscreen until you hit ok, taking you back to main menu. If you have time, you can optionallyverify the image as follows: select "Restore Image". Browse to navigate and select the PQIfile you just created, then hit the Verify button. The verify can take some time also, but notas long as to create the image. Don't do the actual restore right now: you'll only need to dothat if your C-drive is bad, windows won't boot etc. Get support before trying a restore. Youquit the program with the Exit button. Then reboot (ctrl-al-del) back to windows. In windows,you can burn the image files to cds or dvds. In our example we see a set of files named:

2007-05.PQI2007-05.0022007-05.0032007-05.004

,,, and so on upto the last file, You need ALL of these files, NOT just the .PQI to do a restore.

(Also note that there are windows programs named "Image Editor" or "Image Explorer" thatlet you verify image files, and even extract just certain files or folders (just like a zip file)which is really cool.

HINTS, ADVANCED TOPICS, and TROUBLESHOOTING

PRELIMINARIES. Before making the image, we generally do these 3 steps:

1. download and install TreeSize from http://www.oit.duke.edu/site and use it to find if thereare any large files and folders you can safely delete. (Obviously, don't delete anything

unless you are 100% sure you don't need it.)

2. Run Disk Cleanup. It runs much quicker if you first run this registry-hack:

3. Start: Run: (type in) CHKDSK (and hit enter). If you see only a few errors, type "CHKDSK/F" and when it asks if you want to check at startup, say "Y (yes). BUT, if you see more thana few errors, contact support and/or do a SMART check of your hard-drive.

RESIZING PARTITON(S)Once you have a verified backup image of your C-drive, then that is a good time to re-sizethe partition to free up space for a partition to store image files. This allows you to make abackup-image without an external drive, and later you can copy or move the image files to

a safe place, like external drive or burn to cd(s) or dvd(s).Contact support about resizing C-drive: we use Partition Magic or free ntfsresize: it isimportant not to change the location of the boot partition.

Using partimage, the destination for image files can be another computer or server filespace as well as external drive(s). We often use partimage on a knoppix cd to make abackup of a single-partition drive before we resize and break it into multiple partitions.

how to make win backup image

Documents