How to Create a System Image in Windows 7

Posted on March 13, 2010 at 5:02 am

Creating a system image is a great way to capture exact states of Windows to use for backup. You can create a system image whenever you add certain programs or applications to assure that everything is backed up, should something not so fun happen. You may be wondering, what is the difference between a system image and system restore?

System restore creates a returnable point, that can be restored to easily, within your current Windows installation. A system restore will only backup certain files and data. System restore should be used to recover light files or folders. Should you accidently delete a file that you need, just restore your computer to “an hour ago” and bam there’s your file.

When you create a system image, you are making an exact duplicate of Windows, as it currently is, to use for backup purposes. From there, the system image file is usually stored on an external hard drive or flash drive in case of emergency. Should something crazy happen to Windows, you can use the system image to recover your data.

Creating a System Image

Now that you know what system images are used for, here is how you create them. Click the Start button, hover your mouse over Getting Started and select Backup your files from the quick menu.

If for some reason you don’t see the Getting Started option in the start menu, you can also use the path Start > Control Panel > Backup and Restore.

Click the Create a system image link, located on the left-hand side of the Backup and Restore window.

Decide how you want to backup your data. Many people use external hard drives. However, a high capacity flash drive or some blank DVDs will work just as well. Select an option and click Next.

By default, Windows will include all essential drives in a system image (your main hard drive). However, you do have the option to add other drives if you want to back those up as well. Keep into consideration, backing up hard drives is not a fast process.

The next screen will give you an estimate of how much space the disk image is going to take up. For example, it may say something like The backup could take up to 15GB of space. 15GB would take approximately 20 minutes to transfer to an external hard drive using USB 2.0. If you are burning DVD’s, a normal DVD can hold 4.7GB of data, meaning you would need to burn 3 DVDs in this particular case.

Proceed to the next screen to start creating the system image backup. This could take a while, especially if you have a lot of files on your computer.

After the system image finishes backing up, you will be prompted to create a system repair disc. It is a good idea to create one. It will help you when it comes time to restoring your data.

Read here for more about creating a system repair disc in Windows 7. After you are done creating the system repair disc, you will have successfully backed up your computer via Windows system image.

Should something happen to your computer, and you need to use the system image, you can find out how to restore the image here. Restoring is a very simple process that only requires a few steps.

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Comments

One Response to “How to Create a System Image in Windows 7”

Larry said on : March 14th, 2010 at 5:35 pm

So just to be clear…a system image will backup the entire partition including all data? What if you have another partition on your hard drive, will it back that up also? Thanks.