hi guys...im new and i knw very less information abt making a ghost image file which is backup da whole OS..... do any1 knw abt it?
I personally prefer Acronis BUT you can use Windows Backup and Restore - read up about Backup and restore in help and Windows help websites. It is part of Windows.
At least for me, windows backup and restore image works and is part of the win 7 OS. 100% success in imaging and restoring from system image.
If you use a high-enough edition i would recommend using the built-in Windows Backup. Pros Already integrated into the OS No need to install any new programs just for the task No need to rely on 3rd party software (drivers/DLLs/whatnot) No autostarting services added to the system Works perfectly with 4k-sector Advanced Format drives* (alignment will be preserved) Reliable backupping and restoring Restore process pretty fast (50GB partition [35GB used] takes ~15-20 minutes) *Advanced Format drives will become standard in 2011 Cons None that i am aware of Things that have a Con and a Pro side The backupped data wont be compressed. This has 2 consequences: - More space is needed to store the backup (compared to programs that do support compression) + Less time is needed to restore a backup (since the data doesnt have to be decompressed first) After having used DriveImage7 for a long time (and later TrueImage) the built-in Windows Backup is now my clear favorite when it comes to system-backup solutions.
What is your goal here? Do you just want an image to restore a single machine or are you planning on a mass deployment? For the former, the advice given so far is pretty good, for the latter you may want to look at the standard microsoft tools for this, WDS, WAIK and PE/ImageX and friends.
i don`t like clicking arround so i wrote a little cmd it backups drive c where win7 is installed (including the 100mb hidden partition)
Hey - good idea, but it does not work after you enter path say d:\windowsimagebackup the bat runs then just closes, i entered pause and can report this error: "ERROR - The specified backup location could not be found or is not a supported backup storage location. I have also created the folder in readiness???
Just 2-3 steps in free win 7 backup and restore: 1. type `backup and restore'. 2. after that, it sees all hard drives, select one, and then by default asks to make an image of c: and 100MB. 3. takes 10-15 mins to make the image. 5-10% chances of an error (says the hard disk does not have enough space even though it has more than 100 GB). Try again. Somewhat whimsical in making an image, but 100% success in restoring from that image. Just insert win 7 dvd or better make a system repair disk (less than 2 mins). That disk has only info related to recovery, loads very fast, and can be used for any image restore (subsequent installs). If your purpose is to restore from system image, then win 7 in-built process does the job.