Windows 7 Big question about reloading a back up with win 7

stevae

New Member
ok, i hate to sound ignorant, but i have never understood the whole backing up your information, as in system backups. my understanding is that even though you backup your system, you still have to reload all of your programs. so why backup? if you keep your important docs, programs, music and pic's on an external hdd, why do sys backups? and what good is a sys back up, if you can't restore your system to it's exact configuration?
i have tried backing up my sys several times in the past, and when it came time to restore, i always got an error message. i have actually never seen anyone successfully restore their systems with anything other than windows system restore.
so if i am just ignorant here, someone please school me on these sys backups.
 
Hi there
the best backup systems are those that "Image" your disks and partitions. That way you can restore a "mirror image" of your entire partition or disk(s) and you don't have to re-install anything..

These backups can also handle backups for individual data files as well and als do what is known as "Incremental backups" - that is only backup data that has CHANGED since the last complete backup.

Separating your OS from your data partitions is also a good idea. A typical W7 partition might be 25 GB say. This will take on average around 15 - 20 mins to backup / restore with Acronis depending on where you backup the data. Backing up to an external USB disk IMO is the best solution but you can backup to DVD's etc. The backup program automatically manages "multiple medis" if the backup is too large to fit on say a DVD.

Decent backup programs are things like Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost. I use Acronis True Image.

Note also these backups can run from Bootable media so even if you lose your entire hard disk you can re-boot a DVD with the backup program on it (or even a USB stick) and recover the OS.

Cheers
jimbo
 
as always, jimbo, i really appreciate your advise. i will give it another shot, as it sounds better than the alternative. i have an external 1 tb drive. so i wil back up to it. however, i am backing up win 7 ult. 7077 build, and loading the rc, so is there any thing i should know about this transition between builds???
 
OK, so i backed up my entire c partition with acronis, and replaced my 7077 build of win 7, with the 7100 rc. but instead of staying with the 32 bit system, i went with the 64 bit system. and OH MY GOD WAS IT FAST!!!!! i mean my computer didn't wait for anything. everything i clicked on was up before i finished the last click. really, really fast in doing everything, and that was with out any readyboost, or eboostr. that is the good news.
now for the bad news, when i completed all the initial setup procedures, i decided to restore my previous load, so i could have everything just the way i had it, which was perfect. however, acronis kept crashing, and would not even run properly on my new build. so i decided to restart into my win vista ultimate partition, and do everything from there. and while acronis would load and work in vista ult, after restoring everything, i went back to win 7 x64, but nothing worked. the programs restored to a folder called "programs x86", and would not run on the new op sys.
now, it was my understanding that 64bit systems can run 32 bit software, but not hardware. so what am i missing? how can i do this. i don't use any really old software, everything is fairly new. so i am perplexed as to why i am having the problems, unless it is just a problem to transfer 32 bit programs to a 64 bit system.

more good news is that acronis did restore my 7077 build perfectly, afterwards. so i have my win 7 32bit system running perfectly again, but still want to load the 64 bit system. how can i use acronis to keep ALL OF MY SYSTEM SETTINGS??? i love the way i have my 7077 build setup, and it hasn't given me any trouble at all. but now i am drunk with the speed of the 64 bit sys, and would like to set the x64 up, just like i have the x86. i hope you can help. thanks.
 
64bit is the way to go and Im glad you went with it in the end. With all your programs, the best bet would be to just reinstall all of them again, you may need/want to get a hold of x64 versions though.
 
As far as I know you can't restore a 32bit image over a 64bit OS. Nothing is going to work right. Besides the functionality difference between a 32bit and 64bit OS, Windows 64bit has two seperate Program Files folders (Program files (x86) and Program Files). In 32bit all the programs are in the standard Program Files folder, however in 64bit the Program Files folder is for 64bit programs. This in itself will cause all sorts of problems.

So basically you're going to need to start fresh if you want to stick with 64bit (which I highly recommend).
 
OK, OK, i get the point. i must do the work. i guess there is no easy way around it. so i will reload and get everything rolling over the next few days. thanks for all of you guys help!!
 
Just bear in mind that once you have done a clean install of the 64-bit version and then re-installed all your programs, once everything is working smoothly, then is the time to do a system image backup. I tried Acronis True Image, but had a few glitches with it, so in the end went with the backup which came with Windows 7 x64 as this is also capable of making system image backups - and it does work as I lost (through my own fault) 4 partitions on one drive and 2 other complete drives. I tried several restore points to no avail and in the end had to do a re-install onto the freshly reformatted C: drive. Once I was back in I could do the system restore from the image file and everything was put back in its rightful place.
 
Backups

System backups are designed to restore the computer to the state it was in when you backed up, on the same computer. It's possible to restore to a different computer if the hardware is not too different (for instance an older XP system won't work on a computer with SATA drives without having first applied a service pack or drivers).

The idea is, if your hard disk dies, then you can put a new hard disk in and restore from the backup.

If you are going to move to a radically new system (totally new hardware, or moving to 64 bit from 32 bit) then you pretty much have to start over because restoring a backup on such systems will likely corrupt things.

As for a removable drive. You do realize that removable drives can crash too. They can get power surges. They can get stolen. All kinds of things. So you don't want to keep your data ONLY on a removable drive.

Backups also provide backup history. Let's say you modify a document, then a month later realize you need that old version back. WIth a proper backup system, you can do that. If you just copy files to drive, you can't.
 
ok, so i am back on the x64 sys, and it is smokin!!!! i am adding all the little this and that's as i type. things are going well. after getting it just the way i want it, i will do a new backup with acronis.
 
As far as I know you can't restore a 32bit image over a 64bit OS. Nothing is going to work right. Besides the functionality difference between a 32bit and 64bit OS, Windows 64bit has two seperate Program Files folders (Program files (x86) and Program Files). In 32bit all the programs are in the standard Program Files folder, however in 64bit the Program Files folder is for 64bit programs. This in itself will cause all sorts of problems.

So basically you're going to need to start fresh if you want to stick with 64bit (which I highly recommend).

Hi there
if you are restoring a partition Image you CAN instore the 32 bit over the 64 bit image as before restore the old partition is DELETED -- or at least it is if you are restoring an image via GHOST or Acronis (or other restore partition mechanism).

Cheers
jimbo
 
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