Build a complete Windows 7 safety net

[rausa]

I don't know anything about the Dell software. I do know that the WD backup software is very limited and not customizable. It decides what to back up, not you.

The Windows 7 software has, to me, a fatal flaw. It cannot encrypt the backup. Even if your hard drive or critical data is encrypted, say with EFS, it won't be on the backup of your data. Anyone who gets your drive gets your data. So I use Ghost on one machine, Acronis on another.

However, I just got a WD Passport drive a month ago. The new models come with built-in hardware encryption. As long as you use it, it eliminates my objection to Win 7 backups.

Just one reminder: If you deviate in storing data anywhere other than the Win 7 defaults, and some programs may actually do this without your approval. you must manually add those locations to any Win 7 data backup you set up. I believe this applies to Thunderbird email files, for example.

Thanx for your reply...
The box says "Encryption with password protection..." That would imply to me that you'd need to use their software.
Your reminder is one of those "gotcha" things that would make life a bit more miserable.
Thanx again!

[RandySea]

Just to be clear. You don't need to use WD backup software to get the benefit of encryption. You can just use the encryption part of the WD software without installing anything else. When you plug in the drive the first time, you'll be invited to install the whole shebang. But then when you attach it to another pc, if you have set it as encrypted, you'll get to the unlock program.

[rausa]

Great! Thanx much for the advise!

[rbfb]

I did a Windows 7 clean install on a new OCZ vertex 3, 120 gb solid state drive. It took quiite a while to get Windows 7 to work as well as my XP setup because I use the command line a lot. In my opinion, Microsoft comes close in Windows 7 to taking away much of the fun in the name of security--but I digress.

Now for backup...Windows 7 and the SSD were both new to me so I proceeded cautiously. Fred's article led me to try Windows Imaging and while it seemed to image the drive ok, immediately restoring it (as the acid test) took--are you ready?--8 hours!

Microsoft's backup was not practical to use with a solid state drive and the restored image was ok but a couple of BIOS settings got fouled up (don't ask me why but indeed they were).

My old trusty Acronis True Image which I had actually tried first proved to be a disaster with the SSD. A search of several forums found several users complaining about non-support for SSDs. I re-installed Windows 7 after that fiasco.

Finally, after looking at several programs, I found a CNET recommended FREE program and it works perfectly with the SSD and regular drives. It works smooth and fast. Like less than 5 minutes to image the drive and less than 5 minutes to restore the image. The recovery disk also runs great. I offer this hard won knowledge as payback to Fred Langa and the rest of you for many fun hours tinkering with my favorite toy.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home.../download.html

[DavidMiller]

Is there a trick to be able to backup to a drive across the neotwrk? Or is that only in some special version of Windows?

I have external drives attached to two networked computers and wish to back up all our computers to those two drives. Following the instructions above doesn't seem to give me the oppy to get to those two drives.

[DaveBRenn]

Hi Fred
Please help. After doing Windows backup, should I be able to open and view the backup on my external hard drive? When I try I try I get the message "Internet Explorer cannot
display the web page" whatever that means? I also cannot view the files on the backup disc as it asks what programs i want to open the files with and then shows a list of
different programs.
If my system crashed would I get all my data back from these backups?

My OS is Windows 7 Pro and running Firefox 6.0

Regards
Thanks
DaveBRenn
Dave

[charanne]

Hi everyone,

After you do your first Widows 7 Pro backup and image and made the bootable Recovery CD, do you have to always make a new bootable recovery cd after you do the 3 backup steps? Or can the first bootable Recovery CD be used for any future crash or problem after you've done several backups and images.

[mlo]

I'm late to this party, but I needed a good backup solution and tried using Windows 7 Backup. It worked beautifully for a few weeks and then started failing with no information but an error code 0x81000037. The Microsoft Support fora provided no useful help, though reading posts from all the other people with the same problem, I didn't feel so lonely.

I had previously used Acronis Backup and Recovery 10, but it also started failing silently, and their tech support was a joke. After a half-dozen back-and-forths with a support guy who stuck to his script, I had gotten nowhere.

Right now, I'm relying on Iron Mountain's Connected Backup, but that's hideously expensive and I'd prefer to also have alocal backup. (What I'd really like to do is have Windows 7 Backup working reliably locally, and then trim down Connected to cover just my frequently-changing data files.)

Can you guys make some recommendations? I'd particularly like to hear how well the backups do in reporting problems. Windows 7 Backup didn't tell me when it started failing and it was only when I went to recover a file did I discover it had not succeeded in a backup for a while. Connected is too chatty, and each day tells me that I have not had a successful backup in xx days because I'm within 10% of using up my quote. (In other words the backup *worked*, but is reported as unsuccessful.)

Backups are too important to be so hard to get right!

[microsvc]

Windows Backup will allow you to place your image on a USB drive. You might as well not do a backup because Windows restore PE will NOT recognize the USB for a restore. No matter what you do, it won't work.

[st3333ve]

@Fred --

I know this is late feedback, but I just moved from XP to Win7. As an opening quibble, you repeatedly give Microsoft grief for calling their system image tool a "backup" tool, but an image backup is really a kind of backup (as most people, I think, use the term) -- and I'd say that's especially true here since Win7 includes the built-in ability to mount one of its images as a VHD and recover individual files.

More importantly, I'd take issue with your statement that "You need to make a new system image only when your system changes in some major way (a major new software update, or whatever). It's a low-frequency task." As you point out in your article, the file-based Windows Backup excludes executable files -- even if they're in folders that you specifically include in the backup -- and the excluded "executable files" include, e.g., batch files, .php files and many other files that the particular user may be spending hours creating and modifying and that accordingly call for regular backing up (not just when the "system changes in some major way").

Unless such a user has a partitioned hard drive (like I do), I'm inclined to think that relatively infrequent image "backups" (sorry) probably makes sense, but only if that user is using something other than the file-based Windows Backup for their daily and weekly backups. (I use Robocopy myself.)