Question about backups and image disks

Robbo777

Quick but slightly confusing question, regarding a backup from Windows i would like to know what would be the procedure in creating an image disk so that in the future i could backup a Windows 7 or 8 machine using Windows backup, then use it to reinstall the OS onto another bare HDD or HDD that needs a new OS on it?

I was thinking it was a simple as backing it up and then creating an image from the backup and then turning it into a bootable USB or disk?

Thanks for the help.

cs8400

wbAdmin.exe start backup -backupTarget:\\192.168.1.100\Images -include:C:,D: -allCritical -quiet

This has been working well for me for a while. I usually throw this in a batch file and task schedule it to run.

Robbo777

I was thinking more along the lines of what is the actual process, i'm aware that the backup goes into a folder called WindowsBackup and that when a backup is done on the machine it can back up files etc...
What i'm curious about is how backup the entire machine and then make a bootable image from the backup. Whats the process for that, so that if the HDD crashes i can either reinstall the machine with the full configuration that's the same as the one i have now or put it on a raw HDD and do a clean install from there.

cyberguypr

You are confusing terms. What you do with a backup is restore it, not a clean install. Backups are usually granular, for those files and folders that you really care about. The quickest path to recover let's say from a dead drive is a system image. Problem is that those take more space and you have to manage them carefully or disk will fill if you forget about them. Check How to Restore System Image Backups on Windows 7, 8, and 10.

Just remember that system images are specific to your hardware. Don't expect to restore it elsewhere.

Robbo777

The thing is though, its a clearer on W7, 8 etc... because its more or less infront of you..."create system image". Whereas on Server 2012 you have no such option and are left wondering how to make one.

I think what has been confusing me is that when Windows backs up, it doesn't use ISO files as backups, rather something else (a HDD image file of some sort). It then reads that as a backup then executes it. What about if i needed to make an exportable image file that when ran could turn a corrupt HDD into the machine from which the image was generated from?
I think i'm getting towards understanding it a bit more now but there are still a few things that i'm just not fully grasping as of yet.

PJ_Sneakers

So, probably what you need to do is look into sysprep.

Get a system together the way you want it, then do a sysprep. After that happens, you will have to boot into Win PE and then use dism to create an image file. This is a file based image. You will need a large USB drive or external hard drive for the image file.

Then you will end up with a WIM. You'll format the target disk and apply the wim to it.

That was a general overview. It's more complicated than that but I'm typing on my phone right now.

You can also generalize the sysprep and make the image installable on pretty much any other systems config if necessary.

Google is your friend.

Robbo777

Thanks, worked perfectly! Cheers dude!