Solve : Imaging Windows 7 Home to DVD's?

1.	Solve : Imaging Windows 7 Home to DVD's?
Answer» Just decided to try to image my Windows 7 Home OS computer and found out that the Image Utility built into Windows 7 is only for the more featured Pro, Ultimate etc versions as referenced here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/ Checked into Clonezilla, and according to what I see here, it takes a lot of prep and isnt very smooth as referenced here: http://arga.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/how-to-properly-clone-a-windows-7-system-partition-with-clonezilla/ I own 6 licenses of Ghost 2003, but it doesnt play well with Windows 7, and I dont want to buy a new copy of Ghost with lack of features. Anyone have any suggestions on a Good Way to Image Windows 7 Home to spanned DVD's which might be a free solution? I like the ease of a bootable disc and pushing clean image build to any drive size like Ghost 2003 offered back in the day with Windows XP Home/Pro, Windows 2000 Pro, etc. Hoping I can do this without having to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional to get the Microsoft Image Feature. From prior issues with Microsoft Backups, I am cautious about going the path of their backup image solution. I also looked into DD, but all I see is references to cloning Master to Slave drives with DD. No burning bootable spanned images to DVD'sI regularly USE Acronis True Image for my image backups...however it is not Free. For a Free solution i suggest Macrium Reflect...not a ton of prep and very User friendly. I SPENT quite some time testing the Free options out there on my benchtest rig and that is the one i settled on. After installing it 1st thing to do is create the bootable Macrium CD...then test it. Then you create your image file ...then under Tools make sure to verify the image...takes a bout as long as creating the image but well worth it for peace of mind. You can then burn the image to CD/DVD media...there is an option in this step to select the file sizes for spanning. NOTE: I also use my own file names for each image as the default name is a bit cryptic...however includes the date which is handy. The restore process is a breeze as well and you can usually be back up and running in less than 40 minutes depending on the image size.... Any questions feel free to report back. Macrium Reflect Free Edition... Quote The new backup utilities in Windows 7 are actually pretty impressive and creating an image will be possible in all versions. I just thought you missed the first sentence from your link Dave. Actually, I have a Win 7 Home Premium system and the Backup and Restore - Create a System Image Tool is also available. For good reviews, you can use a 3rd party like Macrium and the built-in Windows function. Quote GoodBytes This feature is only on Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate edition. Reading further down in the comments at the site, I now see that Mysticgeek corrected GoodBytes with the following statement. Quote September 24, 2009 11:54 am Mysticgeek GoodBytes: The imaging feature was only available for the higher end versions of Vista, However, all versions of Windows 7 include the imaging feature…even Starter edition :-) I saw this first comment and then moved on vs reading further. I ended up downloading the free for personal use Macrium Reflect 5 and watched a few youtube videos showing the image creation and placing image back to disk process with Macrium Reflect solution. Will get a good laugh if the Windows 7 Home Premium had this feature to begin with and I went through all this work to find a 3rd party solution and no alternative was needed to begin with. The only disk I ever created with the Windows 7 Home Premium was a Emergency REPAIR DVD which I created after I first installed Windows 7 a year ago. I didnt even verify that the feature was missing, I read the original article, and then saw the initial post with claims that only Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition had this feature and ran with that without reading further since the lack of this feature seemed legit since Microsoft likes to tease you with a feature and place it into a more expensive product like RDP was with XP, in which XP Home didnt have it, and Pro did. And I GOT burned by BlackVNC attack with RealVNC 3.7 so I had a distaste fo VNC even though it was corrected to not allow BlackVNC hack attack. Later after upgrading to Pro I found out about DevCon.exe hack to make XP Home pretend its XP Pro to enable RDP client feature vs RDC. Lesson learned, READ ALL COMMENTS in the future before assuming the original article had a typo in claims. But this wasnt a complete waste of time as for I learned about Macrium Reflect and I am going to have to play with that. That might be the solution to creating spanned Linux backup images vs Clonezilla, and better than DD which is Harddrive to Harddrive cloning from all examples found. Thanks everyone for both correcting me and introducing me to a new free image utility.

Answer»

Just decided to try to image my Windows 7 Home OS computer and found out that the Image Utility built into Windows 7 is only for the more featured Pro, Ultimate etc versions as referenced here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/

Checked into Clonezilla, and according to what I see here, it takes a lot of prep and isnt very smooth as referenced here: http://arga.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/how-to-properly-clone-a-windows-7-system-partition-with-clonezilla/

I own 6 licenses of Ghost 2003, but it doesnt play well with Windows 7, and I dont want to buy a new copy of Ghost with lack of features.

Anyone have any suggestions on a Good Way to Image Windows 7 Home to spanned DVD's which might be a free solution?

I like the ease of a bootable disc and pushing clean image build to any drive size like Ghost 2003 offered back in the day with Windows XP Home/Pro, Windows 2000 Pro, etc. Hoping I can do this without having to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional to get the Microsoft Image Feature. From prior issues with Microsoft Backups, I am cautious about going the path of their backup image solution.

I also looked into DD, but all I see is references to cloning Master to Slave drives with DD. No burning bootable spanned images to DVD'sI regularly USE Acronis True Image for my image backups...however it is not Free.
For a Free solution i suggest Macrium Reflect...not a ton of prep and very User friendly.
I SPENT quite some time testing the Free options out there on my benchtest rig and that is the one i settled on.
After installing it 1st thing to do is create the bootable Macrium CD...then test it.
Then you create your image file ...then under Tools make sure to verify the image...takes a bout as long as creating the image but well worth it for peace of mind.
You can then burn the image to CD/DVD media...there is an option in this step to select the file sizes for spanning.
NOTE: I also use my own file names for each image as the default name is a bit cryptic...however includes the date which is handy.
The restore process is a breeze as well and you can usually be back up and running in less than 40 minutes depending on the image size....

Any questions feel free to report back.

Macrium Reflect Free Edition... Quote

The new backup utilities in Windows 7 are actually pretty impressive and creating an image will be possible in all versions.

I just thought you missed the first sentence from your link Dave.
Actually, I have a Win 7 Home Premium system and the Backup and Restore - Create a System Image Tool is also available. For good reviews, you can use a 3rd party like Macrium and the built-in Windows function. Quote

GoodBytes
This feature is only on Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate edition.

Reading further down in the comments at the site, I now see that Mysticgeek corrected GoodBytes with the following statement.

Quote

September 24, 2009 11:54 am Mysticgeek
GoodBytes: The imaging feature was only available for the higher end versions of Vista, However, all versions of Windows 7 include the imaging feature…even Starter edition :-)

I saw this first comment and then moved on vs reading further. I ended up downloading the free for personal use Macrium Reflect 5 and watched a few youtube videos showing the image creation and placing image back to disk process with Macrium Reflect solution.

Will get a good laugh if the Windows 7 Home Premium had this feature to begin with and I went through all this work to find a 3rd party solution and no alternative was needed to begin with. The only disk I ever created with the Windows 7 Home Premium was a Emergency REPAIR DVD which I created after I first installed Windows 7 a year ago. I didnt even verify that the feature was missing, I read the original article, and then saw the initial post with claims that only Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition had this feature and ran with that without reading further since the lack of this feature seemed legit since Microsoft likes to tease you with a feature and place it into a more expensive product like RDP was with XP, in which XP Home didnt have it, and Pro did. And I GOT burned by BlackVNC attack with RealVNC 3.7 so I had a distaste fo VNC even though it was corrected to not allow BlackVNC hack attack. Later after upgrading to Pro I found out about DevCon.exe hack to make XP Home pretend its XP Pro to enable RDP client feature vs RDC. Lesson learned, READ ALL COMMENTS in the future before assuming the original article had a typo in claims.

But this wasnt a complete waste of time as for I learned about Macrium Reflect and I am going to have to play with that. That might be the solution to creating spanned Linux backup images vs Clonezilla, and better than DD which is Harddrive to Harddrive cloning from all examples found.

Thanks everyone for both correcting me and introducing me to a new free image utility.

Solve : Imaging Windows 7 Home to DVD's?

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