Backup OS and programs only? (Win7)

[CSMR]

I'm setting up an HTPC and made the mistake of not partitioning my drive.

So there is 20GB of OS and programs and 1.5TB of media files. All the media files are in a single folder C:/MEDIA.

I don't want to make a system image as that will back up the files and I already have a copy of these files elsewhere.

I just want to back up OS and programs so that I can restore the system in the event of failure.

Is this possible?

Thanks

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Yes, but you'd have to temporarily move the media files to some other drive entirely.

Images are of complete partitions. You can't exclude certain folders.

Then shrink C to perhaps 100 GB or whatever you think you might need, allowing room for more programs and future Windows updates. You can likely do the shrinking through Windows Disk Management. If that balks, use something like Partition Wizard.

Then make a D drive from the freed space. Then move your media files back to D.

Then make an image of C and store it on some other partition, preferably on some other drive entirely. Make a new image periodically--perhaps one a month. You'd also need to make an image of your "System Reserved" partition, if you have one. You can make a single image file containing both C and System Reserved, or you can make an image file of each. Macrium is a good imaging application.

 

[HOSED]

Depending on what program you use to make the image there may be a mask or exclude option for certain extensions that you define. I know paragon 2014 backup and restore has this. I also used to use 1 partition and always excluded *.wtv, *.mp3 for the same reasons (smaller images).