How do I make a mirror image as a back up copy of my HDD inclduing Win 7 ?

[MSwhip]

I have an external enclosure with a few hard drives installed and id like to create a back up my PC hard drive into one of them.
Could anyone point to me where to go and read in point blank detail step by step how to:

1. Make a mirror image backup copy of the pc hard drive including partitions and the OS...
2. How to set it in such a way that I could save the eventual changes produced in that backed up copy by doing in future just an incremental back up each time (of only what has changed since the previous backup).

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

I would appreciate any detailed explanation of the procedures.

Thank you kindly.

 

[SimMike2]

The included Win7 backup program should work. It can do both images and incremental backups. In the Start Menu just put "backup" in the search and the program should pop to the top of the list.

 

[stevech]

the included win7 says it makes an image. But try to find and understand the output files. And how to restore.

I do imaging with Acronis. Better yet, I have a spare drive and simply use Acronis to clone. Then the spare drive is bootable. No restore risks.

 

[JackMDS]

I do imaging with Acronis. Better yet, I have a spare drive and simply use Acronis to clone. Then the spare drive is bootable. No restore risks.

+1

It cost few $$$ more to start but sooner or later it is the best investment one can make (regarding computers).
---------------

However, the Win 7 backup is quite clever too.

The Backup format is VHD (0the Virtual PC format).

Thus it is easy to mount it on another computer and get data out of it.

How? See here, http://4sysops.com/archives/mount-vhd-files-in-windows-7-and-vista/

 

[deustroop]

I use Casper--~ $50--very nice app--never had a problem cloning , to internal or external hdd.

 

[Emulex]

you know norton ghost 15 is just symantec BESR 2010 with a few options missing. you can get it when it goes on sale for $14 and it is extremely reliable. far better than acronis. I use BESR 2010 on 50+ machines with full backup nightly over network and it is so solid it's not funny. no troubles with sql server or other VSS . My best suggestion - skip incrementals.

 

[Gooberlx2]

I use the built-in win7 backup for imaging the system drive.

Then I use crashplan for incrementals of my regular data. The built-in kinda sucks for incrementals. I think it's too sensitive to certain non-changes, like if files are accessed by the indexing service. It also doesn't just backup the deltas or dedup in general, wasting space.