Win 7 won't allow a cloned backup?!?

[The Sauce]

I usually keep a clone around for backup purposes. I cloned my new Win7 install and when I tried to boot off of it in the same system I got a blue screen saying that it was not a valid copy of windows. So then how the hell do you backup your system so that you don't have to reinstall Windows in the event of a HDD failure?

 

[RebateMonger]

What software are you using for the cloning?

As far as system backups, I believe that all versions of Win7 now include system image backup software (for making full system images and restoring them). Windows Home Server makes system image backups of all versions of Win7. I'm sure that other image backup software works with Win7, too, but I haven't used any of them yet.

 

[fluffmonster]

the Win7 integrated backup only seems to work on the hdd it was originally installed on...trying to put it on a different hdd won't work out so well. Definitely don't count on it to save you from a failed hdd.

 

[RebateMonger]

the Win7 integrated backup only seems to work on the hdd it was originally installed on...trying to put it on a different hdd won't work out so well. .

Do you have a specific example that you've tried? Microsoft DID make some pretty major changes in Win7 backup, and, judging from MS' Vista/Win7/2008 Backup support forum, some of these changes are causing surprises.

Vista's built-in system backups ("Complete PC Backup") would only do restores to disks that were the same size or larger than the original disk and could be very picky. Server 2008 R2 restores can be done to a smaller disk than the original disk IF the data will all fit. Presumably, Win7 is similar, but I haven't tried it. There's also a manual work-around for the disk-size thing in Server 2008, at least.

And, yeah, I've done some of these backups/restores in Server 2008/2008 R2 and doing the restores can be challenging at times.

 

[Rifter]

This is not true, i used True image to make a clone of my laptop hdd when i got so i could install a bigger hdd, cloned it from the 250GB that came with it to a 500GB i purchased and all was well, had windows 7 and linux installed on it and they both worked great after.

 

[Emulex]

acronis easy migrate - 30 day trial - worked great from 160gb to 40gb (x25-v) of course only 30gb in use. handled it all.

 

[fluffmonster]

Do you have a specific example that you've tried? Microsoft DID make some pretty major changes in Win7 backup, and, judging from MS' Vista/Win7/2008 Backup support forum, some of these changes are causing surprises.

Yeah. I installed win7 on a WD caviar blue 640gb and tried to migrate the image to a WD caviar black 640gb both purchased at the same time. Failed. Maybe it would have worked had i tried to migrate to a different blue, but even so that would seriously compromise the usefulness of the integrated system backup feature, particularly in the case of hdd failure, and thus the integrated system imager should not be considered reliable.

What little I could find on this issue suggested that the utility required the original install drive for an image restore, but I'm not sure how definitive an explanation this is.

 

[Zargon]

hmph. this is troubling

 

[Grim281]

I tried using Win 7's system restore from a clean image to fix a screwed up OS from a power failure. Needless to say, it did not work. I don't know how win7 does its system image but it does not seem to be done too well.

 

[jjmIII]

try this...

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en

 

[Silenus]

Yeah. I installed win7 on a WD caviar blue 640gb and tried to migrate the image to a WD caviar black 640gb both purchased at the same time. Failed. Maybe it would have worked had i tried to migrate to a different blue, but even so that would seriously compromise the usefulness of the integrated system backup feature, particularly in the case of hdd failure, and thus the integrated system imager should not be considered reliable.

What little I could find on this issue suggested that the utility required the original install drive for an image restore, but I'm not sure how definitive an explanation this is.

I have tested this myself at work. I have not found that it needs the original drive, or even the same drive model. However it did seem to need the same SIZE drive to restore from an image backup. I loaded up on an X-25M 80GB and restored easily to a WD Cavier Blue 80GB. I was also able to successfully restore to a larger capacity drive if I first created a partition on the larger drive that was EXACTLY the same size as the original system reserved+OS partitions. That being said not being able to restore to any size drive at least as large as the original is a definite drawback. Not a good restriction to have.

 

[n7]

Wow, this is some serious fail.

I was not aware you could only re-image to the same size HDD...i just assumed it would work similarly to a normal imaging software solution.

I'm going to have to play around with this more.

The main reason i used the built-in Windows one myself is that Acronis 2010 is still being retarded about doing any backups & properly recovery using anything other than IDE mode, which makes RAID-0 impossible to re-image. D:

 

[Gillbot]

Wow, this is some serious fail.

I was not aware you could only re-image to the same size HDD...i just assumed it would work similarly to a normal imaging software solution.

I'm going to have to play around with this more.

The main reason i used the built-in Windows one myself is that Acronis 2010 is still being retarded about doing any backups & properly recovery using anything other than IDE mode, which makes RAID-0 impossible to re-image. D:

I used Acronis on my Win7 install migrating from a 160GB drive to a WD 640GB with no issues at all. Worked just like the old Ghost image did and booted right up.

 

[jjmIII]

I used Acronis on my Win7 install migrating from a 160GB drive to a WD 640GB with no issues at all. Worked just like the old Ghost image did and booted right up.

Same here. And, it's FREE from Seagate, and WD .

 

[pugh]

I gave up on Acronis after the mess of restore problems I had from the version 7 or 2007 I think and 2009 version. I used to recommend it to everyone I knew who was looking to back up data. For some people it works . For some of us it doesn't.

I searched and searched over at the forums most people use when they have Acronis problems to no avail. Great place for help though.

I will add though to the OP. Once I went to WHS and used it back up feature to restore a pc I was quite pleased. I dumped Acronis after that and have not looked back for backing up my network pc's.

 

[Sahakiel]

I gave up on Acronis after the mess of restore problems I had from the version 7 or 2007 I think and 2009 version. I used to recommend it to everyone I knew who was looking to back up data. For some people it works . For some of us it doesn't.

I searched and searched over at the forums most people use when they have Acronis problems to no avail. Great place for help though.

I will add though to the OP. Once I went to WHS and used it back up feature to restore a pc I was quite pleased. I dumped Acronis after that and have not looked back for backing up my network pc's.

What's your backup solution for the WHS machine? I assume you're using RAID or folder duplication.

 

[Emulex]

BESR 2010 is a great program alternative to acronis - its essentially the same thing can clone and do hot VSS backups

 

[pugh]

folder dup plus I back up the most important folder on the server too me. Varies with people I guess.

The main thing is my PC's are backed up, which till late 2007 I was not one to back up. It has become more of an importance to do so since then.

 

[Gillbot]

Same here. And, it's FREE from Seagate, and WD .

That's exactly what I used! The WD version.

 

[bob4432]

still using acronis - have used the boot up cd of i think 2008 or so and have done 2008server image from a 10GB hdd to a 30GB hdd (testing) and have been using the enterprise acronis for the 30GB hdd into a 160GB usb hdd w/ no issues. have wiped it and re-imaged it w/ no problems.

will d/l the 2010 version of acronis and put it on a win7 rc machine and do a image to the main home server and see how that goes. fwiw, i always do complete images, not partial/incremental. in fact i will try win7 rc w/ an older version of acronis just to see how it goes.

kind of weird that ms would do this...and again, 2008server doesn't have an issue using an old boot disc for a complete image/clone. no raid btw.

 

[The Sauce]

Sorry I didn't respond sooner, working. I used Norton Ghost 15. When that didn't work I reinstalled Win 7 on the second drive and then tried to do a system image resore onto it and that didn't work either.

Original drive was a WD Raptor 150gb.
Drive 2 was a Maxtor 250 gb.

 

[jjmIII]

Quote:
Originally Posted by jjmIII
Same here. And, it's FREE from Seagate, and WD .

That's exactly what I used! The WD version.

I will add, both times I cloned, both drives were slaves off a master (OS) drive.

 

[mfenn]

I have tested this myself at work. I have not found that it needs the original drive, or even the same drive model. However it did seem to need the same SIZE drive to restore from an image backup. I loaded up on an X-25M 80GB and restored easily to a WD Cavier Blue 80GB. I was also able to successfully restore to a larger capacity drive if I first created a partition on the larger drive that was EXACTLY the same size as the original system reserved+OS partitions. That being said not being able to restore to any size drive at least as large as the original is a definite drawback. Not a good restriction to have.

It seems to be a HUGE YMMV thing. When FW 1.5 killed my Agility (damn you OCZ!!), I I thought, "Oh well I've got a Windows Image Backup on my data HDD, so I'll be fine!"

Yeaaaaaaah, no.

I ended up having to reinstall Windows 7 from scratch. Luckily the images are just VHD files, so you can mount them as drives and pull your data off manually.

I'm definitely looking into alternative backup solutions at the moment.

 

[Emulex]

you can boot a vhd in windows 7