Windows 7 backup utility
I'm not sure how many people are aware of this but Windows 7 HP now includes an option to do full image backups as well as data files.
Although I use Acronis for my backup solutions I was interested to see just how good or bad this utility was. I have done a full image backup using the one provided with Windows 7 this evening then bit the bullet and clicked to restore the full image. (well there's no point having backup software if you're not sure it will work when you need it)
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised - it doesn't have all the whistles and bells that you get with Acronis but to be honest all I want is to restore the entire image when things go badly wrong. The backup was pretty quick and the restore even quicker - around 35 minutes for an 85 gig image and the PC fired up without any hiccups whatsoever.
Being new to Windws 7 HP, I've only tried the system image and backup one time. I must say I was disappointed.After having problems with some programs freezing and acting weird, I decided (like you) to put my newly created backup to the test. I remounted my system image off an external hard drive and my pc indicated the image had successfully restored. However, it seemed I was having the same buggy problems all over again (as in right away!).
This made me wonder (what if anything had taken place). A few things I noticed, my Win 7 system image was stored on F drive (the USB port drive where I plug in my external hard drive). I could view the saved system image on my external hard drive. However, I found it interesting that the properties indicated no size to the Win 7 system image (as it it was an empty folder). Go figure.
I also noticed (during the remount of the Win 7 system image) that the system prompted me to mount the image off 'G' drive even though my external drive always comes up as F drive. So I didn't know what to make of that either.
Long story short, I ended up doing a clean install of Win 7, all my programs, data, etc, taking a very long time.
Now, I am stuck with no backup. I have used Acronis TI Home in the past and I have been very happy with it. In fact, it seems that last build of Acronis TI Home 2009 (published in the summer of 2009) was worked really good under X64 Vista.
However, that version is not compatible with Win 7. I would gladly buy Acronis TI Home 2010 but I need some confidence that some of the big bugs have been worked out of it.
First point Scott - I use Acronis 2009 with my W7 64bit install and I find both versions i.e. 9709 and 9770 work perfectly with Windows 7. With both versions you can no longer mount the image but hey so what, you can still explore the image and drag and drop any files and progs you want and the full backup and restore functions work flawlessly.
Regarding the Windows 7 Backup utility - if you were having problems before you backed up then all you will achieve by doing a restore of that image is restore the same problems. Regarding drive letters - no problems either, Windows selected my external drive (drive K) and selected the same drive when it came to restore. You are correct about the folder appearing to be empty with no file size, however, I think Vista was the same. I expected this and so looked at the drives free space before and after backup, this showed the backup had swallowed around 76 gig.
Well,actually, I made a system image file (using the built in version inside X64 Win 7) before I was having any problems. This is what I found weird. The image (created by Win 7) indicated that it had successfully restored my pc (using the entire system image); however, again it was as though the same (recent problems AFTER the image was made) were still there after the restore. I could not figure that out since I made the image BEFORE there were any problems.
The second issue was not being able to see any size of the system image file on my external hard drive. I am glad to hear you experienced the same issue (so at least this part is consistent). However, I find it strange that a Win 7 image file shows 0 amounts of storage space in the properties of the file. I don't know what is up with that.
Meanwhile, I've also used my Acronis TI Home 2009 boot disc (Acronis is not currently installed on my pc) to make a new tib file (complete system image file) using Acronis TI Home 2009. Hopefully, between the two of these images, at least one of them would be good, if not both!
As far as 'mounting' the image versus 'restoring', I need to correct myself. I really don't have any current needs as far as 'mounting' any images. I only want the ability to successfully 'restore' an entire system image. I was using those words interchangeably before when in fact they are two different things.
Thanks for your reply.