Restore Windows 7 based on file backup - Possible?
Dear support team and Acronis users,
my setup consists out of one harddisk with one parition where Windows 7 64bit is installed.
As I am planning to encrypt the complete system partition using True Crypt with Pre Boot Authentication, I have browsed through different forums already in order to gather information on how to do my complete system backup in this scenario. I am used to create complete drive backups (e.g. weekly) for easier restoring afterwards in case of a system crash.
The information I found mostly said "Create a sector by sector backup of your encrypted system partition using the Acronis Boot Disk / Rescue disk". But this is actually not sufficient for me as I want to have automatic runnning backups.
Now I have thought about doing it the following way. Could please somebody from the Acronis support team or somebody who tried something like this already, let me know if it should work:
1.) Backup:
a) I would create a file based Acronis Backup from within Windows (e.g. I am logged in with TrueCryp PBE and the disk is available as normal but transparently encrypted). In this file based backup I would include all files on the system partition.
b) Question: Will Acronis backup also all hidden and system files?
c) I will store the backup archives on an external harddisk, in order to prevent unwanted access I could encrypt them using the Acronis AES mechanism.
2.) Restore:
a) I would delete the complete existing system partition (including all data) and recreate it using a separate disk partitioning tool.
b) I would restore all files from the file based backup above to that recreated parition using the Acronis rescue disk.
c) I would restore the Windows Bootrecord and MBR using the Windows installation CD.
d) Now Windows should boot up, and the system should be the same as it was when the last file based backup ran.
e) Optionally: I could encrypt the complete partition again using True Crypt.
Is that possible in this way? The main question is, if the system can be restored by using just the file based backup and if the restoring of the bootrecord in this way would be enough or if there is anything more required.
Thank you in advance for your help!
With best regards and greetings from snowy Munich,
Oliver
Hi Scott,
thank you for your answer. I see that restoring is easier with real partition backups, but the problem is that these can't be done automatically in case the partition is encrypted (you always have to boot with the Acronis recovery disk first). I am also currently using only automated partition backups as I do not have switched to completely encrypted partitions yet.
But now I have to switch to full encryption and still want to have automatic backups, which will later allow complete system recovery, so I am searching for information if it is possible - in any way - to do file based backups while Windows is running which will allow complete system recovery later.
Personally I would also agree with you, that a file based backup probably can't deliver a complete system recovery, but I hoped if maybe somebody from Acronis directly could give a statement on this. Just to verify if there is really no way for this.
Thank you! and best regards,
Oliver
Sorry, I couldn't help.
I don't think even ATI will restore certain system files while windows is running; it has to boot out of windows to write to some of the files.