Window Backup & Restore basics

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[Razz]

Perhaps someone on here can clarify some basics on Windows Backup and Restore for me please.
I have been using the basic Windows backup and restore utility to an external SSD with a system image included in the settings for this process. Thankfully I have never had a need to restore the system on this 2013 E1-572 Acer (BIOS V2.12) Win7 Home premium SP1 64 bit.

So checking over the folders on the SSD there are two; My – PC (the backup folder) and a Windowsimagebackup folder. Each with the Date Modified being the last backup date. With the cursor hovering over the former it indicates “empty folder” – why is this?

I notice the WindowsImageBackup folder has several subfolders, from which I presume the restore runs. Do these two folders (PC Name and Windows Image backup) work in combination? and If I wanted to restore just files for Outlook, for example, where do I find them / how do I select them? Because if I click on My-PC and go down that root to Users there are no .pst files evident.

For example if I open the WindowsImageBackup folder it has the latest Backup Folder. If I click on it, it says You currently don’t have permission to access to this file; click continue to access. Then if I hit continue it presents a set of XML and VHD (very large) files. Clearly I cannot do anything with these. What then?!

Thanks – Razz

ASUS GL702VS 24GB RAM Intel Core i7 64 bit Win 10 Home 22H2 OS Build 19045.3693
Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19053.1000.0
Not Win 11 eligible.

• This topic was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by Razz.

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This Howtogeek https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/1838/using-backup-and-restore-in-windows-7/ link is a good tutorial.  Basically, the “My – PC”  is used to restore files or folders.   The “Windowsimagebackup” folder is used to restore the disk image.

Win 11 home - 24H2
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Lars220, Razz

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I just dug a little deeper and found the files I was looking for. Thanks

ASUS GL702VS 24GB RAM Intel Core i7 64 bit Win 10 Home 22H2 OS Build 19045.3693
Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19053.1000.0
Not Win 11 eligible.

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I used the Windows image backup for years, and it has always been reliable. Restores have saved my bacon a few times!!!

But it is always a manual process to run the images and manage storage space on the backup drive. And you need to learn the Windows recovery system or use a bootable repair disk.

So now I use and recommend Macrium Reflect Free for my Windows images. https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Schedule your image backups and you can have them run on autopilot.

After you install Macrium, it offers to let you build a bootable recovery disk, or USB flash in the event that you need to restore a system.  This wizard automatically downloads and builds this for you. I have used the Macrium recovery several times using the USB flash and it works very well. The recovery uses a bootable Microsoft Windows PE (WinPE) OS, not a Linux boot, or whatever.

The first thing you do is boot from the recovery medium, then tell it what image file to restore, and onto what drive. Then you are off and running!

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Razz

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JohnW,

I am trying to reconcile the numbers here
(I’ve cut and pasted from different windows to produce this summary)

The 432GB is what? The total of new material the backup is adding this time around?

Given this volume how long do you think it should take to backup to a WD My Passport?

I am thinking of freeing up some space by deleting some old backup periods. I also need to check what life is left but should change from a SSD to HDD.

Thanks for your insight.

 

Razz

ASUS GL702VS 24GB RAM Intel Core i7 64 bit Win 10 Home 22H2 OS Build 19045.3693
Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19053.1000.0
Not Win 11 eligible.

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Razz wrote:

JohnW,

I am trying to reconcile the numbers here
(I’ve cut and pasted from different windows to produce this summary)

The 432GB is what? The total of new material the backup is adding this time around?

Given this volume how long do you think it should take to backup to a WD My Passport?

I am thinking of freeing up some space by deleting some old backup periods. I also need to check what life is left but should change from a SSD to HDD.

Thanks for your insight.

 

Razz

Not sure how to reconcile that. I have always used only the “create a system image” command, not the backup and restore of individual files.

The “create a system image” for my C: drive defaults in a full disk image of the drive, including all partitions. The folder created is “WindowsImageBackup”, with subfolders for each partition, as you have described. The partition images are stored in the large .vhd container files. The largest one should be your primary C: partition.

I’m not sure how many partitions got selected on your setup, as 139.07GB looks relatively small compared to your total backup size. So I’m not sure that image contains your entire C: drive. You could try running another one manually with “create a system image”, and confirm that your C: partition is selected for imaging.

If you just want to restore the entire drive, execute the system restore and point it to that  “”WindowsImageBackup” folder, and it will ask you which partitions you want to restore. I typically select all of them.

Or you can mount any of those .vhd files in Windows Disk Management as a virtual hard drive with a drive letter in Windows Explorer, and browse and copy (drag & drop) any files and folders you wish from the image onto your main drive.

As far as the Win 7 file backup, never used it, as the image covered everything I needed in that regard. Maybe somebody with knowledge of that aspect can clear that up.

And definitely refer back to the good advice earlier by @mledman https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/window-backup-restore-basics/#post-1974612

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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