Can I mirror a system drive to a partition?

2

I have a 240GB SSD with the system and I'd like to make daily copies of it onto a partition on a bigger HDD.
I am aware od RAID, but it requires me to use whole drives, and of typical backup solutions, but they don't work with system files. What is the best solution?

TTkacki

Posted 2016-03-26T21:44:16.830

Reputation: 19

To image a system drive you need to take it off-line and it needs to be not active, in most cases this would require a manual process. Imaging the drive manually, then automatically keeping updates of user files, and then doing a full image again after major system changes occur would probably be more prudent. – acejavelin – 2016-03-26T22:13:09.680

Isn't there a tool to automate this? For example Aomei Partition assistant can forca a reboot into it's system. – TTkacki – 2016-03-26T22:15:06.217

I am not familiar with that piece of software... if it can be scripted to startup, do it's imaging, then restart back into the OS it should work. Personally I don't know why you would want to do it this way, a reinstall of the OS or a reimage of a clean OS, then reinstalling the software and copying the needed user files over to the drive is probably more beneficial in the long run. – acejavelin – 2016-03-26T22:17:28.000

Acronis can create a partition image while in Windows....http://www.acronis.com/en-us/promotion/personal/worldbackup/sem/?gclid=CJbpyKGy38sCFVc1aQod6PwLNg

– Moab – 2016-03-26T22:24:57.007

Answers

0

My recommendation would be to leave the system Partition alone and not mess with it as suggested by some comments saying take it off-line etc

You can read more here

http://www.howtogeek.com/192772/what-is-the-system-reserved-partition-and-can-you-delete-it/

How to backup complete computer

  1. Open the Control Panel
  2. Click on the Backup and Restore icon.
  3. Click on the Create a system image link
  4. If prompted by UAC, click on Yes.
  5. Select the location to where you would like to save the backup image at, and click on the Next button. NOTE: See the Warning box at the top of the tutorial. Only the Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions can backup to a network location.
  6. If available, check any additional hard drives or partitions (ex: Vista) that you would like to include in the backup image with the Windows 7 (System and C: ) partition or hard drive, and click on the Next button.
  7. Click on the Start backup button.

SeanClt

Posted 2016-03-26T21:44:16.830

Reputation: 1 960

Windows system image backup has limitations, you can only restore it to the original drive, if the hard drive fails and you replace the drive the image will not restore to it, it creates a signature file that only allows it to be restored to the original drive, third party image software is a better choice. – Moab – 2016-03-26T22:41:58.153

Image files can be copied to another system and then you can just mount as a drive on another system and view your content I do it all the system I personally avoid the restore I just copy my content by mounting the drive on another system and then rebuild again it's a personal preference – SeanClt – 2016-03-26T22:46:12.993

Wait, you CANNOT restore the image to just anything?! – TTkacki – 2016-03-26T22:48:36.677

You should test it out to get familiar in my experience I care more about data than OS – SeanClt – 2016-03-26T22:49:36.790

You can but what would be the point of restoring your system image to just another – SeanClt – 2016-03-27T00:26:56.193

Asked: 2016-03-26T21:44:16.830

Viewed: 623 times

Active: 2016-03-26T22:27:45.057