Create a Windows System Image

Create a Windows System Image

Now you have installed Windows on your C: partition (and placed your personal data on the D: partition), it is time to create an image of your Windows system. A system image creates an exact backup of all the bits on your C: partition. This means you can always restore your system to the exact original situation! Where the Windows System Restore (Start, All Programs, Accessories, System tools, System Recovery) keeps giving troubles, a system image will always work! Creating a system image is the best advise I can give to prevent getting into troubles. Here are some reasons:

• If you think you are having a virus or spyware on your computer: restore your system image and you are up and running virus free in some 15 minutes.
• Your Windows system isn't as fast as you are used to: restore your system image and you are up and running as fast as a fresh optimized Windows setup in some 15 minutes.
• Tired of regularly running adware/spyware software, scanning hard disk for viruses, deleting temporary files, defragmenting: restore your system image and you are up and running as clean as a fresh Windows setup in some 15 minutes.
• Do you regularly make irreversible errors (who doesn't....): restore your system image and you are up and running trouble free in some 15 minutes.
• Do you want to try software without messing up your system: restore your system image and the installed software is gone in some 15 minutes.

How a system image works

A system image creates an exact copy of your Windows partition (C:). By restoring the image, your whole C: partition will be overwritten. This will result in total data loss of everything on your C: partition! This means you have to move all personal files to a data partition (this website assumes D:, see below). The image of your C: partition is stored in one or more files, which can be stored on another partition, external hard disk or burned on CD-ROM or DVD.

Move all your personal data to another partitions

If you carefully read the instructions on my website, you already know how to move the personal data for every user account to your data partition D: (My Documents, Downloads, Favorites folders, Windows Address book and Outlook Express e-mail database (or Outlook database)). Probably these are all on a default Windows system, but there is a chance more software stores personal data outside the My Documents folder on your C: partition.

Free system image software

Of course you can pay a lot of money for commercial system imaging software like Norton Ghost/DriveImage or True Image, but there are also multiple free imaging tools. On this website I have described the use of the free tool Partition Saving (download: www.partition-saving.com).

I have created a manual how to create an image boot disk with this tool, extended with a user friendly menu for imaging and restoring your Windows partition. With this bootable imaging disk you are able to image and restore your C: partition in 5-30 minutes times with only a few clicks. With this MS-DOS boot disk your are able to save your settings. 

Imaging with DrvImagerXP

There is another freeware tool DrvImagerXP (Download). This tool only works in a multiboot environment: from the system partition number 1 you can image and recover system partition 2 (Partition Saving is used on a bootable MS-DOS disk).

Posted in: Tips and Tricks