Steve Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Possibly the geekiest guide I'll ever write, but if you use the system image feature of Windows 7 to keep a backup (and you should!) then one day you might find this useful. Once you've created your image, if you browse the contents of the drive where the image is stored you'll see a number of VHD files - one for each partition/drive that you've imaged. These can actually be mounted in Windows so that they appear as regular drives. Here's how to do that: - 1. Type "compmgmt.msc" without quotes into the Start menu search box and press enter. This will open the Computer Management window. 2. On the left-hand side, right click on Disk Management under Storage and choose Attach VHD: - 3. A small box will open, then click Browse and browse to the VHD file that you want to attach. If there's more than one, you can usually figure out which one to open by looking at the size, but it doesn't matter if you open the wrong one. You can always switch to a different one. 4. Once you have selected the VHD file it will be attached and if auto-play is enabled on your PC, a box will pop up, just like if you connected an external hard drive. If auto-play is not enabled, you can browse via Windows Explorer. The attached VHD acts just like a regular hard drive, so you can easily extract files from it if you need them. 5. Once you have extracted any files that you need, you then need to detach the VHD. Right-click on the drive in the list and select Detach VHD: - You have to right-click in the correct place, so in the example I've posted there, I am right-clicking next to the little blue drive icon where it says "Disk 7". Right-clicking anywhere on that square is fine, but if you right-click the drive in the list at the very top of the screen you won't get the Detach VHD option. Job done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djfoly Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Can you explain WTF the system image is and why I should use it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 Sure mate...... These are the two main ways of creating backups: - A "regular" backup: - This is where you copy files and folders from one place to another. This is useful for personal data like music, videos, photos etc. Imaging: - This creates a bit for bit clone of a partition or drive. If your PC is all set up just how you want it and it's running great. If you make an image, it's a snapshot of the PC's state, so if you were to get a virus, install some software or a driver that fucks things up, or even if your hard drive was to fail completely and die or if you just want to swap to a bigger hard drive - you could use the image you made to restore your system so it's exactly like it was when the image was made. It's basically there for emergencies. If something goes tits up badly and you can't recover from it, you'll always have that image there that you can use to restore your machine to exactly the state it was in when you made the image. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djfoly Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 That's sick because I do have my system set up how I like it! I will look into this, cheers steve! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 No worries mate! Here's how to actually do it if you're using Windows 7: - 1. Attach your external hard drive (assuming that's what you're using to store the image), then open Control Panel and click on "Backup and Restore". 2. Click "Create a system repair disc" on the left-hand side and pop in a blank CD/DVD, then when it's burned, label it and put it somewhere safe. You use this to boot your computer if it's totally fucked and you need to restore it from the image you'll make. You can also use an original Windows disc if you have one, but it's worth making a repair disc anyway. 3. Click "Create a system image" on the left-hand side. Windows will search for devices that can be used to store the image and usually it will select your external drive by default. If not, you can select it. Click Next, then you place check marks next to the partitions/drives you want to image, then hit Next again and leave it to do its thing. If your PC is ever borked, you boot from either the repair disc you made or the Windows disc and choose the repair option, then in there you'll see an option to restore your system from an image. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djfoly Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Nice one I need to get an external hard drive and a blank CD! Cheers Steve! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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