Post by m***@yahoo.comI'd like to backup my C drive in case it ever gets hosed. Problem is
that the image created would far exceed the capacity of DVD media.
Is there any way to create an image of C drive essentials? e.g. the OS,
registry, and the installed software, that I could reapply later were
the C drive to get hosed, without imaging the entire C drive? I'd
rather not have to delete gigabytes of data on the C drive (data I
don't need imaged).
Doesn't seem to be any way to do this natively with DriveImage XML.
Thanks very much.
You confuse me, first you talk of a 'backup', next you talk of an 'image'.
An image is REQUIRED for a boot partition, a backup is required for files
and data storage.
There are many good "BACKUP" freeware apps that let you specify which
folders/directories to include or exclude in a backup.
There are also a few good freeware apps that let you make a 'drive IMAGE',
which is just that ... an image of the full drive (or partition), including
all the necessary system boot information.
You seem to have 'everything' on one large partition, which makes it a lot
harder to easily create images and backups.
A more logical approach would be to partition your hard drive into smaller
pieces, and arrange your data files onto a different partition than the OS.
In my case, on a 80Gb drive, ...
* "C" drive contains only ~800Mb of files on a 2Gb partition - ONLY Windows
and associated files, easily images onto one CD.
* "D" drive contains all the applications, ~4Gb on an 8Gb partition, easily
backs up onto one DVD. Once imaged, and archive attributes cleared on all
files, very little changes here so I just backup changed files.
* "E" drive is solely for data - My Documents, My Pictures, Email store,
etc. Data for all the applications on D drive are stored here too. 8Gb
partition, easily backs up onto one DVD.
* "F" drive - Windows junk drive, TEMP and TMP folders, Temporary
Internet Files (TIF's) IE History, Favourites, Cookies, Windows swap file,
an Extract folder for use with archiver programs, etc.. 2Gb partition.
Never imaged or backed up.
* "G" drive - I call resource drive. Windows installation files
(Cabs/Options folders), all downloaded windows patches and updates, all
programs (freeware, shareware, payware etc) downloaded from the internet,
icons, clipart, sounds, wallpaper etc. 4 Gb partition, easily backs up onto
one DVD.
* "H" drive - my MP3 collection ripped from CD's. 40Gb partition, never
backed up as such. I have the CD's to restore the MP3's if ever necessary,
plus I have most of the MP3's copied onto CD's as well.
* "I" drive - balance of the hard disk. My "Scratch" drive. This is where I
"install" new software and try it out. If it is well behaved and useful
then it gets to be installed on the D drive, and its data paths changed to
the E drive. Also used as target drive for overnight zipped backup files
until they are copied to CD/DVD.