90% of Windows 7 users never used this powerful and reliable feature that is included in all Windows 7 versions, 10% only of those 90% know it’s there, but they haven’t thought of trying it, due to the lack of experience, or they do have other solutions from different vendors, the rest of those 90% they have no idea of what I am talking about.
Windows 7 users fall in 2 parts, either they have their Windows 7 pre-installed on their PCs, or they have their own Legal or illegal copy of Windows 7, they use it to install on their computers.
The first part (the ones that do have Windows 7 factory pre-installed on their PCs when they purchased it), have by default often the privilege of system recovery of their OS, as pre-installed by the factory, so they can go back to the state where they first time bought their PCs and used it, and that process takes no less than 1 hour to finish that recovery, and they have to spend no less than 4 other hours to remove the default junk-ware that comes pre-installed on their PCs, and updating the OS and installing their own software they use normally, and adjusting the behavior and the look of their OS the way they like.
My neighbor needs 2 days to finish his Vista PC, where he needs to install over 150 critical security updates from Microsoft and 2 service packs, before he starts installing other software he uses like Office + updates+ acrobat reader + PDF writer, Java, real player, etc.., and in the end he has to make sure his Windows looks and behaves the way he likes, this is a very frustrating and annoying process, and a huge waste of time an energy, not to mention how much it takes from the internet bandwidth he has to finish all those updates. Many times he had to re-do the recovery again because while he was doing it first time it didn’t went Ok with him, and he didn’t like the way his PC behaves, and he crashed his system while doing that, so he had to re-do all this again, he is lucky to work with his PC for another month before something bad happens to his system, get infected with a nasty virus or any bad stuff from the net, or gets repeated crashes in his system from installing and uninstalling software or games, so he repeats all that again and again and again, he told me he had re-recover his PC at least 20 times last year alone, I believe him, because I know people do more.
People who do fall in the second part (the ones they do have their own legal or illegal copy of Windows), they do suffer more; because they have to go with that nasty exhausting process of re-activating their Windows after every format they do to their systems. People in the United States are luckier than other people around the world, they can do it in the states with less than 10 minutes over the phone, but for example in the middle east, they have to spend some money to do an international call to the activation center at Microsoft, and often it doesn’t work from first time with them, they have to adjust the Regional and Language options to the default US language and location, before they succeed with the activation! That’s if the phone line didn’t drop or disconnect during that process.
To both categories, I say why is all that suffer? Why don’t you simply after you recover or reformat your PCs and install everything you need, and you are ready to use your PC, why don’t you simply make a system Image, so when anything bad happens to it, you just go back to that image, and recover your PC in 10 minutes or so.
What you will learn in this tutorial?
• How to make a system image and how to recover your system from that image.
• How to make a bootable system repair CD, an essential tool to use when your system crashes and you are not able to boot it up, you can use this CD to recover your PC from the system image you made in 1 above.
• How to make a system repair USB, so in case you do not have a CD-Burner, and you cannot make or use the system repair disk, you will be able when using the USB to recover your system.
• Also we will learn how to recover a specific file or a group of files from that image.
==============================================================
The Tutorial
A- How to make a system image:
• Before we start this, I should note that it is ideal that you should image your system when it’s in perfect condition, so you can always go back to that perfect state in case of disaster recovery.
1- Click on start button, browse to All Programs, browse to Maintenance, expand it, you will see the Backup and Restore option, and the Create a System Repair Disk option, click on the Backup and Restore:
2- From the next screen click on Create a System Image:
3- The Wizard will start in the next couple of seconds to look for a place to save this image:
4- Then will stop on this screen where you will have several choices like where to save the system image that you will make, either on another partition on your hard drive, or on an external USB hard drive that you can attach to your PC, or burn that image to several DVD media, or save it on another PC on your network, the choice here is yours, When you finish deciding where you want to save that image,(Personally I prefer to save it on an external USB HDD) then hit the next button :
5- Next screen you will see the option of what you want to back up besides the system itself, in this tutorial we will leave it to the default and hit next button:
6- Next you will see a confirmation window that shows you the backup location and the partition that will me imaged, click on start backup button, the imaging process will take some time depending on the size of the data on your C drive where the Windows is installed:
7- And when done you will have the option to make a bootable System Repair Disk to offline recover your PC with, so in case your system is damaged and you can’t boot your PC and logon to your Windows, as I said earlier. Now if you do have a CD-Burner, then insert a blank CD and hit yes button to do so, but if you do not have a CD-Burner, we will talk about this issue later, and explain the solution to solve this matter in details:
8- The image you have created will be by default in a folder named Windows Image Backup, and now we successfully created a system image:
B- How to Recover your system in case of disaster:
• This falls into 2 categories, the 1st one if you are able to logon to your Windows, and the 2nd one in case your system fails to boot and logon to Windows, we will cover them respectively:
1- If you after a while of using your PC and let’s say got infected with a virus or your system is crashing often, and you want to recover it to the previous state when you made that perfect state system image as we did above, and you are still able to logon to your Windows and you can see the desktop, then click on start button, browse to All Programs, browse to Maintenance, expand it, and click on the Backup and Restore option:
2- From the next screen click on Recover system settings or your computer:
3- Next screen click on Advanced recovery methods:
4- Next screen click on Use a system image you created earlier to recover your computer:
5- Next screen you will be asked if you want to backup your files that you have on C drive (documents, pictures, music, video, favorites, etc.), if you do then click on backup now:
6- Next the system will prepare to backup your files before it makes the recovery:
7- And you will be provided the option of where to save those files:
8- After you finish the backup of your files and saving them you will have to click on restart button, so to start the recovery :
9- The system will restart and the recovery wizard begins with this window, click next:
10- The wizard will search all drives for the image you made, and will choose it by default, click on next:
11- Click on next also from the following screen:
12- Click on finish to start the recovery process:
13- Click on yes on the last warning and confirmation window:
14- The re-image will start, and will take maybe some 10 minutes or so for a 25 GB of data in size, means it is not a lengthy process:
15- When done the computer will restart automatically in 60 seconds:
16- Now your computer will logon to its previous healthy state, and you will see this window asking you if you want to restore your files you saved them in previous steps 5, 6. And 7 above, click on Restore my files if you have done so, otherwise you can skip this, by pressing on cancel button:
17- You would see this window where you can browse to the location of your saved files that you want to restore:
C- How to use the System Recovery Disk, and why we need it:
• We learned in step A-7 above how to make a system recovery disk , and we also learned that we need a System recovery Disk to use it to offline recover your PC from the image you made previously, in case your system is so damaged and you are not able to boot it up and logon to your Windows, therefore you are not able to launch the recovery wizard from within Windows, here is how to use this recovery Disk:
1- When you boot your PC with this recovery disk, by default the wizard will assume that you are not able to start your PC, and will try to fix this issue before going into the recovery process, follow steps below:
2- In some cases the wizard fails to automatically fix the Windows start-up:
3- Click on finish to proceed to more recovery options:
4- From the next screen choose System Image Recovery, which is what we want to do:
5- Now you will see similar procedures like you saw in steps B-10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 above, where you learned how to recover your system from an image.
D- How to make a System Recovery USB thumb drive, and why do we need it?
• Many Windows 7 PCs don’t have a CD-Burner, like for example the netbooks, so they need an alternative solution. By doing a system recovery USB thumb drive we solve this problem.
- Study case # 1
- (You already have a System Recovery Disk, and you want to record on USB thumb drive)
1st-method
a- You need a Windows 7 based PC to work with this method, and you need to turn off the UAC (user account control) completely, and reboot your PC before you start with this tutorial, also you need to execute all steps in elevated privileges (Run as administrator).
b- You need to have the System Recovery Disk handy (the one you have made previously in step A-7 above), insert it into the CD-Rom drive, and make sure you know its drive letter.
c- You need a 512 MB or better USB 2.0 or better clean, empty, & healthy thumb drive, attach it to your PC and make sure you know its drive letter.
d- Press WIN key + R the Run command will start, type diskpart and press OK:
e- the cmd will popup and diskpart will start:
f- Type list disk and press Enter key (watch for spaces between letters when you type in all the following steps):
g- Type select disk 1 and press Enter key (disk 1 is my thumb drive, yours maybe different, so watch out for this):
h- Type clean and press Enter key:
i- Type create partition primary and press Enter key:
j- Type select partition 1 and press the Enter key:
k- Type active and press Enter key:
l- Type format fs=ntfs quick and press Enter key:
m- Type assign and press Enter key:
n- Type exit and press Enter key, and close the cmd window:
o- Now copy all the contents of the System Recovery CD to the USB thumb drive:
p- And you are done, you can boot your PC now with the USB you just made and use it for recovery and repair, the files inside the USB thumb drive now should look like this:
2nd-method
a- You need a Windows 7 based PC to work with this method, and you need to turn off the UAC (user account control) completely, and reboot your PC before you start with this tutorial, also you need to execute all steps in elevated privileges (Run as administrator).
b- You need to have the System Recovery Disk handy (the one you have made previously in step A-7 above), insert it into the CD-Rom drive, and make sure you know its drive letter.
c- You need a 512 MB or better USB 2.0 or better clean, empty, & healthy thumb drive, attach it to your PC and make sure you know its drive letter.
d- You need to download the RMPrepUSB tool (the portable version) from HERE, and extract the zipped file to a folder onto your desktop:
e- Open the folder you just downloaded and execute (RMPREPUSB.exe), follow the steps in picture below, and (watch out in the 6th step that you are browsing to the CD-Rom where the system repair disk files are):
f- Press OK on this:
g- And press another OK here:
h- And wait for this to complete:
i- Files will be copied from the CD to the USB thumb drive automatically, do not interrupt:
j- When done you should see this, press OK:
k- Now press the Eject Drive button and then on the confirmation window click on OK, then finally click on Exit to close the program:
• Now you are done, and you can use this USB thumb drive as a System Repair USB for Windows 7, and do recovery stuff with it.
-Study case # 2 –
* You do not have a CD-Burner in your PC, and you need to have a System Repair USB instead for your Windows 7 to do recoveries and backups. Here is what you need and how to do it:
a- You need a Windows 7 based PC to work with this method, and you need to turn off the UAC (user account control) completely, and reboot your PC before you start with this tutorial, also you need to execute all steps in elevated privileges (Run as administrator).
b- You need a 512 MB or better USB 2.0 or better clean, empty, & healthy thumb drive, attach it to your PC and make sure you know its drive letter.
c- You need to show the hidden files in your PC, some users do not know how, so I am going to show them how to do this:
- Go to the C drive in your PC
- Follow steps below to show all system hidden files:
d- Now all hidden system files are shown, I want you to open that Recovery folder in C drive:
e- Also open that folder with lots of numbers and letters you see there:
f- Now you will see 2 files inside that folder, I want you to right click on them and choose COPY, go one step backwards to the root of that folder and PASTE them there, and close all opened folders after done:
g- Now I want you to do exactly the steps you see in D-/study case # 1 / 1st method ( steps from a to n included), BUT DO NOT CLOSE THE cmd Window, we will need it now, this is what you should see after your last step:
h- Now type mkdir n:\boot n:\sources (where n is my thumb drive, so change this letter to the one you actually have) [watch very carefully the spaces between letters when you type on all the following steps] and press the Enter key:
i- Type cd c:\recovery and press Enter key:
j- Type xcopy /H boot.sdi n:\boot and press Enter key (note that n is my thumb drive, change it to yours):
k- Type xcopy /H Winre.wim n:\sources\boot.wim and press Enter key (note that n is my thumb drive, change it to yours):
l- Now just type F and do nothing, do not press any other key, just wait for a few seconds until you are able to type again:
m- Type xcopy /H c:\windows\boot\dvd\pcat\bcd n:\boot (where n is my thumb drive, so change it to yours), and press Enter key:
n- Now type xcopy /H c:\windows\boot\dvd\pcat\en-us\bootfix.bin n:\boot (where n is my thumb drive, so change it to yours), and press Enter key:
o- Type xcopy /H c:\windows\boot\pcat\bootmgr n:\ (where n is my thumb drive, so change it to yours), and press Enter key:
p- Type attrib -r -s -h /s n:\* (where n is my thumb drive, so change it to yours), and press Enter key:
q- Now last thing to do is type exit to close the command window:
r- Now we are done and the USB thumb drive is now ready and bootable, and you can test it if you want, the files inside the thumb drive now should look like this:
E- How to add & remove files from a system image in Windows 7?
• Windows 7 provides a failsafe solution of recovering your entire hard drive, and restoring back all your lost files in case of a catastrophic event happens to your system like total hard failure, while system protection only will allow you to keep a restore point and backup to an existing known good state, we find that system image provides a total perfect and complete solution to recover every bit of your hard drive.
• As you learned earlier how to make a system image and how to recover your PC using that image, and also you’ve learned how to make and use a System Recovery Disk, and how to make and use System Recovery USB, now you will learn how to add or remove files to that system image you made.
• The System Recovery Image is actually a VHD file, means it’s a virtual hard drive, that can be explored as a real hard drive, and as a result you can add or remove files to it, let’s see how:
A- This is the backup folder that contains the system image:
B- If you explore that folder you would see the VHD file I am telling you about:
C- To be able to open that virtual hard drive and add or remove files to it, 1st thing you do is right click on My Computer, and choose Manage:
D- Computer Management will open, from the left side choose Disk Management, and from the Action in the menu bar choose Attach VHD:
E- Browse to the VHD file where your system image folder is:
F- A new hard drive will show in the disk management:
G- And the AutoPlay popup will show exactly as when you attach an external USB hard drive:
H- And if you explore My Computer you will see the newly attached hard drive there:
I- And you can explore that hard drive and start to add or remove files to it:
J- When you are done, you need to turn off that hard drive 1st , from disk management right click on the grey color area of the hard drive, and choose Offline:
K- Next you need to Detach it, so right click again on the same spot you will see the Detach VHD option there, click on it:
L- A confirmation window will popup, with the option to delete that image if you want, but in our case we will leave it unmarked, and just hit that OK button to detach the system image VHD.
=========================================================
My Other Topics & Tutorials HERE
===========================================
Guests of Boot-land can download a PDF version of this tutorial from HERE
===============================================================
Attached Files
Image_your_System_and_Forget_about_Formatting__Period.pdf 2.57MB
499 downloads