How do I make backup of my windows partition?

How do I make backup of my windows partition?

Okay first of all you need to identify your requirements. What kind of backup you want to have. In my case I had to backup the whole windows partition in order to get ride of reinstall the windows and all the applications.

My sister went to London to study while I was studying in Germany. I bought a Toshiba Satellite A200(400 can’t remember) as a gift as she might need it for her study.

I knew she will call me back in 2 days and say laptop is not working, virus is there bla bla all those typical girls technical words ;)) so I decided to backup her windows that she can recover it at any point of system crash.

The laptop has 500Gb HDD and I partitioned the drive into 3 drive using

"Paragon Hard Disk Manager" The software is very simple and handy and you can make copy of partitions.

First partition with original windows = 100GB (named :  WinXp)

Second partition with an additional windows = 20GB (Backup Xp)

Third partition for backup and other stuffs = 380 GB (Data)

 

As I previously  mentioned the first primary partition with original windows has 100GB space as I believed she wont use more than this.

Followed by a 20GB HDD  and I installed the same windows XP again on this HDD (from the original CD i got with the laptop)

After I installed the new windows I had new entry when I start the laptop where I can choose which windows I want to boot to.

I have customized the boot entry as following:

My computer –> properties –> Advance settings – > Start up and recovery –> edit boot.ini

I have changed the name between “ “ into

1: backup windows

2:Windows xp – use this

just to tell my blond sister which one to select

 

I went a step further and reduced the selection time from 30 seconds to 10 seconds and windows xp – use this as default operating system. just to make sure my sister is not thinking too much which one to start.

 

I logged into the 100GB windows and installed MS office, Antivirus, real VNC, Photoshop, PDF, flash player and all those craps she liked to have.

Checked if all the drivers are installed (mostly everything was ok as its brand new..)

 

Now I restarted the computer and logged back into backup windows 20GB.

Installed the “paragon hard disk manager” and

Created a copy of my 100 GB hard drive and saved it into the third hard drive (Data)

PS: while backing up the whole Drive will be backed up but compressed, in this way the free space will not be taken in account but the HDD sector details are saved.

It means If you backup 100GB hard drive and compress it and the Drive has 6GB of data.  Your backup file will only be 6GB or max 7GB:

NOTE: IF you create backup of 100GB HDD you also required 100GB to decompress the backup. the backup files are 6GB does not means you can decompress it into a 10GB Hard drive

Its because the backup data also contains details of the HDD size and the sector details.

 

finally opened notepad and wrote how to restore the backup files to the 100GB drive which is very simple in paragon partition manager.

Restore backup files, select drive 100GB, press ok and process

Saved this as README.txt on desktop so my sis can read this and restore her windows by herself.

 

Ohh yea.. I forgot to mention something!!

In her original windows 100GB: i have changed the user profile folder to the third drive (DATA) and the third drive has following structure

E:\

Backup: folder contains the backup files

Profiles: folder contains the userprofile folder inlcuding, document, desktop, and all those folders"

 

This is good cause all you files are saved in the third partition and in case of any crash she does not have to care about my documents and desktop folders..

(usually girls fills their desktop with tones of files they use.. they only know one location” DESKTOP ) its better if you change the userprofile folder to an safe place.

 

As I waited she called me from England after two months. “ my pc is not working, its soo slow i think I have virus can you please fix it?”

 

just told her to select the “backup xp”  and boot the backup windows and read the readme.txt

I expected she will love me for the hard work and say something.. all I received

why don’t you come over and fix it? I don’t know how to open your paragon hard disk manager.

 

I was like o.O

you can’t expect more than this from blond sisters   this is usual. I had to install team viewer and do the restore by my self.

 

Still its a very good method to backup your full windows environment. I didn’t had to work much just opened the Paragon and restored the 100GB hdd and she was able to use her windows as before..

this time I installed teamviewer in backup-xp and saved the teamviewer ID in my buddy list

for next time……

 

I love my sisters except they are blond and non IT skilled

 

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