Windows imaging question.

[Arnold72]

I use the windows7 imaging program to create images of my computer and it has worked very well indeed.

Question i have is this.Is there any way of getting windows to keep all of my images.i have 360gb left on my external hard drive.i dont want images being deleted.Any ideas please.?

[Porthos]

If you change the computer name in Windows it will make a new one.

Also

Keeping different versions of system images

If you're saving your system images on an internal or external drive, or on CDs or DVDs, you can keep several versions of system images. On internal and external hard drives, older system images will be deleted when the drive runs out of space. To help conserve disk space, you can manually delete older system images.

Backup images are saved as backup periods in this format at the selected saved to location like the example below.

(backup location)\WindowsImageBackup\(computer name)\Backup (year-month-day) (time-hhmmss)

For example, if your computer name is Computer, your backup image location is on hard disk or partition (network or local) D: , and you backed up on 11/22/2008 at 1:00:50 PM (It uses 24 hour time), then that backup image would be located in the folder below.

D:\WindowsImageBackup\Computer\Backup 2008-11-22 130050

If you're saving your system images in a network location, you can only keep the most current system image for each computer. If you have an existing system image for a computer and are creating a new one for the same computer, the new system image will overwrite the existing one.

If you want to keep multiple system image versions on the same drive or partition, then you can then do the steps below before creating a new system image to be able to keep them all together.

1.

Navigate to the location of where you saved the created system image that you want to keep before creating a new system image. (see above)

2.

Right click on the

WindowsImageBackup

folder and click on

Rename

.

3.

Rename it to something like

WindowsImageBackup-Copy-1

and press enter.

NOTE:

This way you can just easily change the

1

an the end of the name to 2, 3, 4, etc... for each new system image that you make a copy of

.

4.

You now have a different image version that you can leave at this location.

NOTE:

• If you
  renamed
  a
  WindowsImageBackup
  folder that you want to restore, then you must rename the current
  WindowsImageBackup
  folder, then rename the image you want back to
  WindowsImageBackup
  in order to be able to restore it.
  
  

Warning

• Windows 7 can only include drives formatted with the NTFS file system in the system image.
  
• Windows 7 cannot include the partition or drive that you are saving the backup image to in the image.
  
• All "system" or "boot" drives/partitions are included in the system image by default, so you will not be able to save the system image to a system or boot drive/partition.
  
• If you are saving the system image to a HDD or partition, then you can only save the system image on a separate hard drive (recommended) or partition than what Windows 7 is installed on. It cannot be saved to the C: drive.
  
• Only the Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions can backup to a network location.
  
• You cannot restore a 64-bit Windows 7 backup image on a 32-bit system.
  
• You cannot restore a 64-bit Windows 7 backup image with a 32 bit Windows 7 installation DVD or recovery partition, or the other way around. You must use the same 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7 installation DVD or recovery partition as the backup image is.
  
• When restoring a system image from a dynamic volume, the disks on your computer cannot be formatted to match the layout of the disks on the backup. To have full functionality, select a volume (partition) on a basic disk as your backup location instead.
  
• I would recommend to create a system image on a separate HDD, or a separate partition on a separate HDD, for the best reliability to restore from it. CDs or DVDs are just not as reliable. A scratch one just one of them could ruin the whole image.
  

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html?filter[2]=Backup%20Restore

[Arnold72]

A very big thank you porthos.

Much appreciated.