Cloning or Imaging Windows 7

Shinnen

Shinnen

Member
I'm trying to decide what route to take in protecting my installation.
I've just switched to Windows 7 (from XP) and am wondering what is best.
I am not going to pay for whatever software I use, which seriously limits my options;
and several of the options I've used in the past will not work with my current setup (specifically
cloning a large drive to a smaller one). I'm not too familiar with imaging, so this might be an option.
I used to use XXClone, but the free version will not work on this system. Clonezilla (and HDClone) also refuses to clone. (I think because of size.) So, I'm wondering what would be best. I would like to do, whatever I do, to a separate drive, for obvious reasons.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
....... john
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Macrium reflect is free and supposedly works well. Most people however just keep important stuff on an external drive.
 
mistersprinkles

mistersprinkles

Active Member
... Are you trying to clone a larger drive to a smaller one wherein the written capacity of the large drive exceeds the storage capacity of the smaller one? Cuzz, that don't work.
 
Shinnen

Shinnen

Member
Hi,
Yes, I've heard of Macrium, and may give it a try. I want to clone, or image, to a separate drive, because I don't want to have to repeat the customizations necessary after reinstalling my OS. Actually, reinstalling is not even an option, as I don't have an installation disk, since the computer was given to me. Ideally, I'd like to pop in the clone, reclone it, and hit the road running.
The drives are not close in size; but the target drive, I want to use, is 37.0 gigs, and the used space on my current drive is 34.6 gigs. (The entire drive is 119 gigs.)
....... john
 
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Shinnen said:
The drives are not close in size; but the target drive, I want to use, is 37.0 gigs, and the used space on my current drive is 34.6 gigs. (The entire drive is 119 gigs.)
Click to expand...
Way too small. Are you saying that you are trying to use a 40gb hard drive? Are you running IDE or SATA drives?
 
Shinnen

Shinnen

Member
"Not sure I follow you." I may have jumped to the wrong conclusion here. The download is 4 gigs, which I thought would be too small to be a Windows 7 setup. That might be wrong. However, it strikes me odd that Microsoft would give people their OS, if they provide them with an installation key? Have you tried this?
I'm saying that I'm trying to clone/image a 119 gig drive containing a 34.6 gig OS partition to a 37 gig hard drive. They are both SATA.
...... john
 
mistersprinkles

mistersprinkles

Active Member
Your destination drive is too small as far as the cloning goes. As far as downloading windows from the Internet yes it is legitimate I have done it hundreds of times while working in the shop as a computer technician. You can download Windows 7, eight, and 10. I don't see why you think that this is an odd thing for Microsoft to do as they don't give you the operating system for free. After all, the operating system is next to useless without a key which u would you have to purchase or provide a key from the previous installation that you had. That's why I was telling you to extract your key from the operating system if you did not already have it written down somewhere. As far as the download only being 4 GB, file compression is a wonderful thing.
 
MisterEd

MisterEd

Member
mistersprinkles said:
That's what I said.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows7

^click here
Click to expand...
I checked out that site and https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

It verified my key but for the Product language option it only gave me "Serbian Latin" and "Slovenian". Whats up with that?

For example for Windows 7 Ultimate with SP1 I could download the following files if I chose Serbian Latin:
Win7_Ult_SP1_SerbianLatin_x32.iso
Win7_Ult_SP1_SerbianLatin_x64.iso
Note Windows 7 Ultimate comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
 
MisterEd

MisterEd

Member
Shinnen said:
"Not sure I follow you." I may have jumped to the wrong conclusion here. The download is 4 gigs, which I thought would be too small to be a Windows 7 setup. That might be wrong. However, it strikes me odd that Microsoft would give people their OS, if they provide them with an installation key? Have you tried this?
I'm saying that I'm trying to clone/image a 119 gig drive containing a 34.6 gig OS partition to a 37 gig hard drive. They are both SATA.
...... john
Click to expand...
I have the ISOs for Windows 7. Here are the files I have:
Windows 7 Home Premium
win7hp32.iso 2.32 GB
win7hp64.iso 3.00 GB
Windows 7 Ultimate
win7ult32.iso 2.33 GB
win7ult64.iso 3.00 GB
There are also ISO images that contain both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. There sizes are probably in the 5-6GB range.

One thing that Microsoft didn't tell people was that it wasn't necessary to get the full version. Even the upgrade versions would do a clean install without complaining about no previous operating system.

Cloning a drive means cloning the entire drive. However The size of the image only needs to be as big as what is used. For example if 50GB is used out of 100GB then the image only needs to be a maximum of 50GB. It could be smaller if compression is used.

You need more than the OS partition. You need the Users folder plus several other folders. It is better to image the whole drive to make sure you get everything.
 
Jiniix

Jiniix

Well-Known Member
Although I'm not sure there's fully functional trials, Symantec Ghost and Acronis True Image are by far the best imaging softwares I've ever used.

@MisterEd Might be a bit tedious, but the Ultimate version allows for changing the display language of Windows. Pro and below can only change keyboard layout and locales. So why it would suggest Serbia for an Alabama resident is beyond me, but you can at least activate and change it to english :) Might be your key, if you bought it online.

This site used to be a hosting partner for Microsoft, before they removed 7/8.1 ISO from their site. Has maaany ISOs: http://mirror.corenoc.de/digitalrivercontent.net/
 
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