Looking for software program to back up whole system
By cableman67
@cableman67 (872)
United States
February 9, 2012 7:47am CST
I have been looking for one of those programs that takes an image of your hard drive and copies it to a CD, ,DVD, flash drive or even another hard drive but most of the ones I have found are crap.
Anyone know a good one? I just want to back up my system exactly like it is to a DVD so if I get a bad virus or something I can't fix I can just re-install my system and be back to normal in no time.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
1 person likes this
4 responses
@LaDeBoheme (2004)
• United States
9 Feb 12
One of the best things about Windows 7 is that it added that feature which digidogo mentioned.
Acronis usually offers its older versions for free. Do a search.
I've always used Acronis, even its free versions work very well. With Win 7, I was pleasantly surprised to find a similar program. Both let you burn a boot-up CD (which, of course, you will need if your entire system crashes). Best to back up to an ext HD since computer files can get very, VERY large.
@cableman67 (872)
• United States
10 Feb 12
Thanks for all the responses and they were good but I want one that will automatically format the new hard drive when copying and I want to create a backup on either DVD, flash drive, or another hard drive.
My main objective is to create a backup so if something happens I can perfectly restore. I found a good free version but when I installed it asked for serial #
Now I forgot the name of it.
I don't think I want to use Acronis or Win 7 but I might look into Acronis anyway.
Any other advice is welocme. I really want a professional version, not a free one with limited functions.
@cableman67 (872)
• United States
12 Feb 12
Many thanks, I have picked Acronis and I have yet to try it but I expect good results from the remarks I have read about it.
@owlwings (43914)
• Cambridge, England
9 Feb 12
It seems to me that, apart from Norton Ghost and Acronis, which you have to buy (though they are not that expensive, considering the time and data loss you might incur), there are very few free offerings which work very well at all.
This one, however, might just be what you need: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
I found it through this blog, which gives a brief review, apparently based on experience of using it: http://www.thefreewarejunkie.com/2008/06/make-complete-disk-image-macrium.html
@victorkrish (1614)
• Malaysia
10 Feb 12
Norton Ghost is one of the good software to protect your applications, back up your files and folder and can recovering back even with failure system. Ghost can backup to a hard drive and other device types.
I am use Norton ghost to create images of my system to cd for backup my data and folders. It is very easy in creating a boot cd is easy. When you create the cd, tell Ghost you want it to be bootable put your boot floppy in the A drive and ghost does all the work.
The only thing you have to do is change your BIOS configuration. so you boot from the CD. Your computer will boot with mouse support and the standard ghost program appears. I think this just instructions but i dunno you can do it your own anyway best of Luck.
@cableman67 (872)
• United States
10 Feb 12
Thanks, I downloaded Acronis but I don't like Norton anymore.
![](/Content/images/loading.gif)