Windows 8 Pro System Image Backup.

[BCHOWDHURY]

How can I backup Windows 8 Pro system image to a pen drive? Thanks in advance. All replies are much appreciated.

[4wd]

Any decent free backup/imaging software should be able to use a flash drive as a destination, eg. Paragon, AOMEI, etc.

Otherwise, just copy the image files to the flash drive after doing the backup.

Give AOMEI Backupper a go.

Or do you mean you want to create a system image on the flash drive that you can boot off, (eg. a VHD) ?

[BCHOWDHURY]

Thanks for the reply 4wd. What I want to do is create a system image backup of C: drive. I can easily backup to an external hard drive. When I choose my SanDisk 32 GB pen drive, I get the error message, "The drive is not a valid backup location." My C: partition occupies a mere 20 GB while the pen drive has 28 GB free space.

[4wd]

Flash drives come default formatted with the FAT32 filesystem for maximum compatibility between OS' - maximum file size is 4GB.

To store your image, you need to tell your backup program to split into 4GB parts, (some will do it anyway and you tell them otherwise), or format the flash drive as NTFS.

What filesystem is your flash drive using and what backup program are you using ?

[BCHOWDHURY]

I have no third party backup software. Files system is FAT32.

[MilesAhead]

I recommend Macrium Reflect Free.

It will create a bootable USB using WinPE that supports UEFI and secure boot.  Also it supports GPT.  When you start it the first time you'll want to create the rescue media(the bootable USB.)  Then for the actual backup just click on the top left where it says "create a backup image that can restore Windows."  This will select all the hidden GPT partitions you need as well as the C: system partition.  If you have a factory restore partition and don't care about backing that up, uncheck it(on my Laptop it's about 10 GB.)

If the target is the USB each file of the backup set will be max 4 GB.  If the target is an NTFS partition it will make one large image file.  It does it automatically.  Nothing to click.

Once you are done I recommend you boot the USB to make sure you can see the Windows partition and the backup image set on the USB or other drive.  If so you should be golden.  The advantage of WinPE is it can use the native Windows drivers.  The paid version automatically includes all needed drivers.  But if you can boot and see all media you should be fine.  If you need to add a Windows driver the Macrium forum likely has details how to load it into the WinPE image.

Edit: My Laptop has W 8.0 preloaded and the Macrium setup and backup was smooth.  Nothing to jury rig.

[Vurbal]

I haven't tried it on Win8 yet, but for Win7 I swear by EasUS Todo Backup. You can (and definitely should) create a boot disk, using Linux, but it can also put the files on your hard drive and add an additional boot loader. That way you can boot to it without separate media.

It's also the fastest system backup program I've ever used. It's even lightning fast at the highest compression setting. That's more of an added bonus than anything since there's probably no real gain past standard compression.

I've also tried out Macrium when I was looking for a replacement for Acronis True Image. It wasn't as quick as Todo Backup, but configuration was quite a bit more straight forward and simple. I would have no problem recommending either program honestly.

I would definitely stay away from Acronis though. True Image 9 was one of the best pieces of software I've ever owned. For $40 it was certainly the best value. Since then they've added a bunch of bells and whistles which would be great except for the fact they've broken the crap out of the whole program in the process.

[Carol Haynes]

Reformat your flash drive to NTFS and use System Image in Windows 8 control panel. Should work - though it may not recognise the flash drive.

If it doesn't then shrink a hard disk partition and make a big enough partition to make a backup and then copy the contents to the flash drive after the backup

[tomos]

I haven't tried it on Win8 yet, but for Win7 I swear by EasUS Todo Backup.

-Vurbal (July 18, 2014, 05:40 AM)

EaseUS (you're not the only one here spelling it ^that way :-) )
Curt reports this offer:
free Softmaker suite (more spelling fun: they call it 'suit') with "EaseUS Todo Backup Workstation" @ $39
EaseUS & SoftMaker Office

[MilesAhead]

I used EaseUS free on Windows 7.  It worked fine.  But with Windows 8 unless you have reset things to legacy mode, you need to be sure the imaging program and restore media supports GPT, secure boot, and UEFI.

Macrium does it by default.  Also the restore media supports secure boot.  You don't have to change any of the BIOS defaults.  I haven't looked into how EaseUS has kept up.  A regular poster on W8 forums told me Macrium just does it out of the box.

The only complaint I have with GPT and all the rest of it is the backup images are larger.  I used to be able to back up my C: on W7 for about 20 GB of image file.  Now it comes in at around 30 GB.  Also instead of 20 minutes it takes more like 40(part of that being this is a Laptop and the HD is slower.)

Edit: from looking on their features chart the Free EaseUS ToDo does support GPT etc..