Backup/Restore Windows 7 Bootcamp ?

I too would like a backup solution, similar to time machine and/or Carbon Copy Cloner.

I too would like an OS X based solution to replace Winclone.

However, from Windows the built-in W7 backup is really the best Microsoft has ever delivered with one of their OSes.

Personally, I still use Winclone on my Macs as well as the built-in backup from Windows Home Server when actually booted to Windows.

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OSMac said:

Could to comment some more on the built in Windows 7 backup.
Can you restore it to a bootcamp partition?

Also you mentioned Windows Home Server,
does it allow restoring to bootcamp partition?

Have you ever had to restore a Win7 backup with either of those methods?

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In both those cases to do a full restore you would have to install Windows first then restore from the backup while already booted to Windows. At that point your Mac is basically a PC that also runs Mac OS. It's not imaging like Winclone.

EDIT: Here is some info from MS on restoring using the built-in backup. (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Restore-files-from-a-backup).

I have not had to do a full restore, but I have pulled individual files out of my WHS backups just fine. However it (of course) requires a Windows Home Server. I use an HP Mediasmart EX490 which stores all my Time Machine and Windows backups.

B

Although WinClone is no longer being actively developed (or inactively developed come to that), it remains the only solution of it's type, and is reported to still more or less work. Of course "more or less" is not a phrase you want to hear in a discussion of backup solutions. In my case I use winclone simply because it is the most straight-forward and convenient option, and free. I have never used it to actually restore a complete image/system, but rather to collect data that I had lost. For that limited purpose, it worked well.

It would be wonderful if someone would swan in and take up winclone development again.

aki said:

Although WinClone is no longer being actively developed (or inactively developed come to that), it remains the only solution of it's type, and is reported to still more or less work.

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The irony here is that the author of Winclone originally stopped development because he said there were plenty of alternatives.

I have seriously considered writing a tool that would reimplement only the W7/SL recommended settings in Winclone (no compression, NTFS only, DMG format) as an Open Source project.

Winclone relies very heavily on ntfsprogs and several other built in functions to do the heavy lifting.

The only sticky bit appears to be gptrefresh which was included as part of Winclone. rEFIt has gptsync which is similar and the command line version of GPT fdisk (sgdisk) could also potentially be used (both of these are already open source).

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aki said:

Although WinClone is no longer being actively developed (or inactively developed come to that), it remains the only solution of it's type, and is reported to still more or less work. Of course "more or less" is not a phrase you want to hear in a discussion of backup solutions. In my case I use winclone simply because it is the most straight-forward and convenient option, and free. I have never used it to actually restore a complete image/system, but rather to collect data that I had lost. For that limited purpose, it worked well.

It would be wonderful if someone would swan in and take up winclone development again.

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For me, Winclone works perfectly. Now granted, I just downloaded it yesterday. But I did make an image of my windows partition, and then restored it to an external drive. Then I booted from that external drive just to test it out. Everything worked great, booted up just fine!

I'm not an expert by any means - the compression stuff still perplexes me. I got 22GB filled up on my windows side, yet the image that was made was only 9GB. However, when I restored it - it went back to it's original size. Don't fully get it. BUT I was looking for a bootable back-up, and winclone has provided me with that. So I'm happy

Mac-key said:

Then I booted from that external drive just to test it out.

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That would be a first! a) Windows generally doesn't like to be booted from external/removable media b) Macs don't generally like booting "legacy" OSes from external media.

Are you absolutely sure that you booted from the external? What kind of drive is it and how is it connected (USB/FireWire).

It may just be that the bootloader you cloned on to the drive still points at "c:" and thus ended up booting the internal copy of the OS even if you select the external

Try this boot to the internal version and make some radical change to the desktop. Then connect the external and boot from that and see if the change is there or not.

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balamw said:

That would be a first! a) Windows generally doesn't like to be booted from external/removable media b) Macs don't generally like booting "legacy" OSes from external media.

Are you absolutely sure that you booted from the external? What kind of drive is it and how is it connected (USB/FireWire).

It may just be that the bootloader you cloned on to the drive still points at "c:" and thus ended up booting the internal copy of the OS even if you select the external

Try this boot to the internal version and make some radical change to the desktop. Then connect the external and boot from that and see if the change is there or not.
B

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I promise you, I booted from an external hard drive. It's a western digital 500gb connected via firewire800.

I restarted my computer - held down the "option key" and I had 3 options - my MAC partition, my internal bootcamp partition and the external drive. I clicked the external drive and it just worked.

EDIT: I do get what you are saying though. I'll definitely have to try out your suggestion to see if I am in fact booting off the external.

Mac-key said:

I promise you, I booted from an external hard drive. It's a western digital 500gb connected via firewire800.

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Just for completeness, is it a WD 500 GB external FW drive or a WD 500 GB drive in a FW enclosure? In either case can you please specify the model number of the drive or enclosure.

It just would be nice to have a solution for all the folks who want to boot Windows, but only from an external. So far, that has remained elusive.

Also, what version of Windows were you using.

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balamw said:

Just for completeness, is it a WD 500 GB external FW drive or a WD 500 GB drive in a FW enclosure? In either case can you please specify the model number of the drive or enclosure.

It just would be nice to have a solution for all the folks who want to boot Windows, but only from an external. So far, that has remained elusive.

Also, what version of Windows were you using.

B

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I'm on windows 7 64-bit. Here's the hard drive:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...ital_WDMT5000TN_500GB_My_Passport_Studio.html