How do you backup your Boot Camp partition?

[mac.fly]

Hi, I need a solution to (incrementally?) backup the Boot Camp partition of My Macs
(Lion/Snow Leopard with Windows 7) to external USB drives.
Someone recommended Macrium Reflect Pro (http://www.macrium.com) or
Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite (http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/)
but I don't know if they are really suitable.
It should be possible to restore the COMPLETE Boot Camp partition from such a backup
in case of a hard drive failure (full recovery). Is this possible? Or what do you use?
Thanks for any help!

[balamw]

Winclone is still the best way to do this, even though it has been discontinued by the developer and the version circulating now is a hack which I won't link to.

B

[mac.fly]

Originally Posted by balamw

Winclone is still the best way to do this, even though it has been discontinued by the developer and the version circulating now is a hack which I won't link to.
B

Thanks. I've heard of that, but also that people had problems with that hack under Lion/Win 7. I'm looking for a safe & reliable solution.

[johnhurley]

Originally Posted by mac.fly

Thanks. I've heard of that, but also that people had problems with that hack under Lion/Win 7. I'm looking for a safe & reliable solution.

I use the built in ( under win 7 ) backup utility. Use it to create a system image.

Under maintenance ==> backup and restore ==> create system image.

Works just peachy.

Another option is norton ghost 15 which I have also tested recovering from in a dual boot environment.

[balamw]

Originally Posted by johnhurley

Works just peachy.

Have you tried a restore?

B

[johnhurley]

Originally Posted by balamw

Have you tried a restore?

B

Sorry if the above line in my first post was not clear enough aka "which I have also tested recovering from in a dual boot environment".

Yes I have tested recovery of win 7 bootcamp setups using both the win 7 free system restore and norton ghost.

If using win 7 restore I would proceed like this:

1) delete existing bootcamp partition if any using bootcamp asst
2) re-create bootcamp partition using bootcamp asst ... same size as prior backup was from
3) format win 7 partition during bootcamp setup process as ntfs
4) boot into win 7 installer after bootcamp partition formatting complete
5) recover win 7 system image using win 7 recovery

[valvehead]

Originally Posted by johnhurley

Another option is norton ghost 15 which I have also tested recovering from in a dual boot environment.

Another Ghost 15 user here. I backup two computers (laptop and desktop) over LAN to my home server. I have done full restores on both machines several times, and Ghost has worked quite well.

[mac.fly]

Originally Posted by johnhurley

I have tested recovery of win 7 bootcamp setups using
both the win 7 free system restore and norton ghost.

OK, I could make such a Windows system image.
Windows updates come, things change... -
how often do you refresh that system image backup?

And - in addition to that - what do you use
for your daily (incremental) backups?
(I've read the included Windows backup solution
would interfere with AppleHFS.)

[johnhurley]

Originally Posted by mac.fly

OK, I could make such a Windows system image.
Windows updates come, things change... -
how often do you refresh that system image backup?

And - in addition to that - what do you use
for your daily (incremental) backups?
(I've read the included Windows backup solution
would interfere with AppleHFS.)

I typically back up several times a week getting a new complete system image each time. I have an external disk drive at work and also one at home.

Not using incrementals right now ... for me the current setup is pretty workable.

A lot of people use things like dropbox which keeps a copy of current working files also available on the internet and is free for up to some ( minor ) about of storage ( like 2 gb maybe not quite sure exactly ).

[mac.fly]

Originally Posted by johnhurley

I typically back up several times a week getting a new complete system image each time.
I have an external disk drive at work and also one at home.

My Win 7 partition is 200GB. How much time would a complete system image (via USB) take?

Originally Posted by johnhurley

A lot of people use things like dropbox...

That would be an idea. Another idea would be to copy files manually
to the Mac side and then let Time Machine take care of these files.
The only problem is to find all files which have been modified.
Some applications spread their files over various folders - not only under
"Documents" (eg. /temp /roaming /system, initialization files...).

[queston?]

Originally Posted by johnhurley

Sorry if the above line in my first post was not clear enough aka "which I have also tested recovering from in a dual boot environment".

Yes I have tested recovery of win 7 bootcamp setups using both the win 7 free system restore and norton ghost.

If using win 7 restore I would proceed like this:

1) delete existing bootcamp partition if any using bootcamp asst
2) re-create bootcamp partition using bootcamp asst ... same size as prior backup was from
3) format win 7 partition during bootcamp setup process as ntfs
4) boot into win 7 installer after bootcamp partition formatting complete
5) recover win 7 system image using win 7 recovery

I am a bit confused with the step 4 and 5. My understanding is you've already had a Disk Image and A Recoverable Disk generated by Windows 7 utility. If the Bootcamp partition get contaminated. Your procedure layout is starts from Mac, launches Boot Camp Assistant, recreate bootcamp partition, then are you going to use the Recoverable Disk (CD) in lieu of the Windows 7 installer disk?? Will Boot Camp accept that, because you are still in the Boot Camp environment?

[rscheil]

I know this is a very old thread, but in case someone stumbles upon this while searching for a backup solutions for Boot Camp: Winclone creates an image of the Boot Camp partitions as a backup or for migrating Windows between Mac hardware. Winclone 3 supports Windows 7 and 8 and runs on OS X Mountain Lion, Lion and Snow Leopard. It's recommended that you make file-based backups too, but creating an image with Winclone will keep intact the Windows operating system, programs, settings and files in case of virus infection or replacing the hard drive.

Russell Scheil
Twocanoes Software, Inc.
http://www.twocanoes.com