MFR IT Technical Guides

Effective date: 28/01/2015 Page 1 of 33

MFR  IT  Technical  Guides  

Windows  7  Backup  and  Recovery  

Table of Contents

1   Glossary  ...  3  

2   Backup  Strategy  ...  4  

3   Windows  Backup  Options  ...  5  

3.1   Windows  Backup  ...  5  

3.2   Windows  System  Image  Backup  ...  10  

3.3   Windows  System  Protection  ...  15  

3.4   Creating  a  System  repair  disc  ...  19  

4   Restoring  files  from  Backup  ...  20  

5   System  Restore  -­‐  Restoring  Windows  7  with  a  System  Image  backup  ...  24  

5.1   Restoring  Windows  7  on  a  functioning  computer  ...  24  

5.2   Restoring  Windows  7  on  an  inaccessible  machine  ...  27  

6   System  Rebuild  –  Complete  rebuild  of  a  Windows  7  machine  ...  30  

7   Cloud  Options  ...  32  

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1 Glossary

Drive A disk on a computer, either physical, or virtual, (a physical disk may contain multiple virtual drives or volumes

Volume A logical drive that appears as a single accessible storage area, place to store system and/or data System Image An exact copy of a drive, useful in recovery to replace a faulty or missing

System Restore Point A point-in-time where the system, (i.e. Windows) has taken a copy of the configuration settings and files necessary to run Windows that you can revert the system back to

Cloud Backup Backup to places located on the Internet

GB GigaByte, a computer sizing unit that denotes an amount of memory, (1GB = 1000MB, MegaByte) Wizard A part of an application, (generally on install), that guides the user through setting configurations for

the application

NTFS New Technology File System – Microsoft’s proprietary File System, providing a stable and secure platform for Windows to be installed onto

File System Is used to control how data is stored and retrieved. Every hard disk requires a file system that acts like a cataloguing system for all the data stored on it

Hardware Refers to any physical used or connected to a computer system; Hard Disks, CPU, etc.

Software Refers to the non-tangible parts of a computer system; Operating System, Applications, etc.

CPU Central Processing Unit – carries out the instructions directed to it by the Operating System and other applications

Boot The term used for a computer starting up

NAS Network Attached Storage – Device with multiple hard disk for storage and redundancy, (one disk

can fail without impact to data – disk can then be replaced to provide redundancy again)

2 Backup Strategy

Why?  –  To  protect  your  computer,  and  most  importantly,  your  Data,  from  corruption,  loss,   or  deletion  you  need  to  have  a  backup  strategy  in  place.  

It is very important to always have a current backup of your system and files so that in the event of disk failure;

corruption of the O.S.; loss of your PC, (more prone to happen with laptops); or some other issue that renders your system unrecoverable, you can restore from a valid backup and get everything back.

Windows 7 comes with three standard types of backup;

1. Windows Backup – that can back up all of your data on the system, and allow you to restore individual files from it, in the event of corruption or issues.

2. System Image backup – which will create an image of all the system and application files, and provides a restore of the entire system, including all programs, settings, and files. This will create a single backup file.

You cannot select individual files to restore with this type of backup.

3. System Protection, (System Restore Point) – this tool allows you to set aside a certain amount of hard- disk space to create older copies of system settings and files to restore from if necessary.

For the first two options it’s best to purchase an external hard disk drive, (HDD), that you can use as a backup drive. I recommend a 2.5 inch size drive that uses USB power, (i.e. it doesn’t require a separate power cable to run). WD and Seagate do good cheap drives and you can find these in most electrical goods stores, or computer wholesalers.

(The 3.5 inch drives are cheaper but larger, weigh 4 to 5 times as much, and often have separate power required).

Option 3 uses a set amount of hard disk space on each drive that you set it up for – see section 2.3 for more details.

Other backup options are now available with Cloud Backup solutions that allow you to select file and folders to

replicate to the Cloud, (internet storage repositories), from your computer that you can then retrieve whenever and

wherever you like.

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3 Windows Backup Options 3.1 Windows Backup

Why?  –  So  you  can  recover  your  data  in  the  event  of  a  system,  user,  hardware,  or   environmental  issue.  

• To access Windows Backup in Windows 7 simply click “Start” and type “backup”. Then select “Backup and Restore” from the items displayed.

• Alternatively, open

“Control Panel” and select “Backup your computer”.

• You will see the

following screen on first opening.

• Here click on “Set up backup”

• You will be prompted for the administrator’s credentials, or if logged on as Admin a prompt to confirm the action.

• Whilst the Windows Backup wizard starts, insert you backup device – e.g. external HDD to save your backups to.

• It should be visible in the “Computer”

window.

• Here I have a backup

drive E: called Backup

with capacity of 160GB.