I really think creating a system image is a good idea, but every time I try to do it, I am confused by the instructions. Recently, my Dell Windows 7 system hiccuped, and apparently recovered, but that has stimulated me to try again.
I have read Fred Langa’s “Build a complete Windows 7 safety net” posted at:
http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/build-a-complete-windows-7-safety-net/
and have even tried it a couple of times, but I’m still confused both by the instructions and the results. My questions are listed below. If they have already been answered, please direct me to the correct location.
1. Fred’s article says, “A system image is…an exact digital copy…of your hard drive.” But then Fred describes a three step process where the first step is to make a DATA backup, NOT a system image. Why is that? If I want a system image, can I just make that immediately without having to make the data backup first? And doesn’t the system image INCLUDE the data? If so, why spend time making an initial data backup at all?
2. The third step in Fred’s process describes creating a bootable System Recovery Disk. But this process does not work on any of the three Dell Windows 7 PC’s that I have. On each PC, Windows 7 reports the successful creation of the System Recovery Disk, but the created disk will not boot, failing with an error code of
4001100200001012. I have tried this many times. This problem is widely reported on many websites with various solutions proposed, but no real explanation of why this problem exists.
3. The situation described in the previous paragraph obviously shakes my confidence that these procedures actually work. Since this is a backup procedure, it has to work the first time it is needed if it is to be effective. Consequently, a related question is: is it possible to test the system image created (hopefully) in step 1 to see if it works, without doing a destructive reload of the entire original disk ? If this is NOT possible, then how do I know that the system image is correctly made and usable?
Thanks in advance for any comments and direction.