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Question

ntbackup question

by Mar 13, 2012 2:34PM PDT

Windows XP forum,

Windows XP SP3, Version 2002, Home Edition

I'm trying to use MS Backup & Restore to make a clone
of my hard drive on a flash drive. The hard drive
and flash drive are both NTFS formatted. The HD has
160GB of which only 14.2GB are used. The flash drive
is new and has 32GB.

I want the whole disc backed up including all windows
files so if my disc crashes and I have to get a new
one I can load it with the flash drive and not have
to reload XP.

I run ntbackup.exe, not in wizard mode, and select
advanced, system state, all files and folders and
normal. It seems to run alright but when it's
finished the flash drive has only 6GB used.

Am I wrong to expect the flash drive to show 14.2GB?

Thanks for any reply.
jerryd

Discussion is locked

2 Posts
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Clarification Request
MS Backup & Restore is not available on XP ...
by Edward ODaniel Mar 14, 2012 12:44PM PDT

and the native Windows NT Backup cannot do what you want done. It can back up files and it can back up the System State but you have to re-install XP in order to restore the files and system state.

What you NEED to do in order to do what you have in mind is create an image file of the drive and that will require third party software.

Acronis True Image is probably the best commercial product for what you want but there are freeware drive imaging applications you can try. The IMPORTANT thing to keep in mind is that you want a drive IMAGE and NOT a clone because a clone will require another hard drive equal to the one you are cloning.

Macrium Reflect is a freeware drive imaging program http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

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Answer
Sorry but that plan won't work
by Mar 13, 2012 6:56PM PDT

You cannot clone Windows to anything but another hard drive. You can, however, make a compressed image on a flash drive. The trick becomes how to restore that image as you need a bootable device that will run the recovery software needed. To my knowledge, the Windows backup utility will not do this. Third party....some free....will. It is possible to make a bootable flash drive with imaging software on it that, if it's large enough, will be able to contain the image as well. It's a trick to do this. You're far better off using other media such as another hard drive than using flash drives for this purpose.

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