not enough room for a system image

[janetko...@gmail.com]

I have a 298G external hard drive to send my backups (from my PC, Windows 7). My regular backups did not include a system image and I noticed that the date on my last system image was 2014. So I deleted that one(probably a bad idea) and tried to create a new one. The data files back up OK but my PC tells me that there is not enough room to create a system image.  How much room do I need? I have 69G data backup, 1G other files and 231G of free space.  How can I work out how much space I need and can I create it or do I need a larger external drive? Do I need a system image if I have data backup and a windows 7 installation disc.

[EuroSCUG Seniors]

Hi Janet.  My apologies for not seeing this sooner. I will address your questions back to front!

You have data backed up and your original Windows 7 disk, in the event of a failure, you would also need any software disks that you had used, eg Office.

A system image is a good idea, although I have not been able to restore an image using the Microsoft imaging function. I use a 3rd party imaging application called Easus Todo Backup.

It appears that there is plenty of room on your USB hard disk, however, you need to check what file system it is formatted to.  If it is FAT, that format can only hold files up to 4GB, which might be what your backup is complaining about, so you would need to get a new disk.  If it is formatted NTFS, I don't see what the problem is.  To see what the format is, right click on the disk in Windows Explorer and choose Properties.

[janetko...@gmail.com]

Hi. thanks for replying. I couldn't see my post anywhere so I thought it disappeared.  My USB drive is NTFS. I spoke to David Num at the local meeting and he told me he used Aomei back upper.  So I downloaded this and the backup of data and system image worked.  Should I turn off windows update or keep the data updates just in case. janet

[EuroSCUG Seniors]

Hi Janet

Definitely keep Windows update turned on.
Definitely keep your data backups - sometimes recovering a disk image fails.

I used to use Aomei backupper, but on a couple of occasions had trouble restoring an image it created.  That's why I switched to Easus ToDo Backup.