windows disk Images

start > search > back up > create a system image > ...

• reference: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/

you can do this online. PS: can i do it from the commandline?

restore possible without repairdisk (or install disk)?

yes, if win7 is installed then you can restore Using the Advanced Boot Option. Use this option if you do not have the installation disk or system repair disk. To use this option, restart your computer using the computer's power button. Next, repeatedly press F8 to gain access to the Advanced Boot options of Windows 7 example (option3). Tiny issues: you need to have a real local administrator user defined (edit local users).

move your physical windows install to a virtual environment?

possible?

It seems that people have most success with virtualbox whan starting from a windows image backup.

• example: http://superuser.com/questions/376264/how-can-i-migrate-a-windows-7-system-image-into-a-virtualbox-vm

Tip: restore to virtual works when allocating a virtual disk that is larger than the full disk you backed-up, not only larger than the used space!

Other tools?

• sysinternals Disk2vhd
• VMware vCenter Converter
• WBADMIN START BACKUP -backupTarget:\\server\tmp\ -include:C: -quiet >> C:\temp\mydailybackupLog.txt

references

• http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/
• windows rescue USB stick - example 1
• windows rescue USB stick - example 2

notes:

• Latitude E6430 - begentw10127074 - LITEONIT LCT-128M3S - capacity 118GB
• hardware ids = IDE\DiskLITEONIT_LCT-128M3S_____________________VQDC____
• device class guid, driver key = {4d36e967-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\0000