Back up the entire disk. How to backup a hard drive with all data and Windows? Where to download Acronis True Image

When replacing a faulty hard drive a bootable backup copy will be your salvation. To save data, your own Windows and “smart” tools are enough free programs. CHIP will show you how to create a bootable copy of your hard drive using Windows and EaseUs Disk Copy. A bootable copy of your hard drive has many advantages: if the system partition stops functioning, you will not need to reinstall the operating system and applications. Simply replace the failed media, connect the copy as a new drive, and continue working. Unlike conventional backups, our solution EaseUs Disk Copy (easeus.com) does not work with archived files, but with an exact duplicate, in which you can view all folders and files via Windows Explorer. For this option, you will need a target disk no smaller than the system partition itself, which can hit the pockets of owners of inexpensive computers who have one hard drive for all purposes. To save space, you can save the system by creating an image using Windows. However, this option has its limitations: you will need a special rescue disk to boot from the image. Both solutions are not labor-intensive - in a couple of clicks you will create a clone of your system partition.

First we clean, then we copy

On the following pages we will show you step by step how to quickly copy HDD and then restore it. However, it makes sense to do this only with Windows partition, freed from “junk”, errors and viruses. Before performing a task, remove all digital junk and unnecessary programs. Thoroughly scan the disk for viruses, and then defragment it, as well as check for physical errors. You will find additional information on this topic in the article “We speed up the “seven” by half” from CHIP No. 3 2013. Thanks to this cleaning, you will reduce the size of the system partition, and the copy will work faster.

Clean OS image using Windows utilities

Own Windows tool to create an image of the entire system after a hard drive failure will restore your OS without reinstalling.

1 LAUNCH THE BACKUP WIZARD If XP users can save their entire system only using separate programs, often paid (for example, Paragon Drive Backup), then Windows owners 7 receive a built-in service for these purposes. It is launched via the Start | Control Panel | System and Security | Archiving and recovery | Creating a system image."

2 SELECT THE TARGET DISK At this point, the wizard will ask you to specify the target disk. To create a backup copy, the best option is to select an external USB drive, which can be specified from the “On hard drive” list. The "On DVD" option no longer makes sense in the terabyte era. If your computer is turned on local network, you can also post backup copy on the server provided for this purpose.

3 ARCHIVING THE WHOLE SYSTEM If your hard drive is divided into several partitions, you must choose which one to create a copy of. The wizard then tells you how much free space is required for this. When archiving, Windows compresses data by approximately half. On our test computer, a 44.8 GB data array was estimated to require 35.19 GB of free space. In the next step, the wizard will display the selected drives. If everything is correct, click on the “Archive” button. While the backup is running, you can continue to use your computer as usual. The process took us about forty minutes.

4 CREATE A WINDOWS RECOVERY DISK Immediately after archiving, the wizard will prompt you to create system recovery media. Click "Yes" and insert a blank CD or DVD into the drive. Then click on the “Create Disk” button - Windows will begin recording all necessary files to the "blank".

5 RESURRECTING THE OS Now you need to test the result and make sure that, if necessary, system recovery will go smoothly. This can be done either in Windows or using a rescue disk. Restart your computer and in the Start menu type keyword"recovery". Click on the line with the result, then select “Advanced recovery methods | Use the system image you created earlier to restore your computer." The wizard will prompt you to create a backup copy of all data added after creating the OS image. To do this, click on the “Archive” button. If you do not want to archive these files, you can skip this step by clicking on the appropriate button. In both cases, you will need to restart your computer. From this point on, further actions with the rescue disk are absolutely the same. In the wizard, select the “Use the latest available system image” option. Click OK on a few more dialog boxes, and then click Finish.

Bootable copy using EasyUS Disk Copy

Unlike the system image created by Windows, EaseUS Disk Copy creates an identical, bootable duplicate of your hard drive.

1 COPY THE PROGRAM TO A USB DRIVE OR CD While Windows is running, it protects important system areas. In this case, the EaseUS Disk Copy program cannot copy them, so you should burn it to a flash drive or CD, and then start the computer from this drive. Immediately after calling the application, select the desired media and click on “Proceed”. On our SanDisk flash drive, this utility took up 35 MB.

2 RESTART THE COMPUTER The copying program writes the Syslinux bootloader to a USB stick or blank CD. After this, restart your computer and use the “F2” or “Delete” key to enter the BIOS. Set your USB or DVD drive here as "First" Boot Device" and save the changes made by pressing the "F10" key. After rebooting the PC from the removable media, according to the manufacturer, you should see the Syslinux screen, where you need to select “Start Disk Copy 2.3”. On our test system, however, an XP-style wizard immediately appeared. In its window, click on “Next”.

3 SELECT COPY TYPE If your computer only has one large system drive that is not divided into additional partitions, select the “Disk Copy” option in the wizard to copy the entire hard drive to another drive. If you have several partitions, use the “Partition Copy” option and specify the system one.

4 INDICATING THE SOURCE AND PURPOSE Now in the wizard you should select the disk or partition that will be copied. After clicking on the “Next” button, you will be able to select the target drive. If it is larger than the source, the program will indicate this. You can avoid the error message by creating a new partition on the destination disk that is the same size as the source disk before copying. To do this, however, you need to go to Windows interface and do this, for example, in the “Computer Management | Hard drive management." The target disk must be no smaller than the source disk, otherwise an exact copy cannot be created.

5 COPYING THE DISC In the next step, EaseUS Disk Copy will display general information about the upcoming copying. If the destination disk is larger, you will see all source partitions, and the remaining space on the media will be marked as unused (“Unallocated”). If all the data is correct, activate the “Quiet mode”, then click on “Proceed” and click on the “OK” button of the warning window to start copying the disk. As a result, you will receive a physically exact duplicate of the original media, including its boot sectors.

6 RESTORING THE SYSTEM After replacing the hard drive, start the computer from a copy and use EaseUS Disk Copy to transfer the working system to the new media.

Backing up your operating system will allow you to quickly restore the functionality of your computer and all installed programs in case of failure in Windows work or infecting your computer with viruses.

1. What you need for backup

In order to create a reliable copy of the system, you need to set up your computer from scratch, make a complete image of the “C” drive and the boot partition (if any). This can be done using special program Reserve copy. In this article we will look at the Acronis True Image program.

To successfully back up your system and then quickly restore it, you need to follow a few simple conditions.

User files should not be stored on the C drive, otherwise they will be lost when the system is restored. Please note that files on the “Desktop” and in user folders such as “My Documents”, etc. physically located on drive "C". Therefore, store all your files on another partition, such as the “D” drive.

Do not install games on the “C” drive, as they take up a very large amount of space, which will make backing up and restoring the system difficult. Install games on another partition, for example on drive “D”.

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2. Where to download Acronis True Image

Acronis True Image is one of best programs Reserve copy. Its only drawback is that it is paid. But you can download a free one trial version. With its help, you can make system backups and bootable media for restoring backups within 30 days. After 30 days, only restoring the system from previously created backups and creating bootable media will be available.

3. Acronis True Image system requirements

For Acronis True Image to work successfully, it is desirable that the computer meets the following requirements:

Processor with a frequency of 1 GHz or more
Volume random access memory from 1 GB
Free disk space from 1.5 GB
Screen resolution from 1152×720
Availability of a CD/DVD drive or flash drive (for creating bootable media)
Keyboard and mouse with PS/2 connector (for older PCs)
Administrator rights (for working under Windows)

You can try to use the program even if your computer does not meet one or more of the requirements.

4. Supported operating systems

Acronis True Image supports the following versions of Windows:

Windows XP SP3
Windows 7 SP1 (all editions)
Windows 8 (all editions)
Windows 8.1 (all editions)
Windows 10
Windows Home Server 2011

To work from Windows, all 32/64-bit versions are supported, except Windows XP x64. When working from bootable media, you can create and restore backup copies of partitions with any version of Windows and Linux.

5. Supported storage media

Acronis True Image can back up partitions located on the following media:

Hard drives (HDD)
Flash drives (USB)
Memory cards (SD, MicroSD, etc.)

Supports backup of partitions in FAT16, FAT32, NTFS (for Windows), Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, ReiserFS, SWAP (for Linux). To back up partitions of other formats and data from damaged or deleted partitions, you can use copying the entire disk in sector-by-sector mode.

6. Supported backup media

Backups can be created on the following media:

Hard drives (HDD)
Solid State Drives (SSD)
External drives (USB, eSATA, FireWire, PC Card)
Flash drives (USB)
Optical discs (CD, DVD, Blu-ray)
External network drives
Disks on other PCs
FTP servers
Cloud storage Acronis Cloud (paid service)

You can store a backup copy of the operating system on another partition of the hard drive (for example, on drive “D”). For greater reliability, it is also advisable to copy it to the disk of another computer. But the best option is external drive, on which you can also store .

Bootable media is a CD/DVD or flash drive from which you can run Acronis True Image if Windows does not boot. You can create a bootable CD/DVD or flash drive using the Bootable Media Builder.

Insert a blank CD/DVD or flash drive and select "Acronis Bootable Media".

Select your CD/DVD drive or flash drive.

The flash drive must have a FAT32 or FAT16 file system. The files on the flash drive are not deleted and you can use it as usual, so this is a pretty convenient option.
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It’s better to play it safe and copy all the files from the flash drive to your computer.

Click the "Proceed" button and the bootable media will be created.

8. Startup Recovery

If your computer (laptop) does not have a CD/DVD drive or it does not work well, you for some reason cannot use a flash drive, or you just want to be on the safe side, then you can enable the “Startup Recovery” option.

To do this, select the “More tools” section.

Then “Activate Acronis Startup Recovery Manager”.

And confirm activation.

After this, the following message will appear when you boot your computer.

Pressing the F11 key will launch the Acronis True Image program, with which you can restore your system from a backup.

Please note that if your hard drive fails severely, Startup Repair may stop working. Also, “Startup Repair” is deactivated when Acronis True Image is removed from the computer. Therefore, it is recommended to create a bootable disk or flash drive.

9. Create a system backup

The backup copy of the operating system must include a partition with Windows (drive “C”) and boot partition“Reserved by the system” (if any) in size 100-350 MB (depending on the version of Windows).

If you plan to use Startup Repair, it must be activated before creating a backup.

9.1. Selecting a backup source

To create a backup, open the top "Backup" tab and select the backup source.

Then "Disks and partitions".

Select the checkboxes for the boot partition “Reserved by the system” (if any) and “Local disk (C:)”.

There is no need to select the data partition where all your files will be located (drive “D”). There may be other partitions on your computer's disk.

If your computer supports the UEFI interface, then you may see an “Encrypted (EFI) system partition” of 200-450 MB in size, which contains the files necessary to boot the system. It is also advisable to include it in the backup.

If you bought a laptop with a pre-installed operating system, then its disk may have additional partitions for system recovery. Then, in addition to drive “C”, I recommend checking off all small partitions (somewhere up to 1 GB).

9.2. Selecting a backup location

Now you need to select the location where the backup will be located.

Click Browse.

It is best to make a separate folder on another partition of your hard drive and save the backup copy there, and then copy the backup file somewhere else. I made a "Backup" folder on drive "D".

If your computer or laptop does not have a separate partition for data (drive “D”), then to create a backup copy you will need an external drive, a large flash drive (from 16 GB), blank DVDs (from 4 pcs), a network folder on another PC or access to Acronis Cloud (paid).

I recommend using an external drive to store a system backup, which is also useful for . Not only will you be able to quickly restore the system in the event of a failure, but you will also save your valuable documents, photos and videos.

9.3. Starting a backup

Once you have selected the partitions to back up and the backup location, click “Create a copy.”

The process of backing up an operating system with installed office programs on modern computer takes 10-20 minutes and should end with the new backup being added to the directory and the file appearing in the selected folder.

Backup file copies of Windows 7-10 x64 with installed drivers and basic office programs takes up about 15 GB on average.

10. Restoring a backup

If your computer starts to slow down, malfunctions, is infected with a virus, or stops booting altogether, all you need to do is restore the system from a backup copy.

Please note that all files located on the “C” drive, on the “Desktop” and in user folders such as “My Documents”, etc. will be deleted. Therefore, place all your files on another partition (D drive) and back them up regularly.

10.1. Recovery from Windows

If the computer boots, then system recovery can be launched from Windows. To do this, select the backup copy and click the “Restore Disks” button.

Select all partitions from the backup by ticking and click “Restore now”.

To successfully restore the system, you must restart your computer.

The process of restoring an operating system with installed office programs on a modern computer takes 5-10 minutes.

10.2. Recovery from bootable media

If Windows does not boot, then system recovery can be performed using a bootable CD/DVD, flash drive, or Startup Repair.

If you have activated Startup Repair, then when the following message appears, quickly press F11.

To start Acronis from media, insert a boot disk or flash drive, turn on the computer and hold down the call key " Boot Menu» (Download menu).

To call the boot menu, the “F8”, “F10”, “F11”, “F12” or “Esc” keys can be used. They can often be seen in prompts on the initial boot screen of your computer. This information can also be found in the instructions on the manufacturer’s website. motherboard or laptop, searching on the Internet or at random.

Immediately after turning on the computer, press and hold the “Boot Menu” key until the boot device selection menu appears.

Use the down and up arrows to navigate to the DVD drive or flash drive and press Enter.

Wait for the menu to appear on blue screen and use the mouse to launch “Acronis True Image”.

If the mouse does not work, then all actions in the program can be performed using the keyboard. The transition between items is carried out using arrows or the “Tab” key, checking boxes with the “Space” key, and confirming actions and pressing buttons with the “Enter” key. The transition between buttons is carried out using the “Tab” key.

Click the Browse button.

Find your backup, select it and click OK.

In this and the following windows, the drive letters may differ from those assigned in Windows. Be guided by the size of the partitions and the folders on them.

Make sure "Recover disks or partitions" is selected.

Select all sections and click “Next”.

Next, depending on the number of partitions being restored, several identical windows will appear to allow you to manually compare the partitions from the backup with the partitions on the disk where the restoration is taking place.

Here, the drive letters usually don't match those assigned in Windows, but the partitions are mapped correctly and you just need to click "Next" a few times.

If you have several hard drives, then to restore the master boot record (MBR), select the drive on which Windows is installed.

The last window will display a summary of all operations performed.

Carefully check that the partitions are restored to their original location, otherwise you may wipe the partition with your files (drive “D”). For comparison, it is easy to navigate by the sizes of the sections. The partitions to be deleted must be identical in size to those being restored.

If everything is normal in the summary, then click the “Proceed” button and partition recovery will begin. If a partition does not match in size, select it in the left column and indicate where it needs to be restored manually.

The process of restoring an operating system with installed office programs on a modern computer takes 5-10 minutes and should end with a message indicating a successful restoration.

Remove the bootable media, close the program window using the red cross and the computer will reboot.

Before starting the backup or restore procedure, you can configure some settings.

Usually this is not necessary, but I will tell you a little about some of them. The most interesting settings are located on the “Advanced” tab.

I will describe the most useful of them that may be useful to you.

Splitting a backup– allows you to divide a backup into files of a given size to write them to disks of different sizes.

Examination– checking the integrity of the backup after it is created or before restoring it to ensure that it is in good working order.

Removable media settings– allows you to make backup media simultaneously with Acronis bootable media. The recovery program is written to the first backup disk.

Turning off the computer– allows you to configure automatic shutdown computer after the backup is complete.

The remaining settings relate mainly to periodic backups and scheduled backups. You can download a detailed description of all parameters of the Acronis True Image program in the "" section.

12. Additional features

Acronis True Image has a number of additional features, which I will briefly describe, but we will not consider them in detail in this article.

Disk cloning– creating a copy of all or some partitions from one hard drive to another. This is useful when replacing an old hard drive with a new one. If the new disk is larger or smaller, the partitions are increased or decreased proportionally or the new sizes are set manually, which is very convenient.

TransferWindowsonSSD– performed using a cloning operation or the usual backup and restore method as described in this article, changing the partition sizes if necessary.

Universal Restore– allows you to restore a backup copy of the operating system to another computer. This is useful if you bought new computer or significantly updated the old one. In this case, it may not be possible to restore the system to it in the usual way; Windows simply will not boot.

Backing up files and folders– allows you to make backup copies of individual folders and files to a selected media or network storage. It’s convenient because the files are compressed into an archive that can be password protected. The disadvantage is that the archive with files can only be accessed using the program itself and it is inappropriate to store large incompressible files such as videos, disk images, etc. in such an archive.

Acronis Cloud – cloud storage, into which you can back up system partitions and folders with user files. May be useful for owners of small disks (SSD) if they have a stable fast internet. You can access your files through a browser from any other computer. But this is a paid service with an annual subscription.

Data synchronization– allows you to synchronize selected folders with the Acronis Cloud. This is mainly used to sync files between multiple computers and mobile devices.

Data archiving– designed for transferring old files that take up a lot of space and are used very rarely to the Acronis Cloud. The downside is that space in Acronis Cloud is limited and operations with large files require a stable, fast Internet connection.

Scheduled backups– allows you to set up a flexible schedule for regularly creating backup copies of the system and folders with files in automatic mode. This may be convenient on computers that are actively used for demanding tasks, but it is of no use to ordinary users.

Continuous protection– constantly monitors changes on the computer disk and makes backup copies of system and user-important files and their versions. Constantly consumes computer resources and disk space.

Try& Decide(Try and Decide)– a very useful addition for safe experiments. After enabling this function, all changes on the computer are recorded in a special storage. For example, you can study various programs and Internet sites without fear of harming your computer. When you disable Try&Decide mode, you will be prompted to save or cancel changes made to the system.

Security zone– a special hidden partition on your hard drive where you can save backups. I do not recommend using this method, as it has a number of disadvantages. It is not known in advance how much volume of the partition is needed and access to backup copies is difficult.

Adding a drive– allows you to create partitions on new disks connected to the computer.

Disk Cleanup – secure deletion files from the disk without the possibility of recovery.

Cleaning system disk – freeing up disk space by deleting temporary files.

Dashboard– allows you to manage backups on all your devices through a single control panel using a browser.

Parallels Access– allows you to get remote access via the Internet to any of your computers or mobile device and manage backups on it.

13. Links

Below you can download Acronis True Image and complete guide along it with detailed description all functions and answers to frequently asked questions.

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Hard drive Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1 TB
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Preventive computer maintenance takes a lot of time. Either you need to configure the operation of applications, or remove useless “garbage” in temporary folders, or restore the normal operation of lost drivers. And even the most careful user, who is used to constantly maintaining order in the system, periodically has to be distracted by such actions. There is no escape from this, so the only way to somehow deal with this problem is to approach it wisely. For example, take a “snapshot” of the most important files— save a backup copy of your data.

An interesting personal observation: many users are very conservative in their preferences. From year to year, they use approximately the same set of software, select the same system configuration parameters, and almost never change the color scheme of the interface of their work applications. For such people, there is a simple and effective solution to the problem of information loss and system failure - restoration using a backup copy of the system partition. This method is familiar to any more or less experienced user. In this case, reinstalling the system with all its settings is reduced to a single operation of copying the file with the partition image.

The tools with which you can perform the operation of data cloning and recovery are not very diverse. Almost the sole leader in this area is the Acronis True Image software package. It is this tool that is most often mentioned when discussing the problem of taking an image of an entire disk. There is also a Symantec Ghost Solution Suite. Among Russian-speaking users, this program is not as popular as the Acronis product, but it can be used with the same success for system migration and deployment. Both of these products are certainly very convenient and have a lot of advantages, but they are not free. Yes and full set The capabilities of these applications will be overkill for many. Let's try to figure out which of the free programs for taking images of disk partitions can replace these popular tools.

⇡ Testing boot images using a virtual machine

Bootable media images can be tested directly from Windows using virtual machine, for example VirtualBox. In this program, you just need to create a new virtual PC configuration and specify the disk image as the boot source.

It is very convenient to store such images on multiboot media. In addition to tools for removing and restoring images from disk partitions, such a boot disk may also contain a number of additional options- Windows installer, a couple of things Linux distributions and so on. If you decide to burn such a bootable USB flash drive, you can also test it in VirtualBox. However, the Oracle Corporation product does not support booting from removable media, so you will have to perform a number of steps to force VirtualBox to boot from a flash drive.

To do this you need to open standard utility for disk management diskmgmt.msc. Based on the contents of the window of this utility, determine by what number the USB drive being written is identified in the system. Then run command line mode (cmd.exe) with administrator rights and go to the VirtualBox folder using the command cd %programfiles%\oracle\virtualbox. At the command line, type VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "%USERPROFILE%"\.VirtualBox\usb.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive#, replacing the # symbol with the previously memorized disk number. Now you can create a new virtual machine. At the stage of setting up the disk to be used, select an external disk (use existing hard disk) and specify the location of the usb.vmdk file. Go!

⇡ Redo Backup

The main advantage of Redo Backup is that the program is as simple as possible, lacks numerous options and works reliably. The shell launches almost instantly, after which the most simplified Linux environment (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) and a utility window for creating a backup copy of partitions appear on the screen.

In addition to the main tool for cloning disks, the distribution includes a small set of essential utilities. In the Redo Backup boot image shell you will find a quick file manager PCManFM, simple text editor Leafpad, GPicView graphics viewer, Chromium browser and terminal launcher. Among the tools for working with disks, there is a small but useful program for resetting all media parameters to their original state. True, you can use it only at your own peril and risk - the data is deleted, and no one gives a guarantee that the hard drive or any other storage device will function properly. Using the Gparted partition editor, you can partition your disks and configure them in the Disk Utilities media manager.

The application with the funny name baobab will show a diagram of disk fullness. The distribution also includes the PhotoRec utility, the main purpose of which is to recover deleted files.

The created images of the specified partitions can be saved to one of the available partitions of the local machine or written to a folder on a remote PC that can be accessed over the network. Data can also be uploaded to an FTP server.

The boot image of this utility is so small that it will fit even on a good old CD. Of course, today this medium is hopelessly outdated and is living its last days. On the other hand, if you still have a laser drive and a stack of unused CD-R discs, then why not get rid of one of the extra “blanks” and make yourself a copy of the saving tool?

⇡ AOMEI Backupper

In addition to a bootable disk image (AOMEI Backupper Linux Bootable Disk Image) with a proprietary utility, the developers of AOMEI Tech offer users several products for running the application from Windows - two free editions of the program and one paid one.

It must be said that the developer caused some confusion by releasing two free versions, because the differences between them are not immediately clear. One is called AOMEI Backupper Standard, the other is AOMEI Backupper Standard Win7. The size of the first one is several times larger, but there are few real differences. Don't be fooled by the words For Win7 - both versions work great on Windows 7. The one that is For Win7 does not work on outdated versions of the operating system from Microsoft - Windows Vista and Windows XP, while AOMEI Backupper Standard officially supports them. In addition, AOMEI Backupper Standard For Win7 does not have the option to create bootable media.

In our opinion, the paid edition of the AOMEI Backupper Professional program has nothing special to attract the attention of the average user. Its main advantage is the ability to combine partition images with support for incremental data copying (that is, copying only changed files, which greatly speeds up the process). In addition, the advanced version supports starting the backup process using command line and allows full use of the PXE Boot Tool (network boot application) with an unlimited number of clients on the local network.

According to the developers, the free versions copy more slowly than the Pro version. This may be true, but if you compare the speed of creating a partition image using boot images of Redo Backup and AOMEI Backupper, the difference is unnoticeable: the process takes approximately the same time in both cases.

But compared to Redo Backup, the AOMEI Backupper utility offers many more options. Here you can copy in several ways: clone a partition, transfer content from disk to disk, make a backup copy of the system disk, individual directories or certain files. To save space in AOMEI Backupper, you can enable the maximum compression mode, but if you need to speed up the process of recording a backup copy, you can completely disable file compression in the settings. In addition to this, you can also set up a task scheduler that will record a backup copy of your data at a specified time.

There are many ways to burn a boot image to a USB flash drive. For example, you can use the Sardu utility, which will do this automatically, and even help you make multiboot media with a rich arsenal of Linux distributions. But it’s best to write everything to a flash drive directly in the AOMEI Backupper program itself, in this case you will receive a guaranteed working bootable media with current version AOMEI Backupper engine. The boot image can be compiled against Linux or Windows PE.

It is preferable to use the second option, since if you create bootable media on Linux, only the basic functions of the program will be active in the AOMEI Backupper shell. The desktop application AOMEI Backupper Standard has even more options - for example, it is possible to automatically split the image into files of a specified size, there is an option for intelligent data reading (in this case, the contents of only those sectors that are used by the file system are copied), you can control file compression, and so on .

⇡ Clonezilla

Clonezilla is completely free software open source, developed by Taiwanese programmer Stephen Shiau.

This program is aimed more at experienced users than for beginners. It is designed on the principle of a step-by-step wizard and works almost in text mode, without an interface as such.

The situation is saved a little by the fact that Clonezilla supports the Russian language and many operations, as well as comments to them, are correctly translated. The choice of language occurs at the very beginning of the data backup wizard launch.

The program is universal - it supports all popular file systems, including ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, xfs, jfs (GNU/Linux), FAT, NTFS7, HFS+ (Mac OS).

To create a bootable USB drive, you will need to follow several steps. To get started, download the boot image in ZIP format from the official Clonezilla website. Note that the type of Live image loaded depends on the architecture used. It is also worth paying attention to whether the Secure Boot feature is enabled on your computer. It is one of the UEFI options and is designed to protect your computer from malicious code that modifies boot sector MBR. When you enable the secure boot option (uEFI secure boot enabled), you need to download a separate boot image built on Ubuntu - links to it are also available on the download page of the official Clonezilla website.

After you download required file, unzip the contents ZIP archive to a USB stick. Run the makeboot.bat file directly from the flash drive, which is located in the utils\win32 directory (or makeboot64.bat at drive:\utils\win64).

A backup copy of data can be recorded “as is,” that is, in the form of files and folders, or it can be saved in a single image file. Of course, the image file can be used to restore information on the media. The backup copy can be saved to local disk, write to a SAMBA network environment server, SSH server or using the NFS protocol. Clonezilla supports AES-256 encryption. The program is completely undemanding to PC system resources and can run on the oldest “toasters”.

The program does not support differential and incremental copying of files, and a prerequisite for the normal completion of the process of writing a backup copy of a disk is that the volume of the media on which the recording is being made must be no less than the volume of the disk (partition) from which the data is read.

Along with regular version boot disk Clonezilla, users are offered the Clonezilla Server Edition. This application is a tool for running simultaneous cloning on an entire array of computers (more than forty PCs).

⇡ Paragon Backup & Recovery 14 Free Edition

Paragon's products are well known to many, but for some reason not everyone knows that among the programs of this developer there is also free software, for example, a version of the Paragon Backup & Recovery 14 application Free Edition to create a backup copy of your data.

The only condition that Paragon sets for users is that they use Backup & Recovery 14 Free Edition only for non-commercial purposes (for personal use). And although the company has been selling a newer edition of this program for a long time, the fourteenth version still remains relevant. It even officially supports Windows 8, which is reflected in the interface of Backup & Recovery 14. The tiled Express interface that appears when you first launch it can be disabled, then the application will take a more familiar look.

The set of free tools for working with disks that Paragon's program offers is small. Most of the options are unavailable, and the developer himself suggests upgrading to activate all the features of the utility.

However, the functions that exist are quite enough to solve the main problem - creating a backup copy. In addition, the user has tools for managing disk partitions. With their help, you can create, format, delete partitions, hide or open them, assign a letter and change the volume label, and check the integrity of the file system.

In the program menu you will find the Recovery Media Builder wizard. This wizard is designed to burn a boot disk image to ISO format or preparation bootable flash drive. When creating bootable media for data recovery, you can choose settings that are convenient for you - specify BIOS or EFI, select an environment (Linux or Windows PE), use WIM images of the current operating system to restore, and so on. If you burn a boot disk in expert mode, you can manually add drivers for storage devices and network devices to the media, as well as specify specific network parameters.

The disk partition backup engine provides the ability to perform a copy operation in one of two ways: standard method, creating images of cloned partitions, or placing all the backup data on the Paragon virtual disk (for example, this way you can collect several images in one place at once). The backup copy can be written to a mounted partition or to an unmounted partition that has not been assigned a letter.

The program pays special attention to data security. One of the options of Paragon Backup & Recovery 14 Free Edition is that data can be backed up into a so-called capsule, that is, into a hidden partition that cannot be mounted and seen in the operating system.

We would like to draw your attention to one more very important point. While testing the bootable media recording option, we discovered an error in the program. Recording an image with the environment Microsoft Windows PE from the “classic” interface of Paragon Backup & Recovery 14 Free Edition may be accompanied by a crash and a message stating that there is no access to the partition.

The solution to the problem was found on the official Paragon support forum - recording media must be started from the Express interface, then the error will not appear.

Paragon Backup & Recovery 14 works well with all types of hard drives. The contents of a hard disk image with a cluster size of 512 bytes are restored to another media with a cluster size of 4 kilobytes without additional user action.

⇡ DriveImage XML

If you've ever lost data as a result of erroneous formatting or some kind of file system glitch, Runtime Software should be a familiar name. The GetDataBack utility made by this developer has been helping to rescue data and recover information from problematic media for many years. In addition to GetDataBack and other great utilities, Runtime Software includes DriveImage XML, a free tool for creating disk backups.

The program can be installed as a standalone application, or can be launched using a boot image based on the Linux distribution Knoppix 7. Of all the boot images discussed in this review, the Runtime Software disk can be considered the “most life-saving”. In addition to DriveImage XML Private Edition ( free version for home use only), Knoppix contains the entire range of programs from Runtime Software for data recovery and working with disks: GetDataBack NTFS, GetDataBack FAT, GetDataBack Simle, RAID Reconstructor, RAID recovery for Windows, DiskExplorer for FAT, DiskExplorer for Linux, Captain Nemo Pro and so on. Please note that commercial utilities require registration.

Knoppix is a universal assembly, it has a browser, a video player, and a text editor. For completeness, the only thing missing is free office suite, which was apparently excluded from the build to save storage space.

Windows versions are launched on the system using Wine (software for an alternative implementation of WindowsAPI).

Using the Microsoft Volume Shadow Service (VSS), the program can take a disk image, including system and locked data that is currently being worked on. The procedure for creating a backup copy in DriveImage XML will result in the following output: two files. The first one, written in *.XML format, will contain a description of the disk. The program will save the second file as *.DAT - it stores the binary data of the captured image. Program options that are associated with standard Windows services may not work, so developers. recommend burning bootable discs yourself from Windows environment PE or alternative BartPE environment. For the second option, the official Runtime Software website contains plugins that simplify the connection of the main utilities of this developer.

⇡ Conclusion

Programs for creating copies of disks can be used not only for quickly reinstalling the system. They can also successfully serve as regular means for backing up important data. Take photographs, for example. Paper photo albums are practically a thing of the past, and along with them, the persistent tradition of taking them out of the closet and showing guests family history in photographs has sunk into oblivion. It's scary to think how many children today will be deprived of pleasant memories when they grow up. The phrase “I don’t have children’s photos because my parents’ hard drive on their computer once crashed” has every chance of becoming very popular in the next few years. Don't want this to happen in your family? All you need to do is take care of a backup. It's very simple and, as you can see, free.

Backup hard drive partition– a disk backup option in which not the entire contents of the hard drive are copied, but only an image of one of the partitions on the disk. Handy Backup backs up partitions using the Disk Image tool.

Program for copying disk partitions: key features

"Hot" backup of disk partitions

Backing up disk partitions takes quite a lot of time, so you want to ensure that hard disk partitions are copied without blocking other applications from accessing the files on the disk (for example, using VSS).

A backup copy of disk partitions can often contain critical or sensitive information (for example, different passwords when backing up a system partition), so the program is required to have built-in backup data encryption tools.

System partition backup

A system partition backup includes not only saving data and the logical structure of the disk, but also copying the main file system tables that ensure booting from disk. When creating a backup copy of the system partition, the program is required to save these tables.

How to create a copy of hard drive partitions with Handy Backup

To create a backup of your hard drive partition, please use the following instructions:

Open Handy Backup. Create new task using the button or Ctrl+N keys.
Select backup task at Step 1; go to Step 2.
Expand the "Disk Clone" group in the left pane. Select a plugin Disk Image.

Select the drive and partition on the drive you want to copy. Click OK.
Continue. The next steps for backing up a disk partition are no different from the usual steps for backing up other types of data.

Note. Due to the specific structure of the input information, backup of disks and partitions does not allow partial copying of data in Step 4!

Recovering disk partitions

To perform hard drive partition recovery, create a task as described above and select data recovery in Step 1. Then in Step 2, specify your data storage and select the file backup.hbi, containing the necessary information about the partition being restored.

Advice: by clicking the "restore" button in the recovery dialog Change location", you can write the restored partition to another location (for example, to another disk). In this way, you can clone disk partitions and create bootable media.

Recovering system disk partitions (Disaster Recovery utility)

Using the external utility Handy Backup Disaster Recovery (HBDR), you can copy and restore partitions of your main (system) disk. The utility is available free of charge to users of Professional, Office Expert, Network and Server Network solutions.

Video tutorial on creating a backup and restoring disk partitions

This video describes how to create a backup and restore hard section disk using the Disk Image plugin and the Handy Backup Disaster Recovery utility. The Handy Backup interface is shown in English language, but for Russian the steps are similar. The interface of the Handy Backup Disaster Recovery utility is available only in English!

Attention: This video instruction assumes that the Handy Backup software is already installed on the computer, and the Handy Backup Disaster Recovery utility is already installed on the USB drive. If this is not the case, please download and install Handy Backup and Disaster Recovery before starting, according to the video instructions.

Handy Backup uses modern algorithms and techniques to safely and efficiently backup and restore disk partitions. Download the full-featured version right now - 30 days free!

Cloning a hard drive is a procedure full copy and transferring files contained on the HDD. This operation is mainly resorted to when replacing the source of information storage with a more capacious one.

Data cloning allows you to obtain new hard disk completely identical to the previous one. The procedure can be carried out manually, but depending on the size of the storage medium, it may take several days. To speed up the process, you can use specialized programs that allow you to create an exact copy of your hard drive.

Programs for cloning a hard drive can be universal, which work with all types of media, or specialized (created to work with drives from a specific manufacturer). Among them are the following utilities for automatically copying information:

EASEUS Disk Copy

EASEUS is offered free of charge. The program clones the hdd by sector and works with any file system. EASEUS developers pay attention to the following advantages that their product has:

the ability to clone the entire disk or its individual parts, including deleted, hidden and protected files;
launch is carried out from a boot disk or flash drive;
works with all operating systems;
supports dynamic disks, Firewire, SAS, USB, SCSI and SATA l-ll;
copies up to 1 TB of information;
simple interface.

Among the main disadvantages of EASEUS are:

not Russified, and therefore some users may have problems working with the program;
When working with Windows, many adware programs are installed.

The latter is offset by the fact that there is no charge for using EASEUS Disk Copy.

Paragon Drive Backup Personal

What sets Paragon Drive Backup Personal apart is its ease of use. The program runs under Windows or from a boot disk. All actions performed during the process of creating a disk copy are constantly accompanied by pop-up tips. The main advantages of the program are as follows:

several operating modes;
supports all file systems and hard drives;
provides the ability to copy separate files and entire sections;
provides fast copying speed;
Russified interface.

The program is available for a fee. You will have to pay $39.95 for the right to use it.

Macrium Reflect

Macrium Reflect not only clones data, but also creates images of individual partitions or disks, which after system recovery can be embedded directly into Windows Explorer. Features of the program are as follows:

copies the entire hard drive or individual files;
does not require a system reboot after creating images;
checks the identity of the received images;
works at high speed;
provides high level security of stored information through the use of multi-level encryption.

Among the disadvantages are:

interface in English;
Advertising products are installed along with the program.

Macrium Reflect is a completely free product.

FarStone RestolerIT Pro

The program is mainly used to recover user data lost in cases of system failure, computer failure and other situations. Essentially, Farstone RestolerIT Pro does not clone information, but creates backups, in this case a hard drive backup. The advantages of the product include:

ability to configure the frequency of data saving;
information is restored after pressing one button;
data is restored even if the bootloader fails;
depending on the selected mode, backs up all information or saves changed data;
allows you to configure monitoring modes (the entire disk or its individual parts);
saves the entire file modification history.

In addition to the fact that the program is unable to clone a disk, the developer requires a payment of $24.95 for its use.

Acronis True Image

Acronis True Image is one of the most popular products used for hard drive cloning today. The program is capable of copying information from various drives and file systems.

Acronis True Image supports most Windows versions, including old editions. The user is asked to select several cloning modes: individual partitions, files or the entire disk. Acronis True Image has a number of significant features that determine the program’s popularity:

loaded from a DVD or flash drive;
is distinguished by its multifunctionality and high speed of operation;
interface in Russian;
ease of use due to intuitive settings;
the product operates in manual or automatic modes;
the user can specify what data needs to be copied;
transfers any information, including hidden files.

Using Acronis True Image will cost 1,700 rubles.

Cloning example

As an example of how information is cloned from a hard drive, below is work with Acronis True Image. Although this product has intuitive clear interface, you need to pay attention to the following terms:

Original hard drive. This term refers to the medium from which data is copied.
Target hard drive. Indicates the medium on which information is recorded.

To copy information using Acronis True Image, after launching the program and logging in to it, you need to perform a number of actions:

Select the “Tools” tab (located on the left side of the window). In the menu that appears, click on “Clone disk”.
The Disk Clone Wizard appears in the program window. By selecting auto mode, you need to click on the “Next” button at the bottom of the screen.
The third step involves selecting the hard drive from which the information will be copied. It is important to note that the program names the media differently than “Explorer”.
In the next window, the program provides the opportunity to select the disk on which the information will be written. If any data is stored on the media, Acronis True Image will warn you about the possible loss of the latter after cloning is complete.
In the window that allows you to select a recovery method, it is recommended to leave the “Copy partitions without changes” checkbox.
If complete cloning of information is intended, then in the window that appears, you must click on the “Proceed” button. Otherwise, when you need to select specific files to copy, you should go to the "Exclude Files" menu (in the lower left corner). In it, you should select the data that is to be copied by placing the appropriate mark next to it.

After completing all actions, Acronis True Image prompts you to reboot the system. Before it is re-downloaded, the program will clone the information.

The next time you start the computer, the BIOS opens, in which you must select the priority for loading the operating system (from a hard drive or a cloned drive).

Copying information from HDD to SSD

Modern OS allow you to transfer information from your hard drive to faster SSDs. Before starting the process, you need to prepare the last drive, which will require you to perform a number of steps:

Through the “Control Panel”, select the “Backup computer data” menu.
Next, you need to click on “Create a system image”, specifying the new drive as the source for copying information.

The system will copy all data to the SSD in a few minutes. To avoid conflicts between pre-installed operating systems, it is recommended to remove it from your hard drive.

You can create a backup copy of information stored on your computer yourself. However, specialized programs (Acronis True Image, EASEUS Disk Copy and others) will perform this procedure faster and more efficiently, transferring even hidden files to the new drive. Cloning a hard drive allows you to eliminate in advance the possibility of losing information in the event of a computer failure, system damage, or hacker attacks.