Backing Up Whole System Partition Onto External Source That Will Be Used As Spare System Partition

Question

I am not talking about backing up to 1 file. I am talking about making exact copy of system partition on auxiliary external source that will be used as direct boot and not restoration source in case my system will crack and i will need immediate auxiliary boot from external source to start working without losing productivity. Call it XCOPY if it is appropriate. Don't know if XCOPY copies everything though...

Anyway i need something like Windows 7 system image backup or Acronis, which works like image backup, but instead it just duplicates system partition to external source.

Do you know of any programs that would allow me to do such thing?

Answer 1

You can clone the primary hard drive with Clonezilla. Be sure to do this on a regular basis (e.g. monthly) our you'll find the system way out of date when you do need to boot from the disk. Also don't forget to TEST by booting from the disk every time after you clone it.

Answer 2

Your best bet would be if your motherboard supported raid 1 and you did it with an external drive. But if you are going to do that you might as well just the same harddrive as your current one and run a real raid 1. I'm not even sure if raid between a sata and esata ports works.

If you are talking about having a new installation of windows 7 ready to go, not a duplicate of your current one, then I would say buy another harddrive, install windows to that drive as well, and use it like a dual boot system, but only boot to the secondary drive if the primary one fails.