Solved Windows System image backup

OK, I have Win 7 & Win 8 on two separate HDD's (I can choose either OS to run at start-up).

So how come when I try to do a system image backup (in widows 8) & choose Win 8 from the list of drives it also locks in the Win 7 drive, which I cannot change?
It will not let me just do a System image backup of Win 8 without including the drive that has Win 7 installed.

Win7 partition may be system.

Hello BongoKongo, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Anything that is required to run Windows or is a "system" drive/partition (ex: page file, system reserved partition, MBR, moved user folders/profies, other installed OS) will be included in the image by default and cannot be unselected.

It does this because if you were to not include them, you would find out the hard way that your Windows would not run afterwards when you did a system image recovery.

Sorry.

OK, Thanks.
It sure sounds like that is what is occurring in this instance.
But just to get this straight in my own head,,how come Acronis TI & other image programs don't need to backup the other HDD that contains another System image.
Like,, If you use a program like "Acronis TI" It can backup windows 8 only & restore windows 8 only
and it can do it without affecting Window 7 on the other HDD.

BongoKongo said:

It will not let me just do a System image backup of Win 8 without including the drive that has Win 7 installed.

Click to expand...

Everybody's 'path?' to upgrade/downgrade to Windows 8 Pro is different.

So what works/worked for me may NOT work for you.

My workaround was simple.

I unplugged my Win7 Drive and then imaged the drive that had Windows 8 Pro.
The restore went perfectly.

Vice versa, I unplugged the Windows 8 Pro drive and then imaged/restored Windows 7.

If you have to much time on your hands AND a Terabyte external drive, test it out for us
and get back to us with your results.

Do the FULL 7&8 image to assure you DO have a good image to restore, then do the unplugged version
and see if THOSE images restore properly.

If not, you could then restore from the 7&8 image blended image.

Just a thought.

Good luck

Thanks Windunce, I'm already confident enough to believe what you suggested would work, so confident in fact, that I'm not even going to try it..

But it seems like it would be an awful lot of work to be doing a backup this way so I will stick with Acronis TI for the time being.
Doesn't seem like Microsoft are ever going to fix it.