Back up one partition to two

My C drive is 1TB and has my os and all data. Is it possible to back up windows only to one disk and the rest to another?

I'm using aomei technician edition in case that matters.

 

define "data" please.

at least it ends up in data loss when you separate windows (only) from "data" like programs or userdata. its all or nothing this way. what you can do is a file backup for important files or folders, eg browser and mailer profiles (edge, chrome, firefox, thunderbird to give some examples)

and its always possible to restore single files from full backups.

 

Everything that is not the OS, example photos, documents videos etc

 

This is the reason to keep Windows partition as small as possible and backup data partition using cloud or external drivers.
For example my Windows partition is 66666MB (+compressed), that keeps system backups small, actually only about 20GB.

 

thats what i try to tell you - save, copy or backup it elsewhere. for me same as Tairiko - important files are stored elsewhere and/or as a separate backup to recover them when my windows partition has a (full) recovery.

"not os" for me means anything outside c:\windows.
thats not clever as mentioned. windows itself contains data and settings about all installed software, user settings and more. if you only backup data/files from c:\windows\ or outside you create an undefined state for both when recovering. this makes windows unstable. thats aprt from saveing files from \pictures\, \videos\ or \documents\ in for your user account.

 

Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management, showing all partitions? There could be other partitions that need backing up.

Which OS are you using? MBR or UEFI system?

 

On a matter of terminology, your physical HD or SSD is not the C: drive. There is no C: drive when the computer is turned off.

The Windows partition is usually C: drive but I have a Win11 partition that is K: drive when booted. The registry entries have been edited.

 

That should probably also include Program Files, Program Files (x86), and ProgramData, especially if there are plans to split this stuff up afterwards, else there will be a lot of broken registry entries.

 

Windows 7 64 bit and It's mbr

 

The 1 TB drive has 4 partitions. The first partition is.the Active System Reserved partition. This partition contains the Win7 booting files and is essential for OS booting.

The most efficient way to backup your computer is to create an entire drive image. That is, backup all 4 partitions together and create a single image file. If your HD/SSD fails you would do an entire drive restore to a new drive. If you have Windows issues you would just need to restore the first 2 partitions from the entire drive backup.

You could backup the 4 partitions individually, to one or more drives but this would be inefficient and nobody would consider this method.

 

No. Not as long as both OS and Data are on the same partition. If you want to do this you will first have to separate your OS from your Data, and move each to a separate partition or hard drive.

 

"The 1 TB drive has 4 partitions." Yes you are correct my title of the thread is wrong.

Thanks. With Aomei Backupper I have created system back up. Is this OK or is disk back up better

 

Check that system backup. You could find it has only backed up two partitions. In general, I suggest you do a disk backup as all four partitions will be backed up.

 

Will do thanks. Is it Ok to use the computer while backing up?. Takes hours but can do overnight if necessary. I have backups from a while ago. How do I tell if they are system or disk? Both have.adi extensions in Aomei Backupper

 

I use the computer while it's backing up.

If you double click your .adi files, does it show which partitions were backed up? I haven't used AOMEI for a while.

 

The system backup I did recently had only two partitions but a disk back backup from before that has 4.
The disk does not show in Disk Management but the hard drive it is backed up to https://www.currys.ie/products/seagate-expansion-external-hard-drive-6-tb-black-10231423.html shows as V.
Is this OK? I can browse the backed up disk but do not have spare one to test restore

 

Can you plug in your external USB3 HD. Then look at Disk Management. Can you send us a screenshot of the Disk Management rectangles? You cut off Disk2 in your last screenshot.

Does your computer recognise USB3 flash drives? Did you install USB3 drivers into Win7?

 

Can you screenshot the entire Disk Management screen? We need to see the data at the top of the screen too.

 

Here is the screenshot.

 

Thanks. An interesting array of disks and partitions.
I'm not clear on what you are asking me.

 

The backed up one is N. It is on the v partition. But it doesn't show in disk management, should it?

 

So the AOMEI image backup of Disk 0 is in the V: partition.
I don't understand what you mean by N

 

Disk #2 is the strangest thing I've ever seen... (3) EFI partitions with one being 200mb (maybe created by some Linux install) AND a huge 1tB partition containing only a 400+mB ISO from AOMEI. Did AOMEI create that thing when trying to create an internal BOOT media? And as Brian said... "Where is Waldo (N)?"

The whole thing doesn't make much sense to me at all...

 

N is the back up C. See Aomei image here.Also it is N in my computer

 

"Did AOMEI create that thing when trying to create an internal BOOT media?"

As far as I remember Aomei created it when my HDD died and I had to boot from outside windows to clone my HDD to an SSD