Due to various Malware attacks, I am doing more image backups of critical machines onto external drives attached directly to Windows 7 Professional or Enterprise computers. Each external drive is dedicated to the computer. The file backup will save multiple backup sets - up to 1/3 of the drive. The image backup only keeps the latest image. I really only care about the image backup on the external drives. How can I have Windows use the entire dedicated external drive to keep more than just the latest (1) image backup. I run these each night and I have plenty of room to keep two weeks of images - or more - on each external drive. I understand the image backup will only keep one copy on a network drive -- but the external USB drives are clearly local devices. Thanks. Darin

Hi, Thanks for the post. If you're saving your system images on an internal or external drive, or on CDs or DVDs, you can keep several versions of system images. On internal and external hard drives, older system images will be deleted when the drive runs out of space. So please check your free space of this external disk and Open Manage space button in Backup and Restore, then choose let windows manage the space used for backup history option rather than Keep the latest version of System Image. Regards, Juke TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Juke, I already have 'let windows manage' selected and it is only saving the last image. There is 900MB available out of 930MB. It states that Windows will use a maximum of 230MB. Two items. 1) How do I tell Windows to use the entire hard drive (not just 230MB out of 930MG) and 2) How do I get Windows to backup more than just the image from last night. The settings you mentioned are currently set on 8 computers and they are all doing the same thing - one image and only using a small portion of the external drive (drive E). Win7 Pro and Win7 Enterprise. I read there was a registry entry to tell Windows to use the entire drive (not just up to 30%). Is anyone else getting the same behavior? Thanks. DarinDarin Lewis

Hi, According to your description, I assume that the most recent system image have already took up more than 30% percent disk space so that happen. You may check this in the following link. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-backup-settings-should-I-use-to-maximize-my-disk-space Regards, Juke TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Juke, As I described previously - there is 900MB available out of 930MB. So -- No -- the one image is not taking up more than 30%. I have seen the link you posted and I have verified that on each computer. This is a situation I have duplicated on 8 computers. Is this a known Windows 7 issue? Am I posting this to the correct Forum? Have you ever seen the Win7 backup feature back up more than one image to an external drive? And -- yes, I realize Windows will use up to 30% - which it is not. DarinDarin Lewis

Hi, You may open Backup and Restore=>click Manage space. Please capture a screenshot for this window, then upload it to Skydrive and post the link here. Also, you may upload the screenshot of system image list when you select it in Windows RE. Regards, Juke TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com. Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ”

Juke, I have inserted the images per your request. There are five images all together - scroll right to see the other 3. I am only backing up a system image and Windows is set to manage space. I have also shown you the locally recognized external drive and the directories showing the VHD files. I would like for Windows to keep multiple backups of the images (I run them each day) and I would also like to specify for Windows to use the entire external hard drive so I can get as many images as possible. Accoring to my drive space (~900 GB) and my image size (~30GB), I should be able to get 25 images. I understand Windows will only keep the latest image on a network drive but it is not getting more than 1 image on the external drive either. I have this exact scenario on 8 different computers, running either Windows 7 Pro or Windows 7 Enterprise. Do you have a fix or explanation of what is going on -- both for multiple images and to tell windows how to use the entire drive. Darin Darin Lewis

Hi, Please refer to the following article to increase the space allotted to System Restore for a test. http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/how-to-reduce-the-space-allotted-to-system-restore-in-windows-vista/ Note: this also applies for Windows 7. Important Note: Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information. Regards, Juke TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

well, why don`t you try Macrium Reflect..it`s free tool and comes in both x86 and x64bit ver. You can save you image of any drive you want and how many you want..I use it for years and it works quite fine....I belive it`s much better then MS solution....It`s free...you can just try it..and make you move....hope this will help...

Hi Darin Lewis, The reason why I suggest you to increase the space allotted to System Restore is that The Volume Shadow Copy Service provides the backup infrastructure for the Microsoft Windows. System Image backups are also maintained by VSS. Therefore I suggested to increase the VSS space usage so that old versions will not be deleted because of space usage limitation. For more information, You may access the following link. How Volume Shadow Copy works http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee923636(WS.10).aspx Sorry for that I have not explained this for you in my previous reply. I will continue doing some research on this, I will give you some updates if I find anything else or a workaround Regards, Juke TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ”

You should be able to save more than one image backup in an external disk as long as the size permits. How are you determining that the system is not allowing more than one backup? Are you looking at the number of folder? What do you see when you go to the properties of the C drive, Previous versions tab? Do you see only a single backup? Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support

http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2009/10/31/learn-more-about-system-image-backup.aspx Support for multiple images – As mentioned above, when a new system image is created, older data will be moved to the shadow copy storage area if it’s available. NTFS formatted internal or external hard disks supports Volume Shadow Copy, hence they support storing multiple versions of backup image. We recommend that the size of the target disk should be at least 1.5 times of the size of the source drive(s) to allow enough space for storing older versions of backup. Network share and optical media, on the other hand, do not support shadow copy. Therefore only one system image per computer can be stored at a time (as the .vhd file). Any newer backup created will replace the older backup. Please check from the previous version tab if you are seeing more than one backup. Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support

Go to My computer Properties and then 'System Restore' In the list select your external disk and click configure. What is the Disk Usage Slider set to? Increase it if necessary. Managing backup disk space http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2009/11/23/managing-backup-disk-space.aspxSumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support

Sumesh, Sorry for the delay in my reply. You have provided some good information. I have answered your questions below followed by some additional comments. ==>How are you determining that the system is not allowing more than one backup? Are you looking at the number of folder? If you browse the external drive, only 75GB of the 950GB of the external drive is being used. When you look at the backup folder, only the most recent date shows and only one VSD shows. I would expect multiple folders with multiple VHD system images. ==>What do you see when you go to the properties of the C drive, Previous versions tab? Do you see only a single backup? I do see multiple backups on the previous versions tab - only 7 though, I would expect to see a lot more based on the drive space. ==>Go to My computer Properties and then 'System Restore'. In the list select your external disk and click configure. What is the Disk Usage Slider set to? Increase it if necessary. I went to My Computer, Properties, System Protection (no system restore). The external drive showed protection off - as I would expect - I just want it to be used for the image backups. I clicked on configure and the slider only allowed a small portion of the hard drive for system protection. I increase the slider to 95% and will start a backup to see. I read the links you posted. It sounds like I am not able to get multiple -- complete VHD files -- one for each night so that I can have a history of images back several weeks. It is strange that by default, we would have to go to configure system protection for Backup and Restore to use more than 15% of the external hard drive. Is there a way to get there from Backup and Restore. The objective of the night VHD files is simple. If Malware trashes the computer, I would like to boot up with the installation cd, and restore the computer in it's entirety to a point back in time (say 3 days prior to the Malware destroying the drive). I could then grab the most recent individual documents and files by mounting the latest VHD file in computer manager. The recent Malware attacks have screwed up the computer - even in safe mode -- by setting all files to hidden, read-only on the entire C drive. A full rebuild is the only real way to recover. I can get the system restore to run but the systems were not working well afterwards. I would imagine the same for attempting to run Backup and Restore from the operating system. After the original image, it sounds like the VHD files are incremental. It restores to earlier versions by using the Volume Shadow copy service - are these stored on the external drive as well. I would certainly think so but the drive space doesn't look like it. I have increased the space in the Protected storage and see if it starts using more of the space. In the case of a complete system failure due to Malware or hard drive crash, am I able to restore to a previous version of the incremental image backup by using the Windows 7 install disk and choosing which image I would like? Is there any way I can just get a full image each night and have Windows delete the oldest image when the external drive is getting full. I like having the images with the ability to restore from the install cd and then also have the ability to mount them and grab individual files, going back several weeks. Darin Darin Lewis

You are right about the incremental nature of backups, i do not believe that it does a full backup again to save disk space. I will get this confirmed though. The default percentage is supposed to be 30%, i checked with my ext drive and that is what it shows by default. As you said please go ahead and test after increasing the limit. While you test please take a note of the below: Before you take backup, make sure you alter the system by copying a NEW file, say file 1 of 300mb After the backup check if the C drive properties shows this new backup listed. Verify that the size of your external disk is less by atleast 300mb indicating that the above file was backed up. Repeat this step again with another file and make sure that the above two are shown as expected. If you just want to save the drive as a VHD every night then you can also consider the disk2vhd tool and can run it as scheduled task and forget all the fuss about system restore. However i dont recollect an option within disk2vhd to reapply the image to a disk in case of a failure, other tools may be able to do it. Windows 7 does allow you to boot off a vhd file though which can be utilized. Just a suggestion. Let me know how the test goes. Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support

I tested this and it DOES show multiple snapshots in the drive properties. However it does create only ONE .vhd file for backup, this is done to save diskspace. Please let me know what you find. Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support

any update? Since there hasnt been any update, I hope your issue is resolved/answered by previous posts. Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support

I recently started creating system images for my laptop and ran into this same issue as the Darin. Here is what I found: When you create a system image in Windows 7 to an external hard drive, it saves it to the same file path each time. The only option you can set is the drive letter. In order to create and save multiple system images for the same machine, is to rename the image folder name or change your machine name before creating a new system image. The below link is where I found this information http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-system/how-can-i-save-multiple-copies-of-a-system-image/f5e34ee8-2e86-4e1e-af90-7201ae3eef38?tab=AllReplies&tm=1320106410514&page=1

After a couple of hours of trial and error, I figured this one out: When you make a system image backup to an external or internal drive, AND if one already exists, AND and if there is enough space (defaults to 30% of the drive space, but you can change it in system properties), AND you have your "backup and restore" / "manage space" / "system image" settings to allow Windows to control the system images, THEN a differential is APPENDED to the end of the prior one. HOWEVER, the directory name is changed (which makes one think that the new one is a 'stand alone' backup ... but it is not). You can prove this to yourself by doing a system image backup, then copy some new data to your system drive, then run the system image backup again. Now, go to "backup and restore" / "open system restore" / "choose a different restore point" / "show more restore points". WALLA! All your system images are there (as far back as your 30% space allows). {{ Remember though, that restoring from this GUI will only restore system (OS) related items, not user files (and that is by design, since that is what system restore does) }}. You can also see ALL your system images in the "advanced recovery method," where you can restore the ENTIRE system image, as that is how Microsoft intended system images to be primarily used ... not as a system restore point as mentioned in the above paragraph (although it can be used, in a pinch, as a restore point, with the caveat mentioned above). To see them all in the "advanced recovery method", use "backup and restore" / "open system restore" / "advanced recovery methods" / "use system image". This will reboot your computer and allow you to see (and select if desired, or cancel) ALL the system images that the drive holds. NOTE: if you are testing this, then be aware that at the first "advanced recovery method" screen you select the day, THEN at the NEXT screen it shows you all the system images that exist for that one day. (That part threw me at first, and caused me some panic). Hope that helps y'all! Byron Systems Administrator mediate.com

I have fought your problem for several months. I finally purchased a program called Norton Ghost v15 which is for Windows 7 and up. It is very user frendly and will solve ALL your problems. Your original question was very clear. For the life of me I will never understand why you cannot get a clear answer. I have found this to be true with other questions I have posted, not all but most. Prior to using windows 7 I used Norton version 14 for 6 years AND NEVER HAD A PROBLEM. It is a very flexable program. Based on what you have said in your posts you will be a happy camper Dick