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First post, by jfarms

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What's the quickest/easiest way to create a backup image of a WIndows XP install like on a USB drive?

I keep tinkering with my retro xp/win7 build and keep needing to wipe the drives/re-install as I run into driver corruption issues/etc...

I'm getting really tired of digging out the sata CD drive to re-install XP every time and then doing basic drivers etc...

Can I just copy the whole install drive onto a usb? or is there a backup program people recommend?

thanks for any ideas!

Reply 1 of 5, by SScorpio

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Is the machine still bootable after the driver corruption?

If so you could try doing a sysprep /generalize which will remove all of the hardware configurations without needing to reinstall the software. It's made run after setting up a system as a base image that will then be imaged to other machines.

Reply 2 of 5, by CwF

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jfarms wrote on 2021-11-26, 22:55:

Can I just copy the whole install drive onto a usb?

Yes, create a bootable usb with a linux, and store the XP completed and configured disk image on it, and image it to the installed drive with qemu-img!

Actually, I'll image from a linux machine to a drive, install the drive and boot. If you mess up often or want a fresh start often, then make an OS on a stick with images to image...a compressed qcow2 is a gig or two file before installing big stuff.

I used to know what I was doing...

Reply 3 of 5, by VDNKh

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I use a bootable CD of Clonezilla to back up disk images. Used it a lot at my old job, backing up Windows 7 computers or transferring the image to a bigger drive, and for my 98SE build currently. Very easy to use too. Compresses the .img file as well.

https://clonezilla.org/downloads.php