Create an ISO Image from your operating system [Part 1]

Learn how to create an ISO image of your windows c: drive. If a re-format is needed, you can quickly role back to this iso image and be right back to where you were when you created your system snap shot.

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welcome to this how-to guide on creating
an iso image of your windows operating
system
this is a free and great method for
backing up your entire operating system
this method works for pretty much all
windows versions from XP end up
we are going to be using an iso image to
take a snapshot of our entire operating
system so all drivers software and
everything else installed are backed up
if windows were to fail and you didn't
have a snapshot and you would have to do
a fresh reinstall of the operating
system
this could take many hours to install
all of your precious software and
drivers with this snapshot you can be
back up and running in this little as 20
minutes
keep in mind your snapshot is only as
good as the one you make
I personally end up making 21 right
after you do a fresh clean install with
just your drivers were loaded and that
way if you ever want to do a quote
unquote fresh clean install you can just
roll back that ISIL image and then I do
a second snapshot after you have all of
your software installed
I also redo a snapshot perhaps maybe
once or
twice a month it's up to you how often
you want to do
a snap shop at this point I have to give
a little warning
it's pretty much common sense but i
should say it anyway
if you take a snapshot with the virus or
malware on your pc and two weeks later
you decide to reload that ISIL image in
hopes of getting rid of the virus
because you didn't realize you took a
snapshot with the virus
you're not going to get rid of that
virus basically you're recovering
something that . is already infected so
the moral of this whole warning is try
to make nice
good and clean copies I remember your
recovery is only going to be as good as
your copy
so in order to create our ISO image
we're going to need three things to make
all of this magic happen
first is some free software will show
you how to download later a second will
be some kind of media to to place our
ISO image on
and since our ISO image can be pretty
big files i recommend at X and external
hard drive
they're just fantastic for backups and
last but not least we also need a blank
CD and what the blank CD will allow us
to do is create the recovery CD in the
event that we actually need to use our
ISO image and restore it and recover our
windows operating system that's what the
recovery CD will allow us to do before
we go any further I just want to give
you some thoughts
we are about to take a snapshot of our
entire CD drive if you have documents or
data stored on the c drive this will get
back up to this can be a good thing but
I also feel clears up your ISIL image
for example i have my documents / data
located outside of the operating system
and if you want to set up something
similar
see my create a partition video for more
details so I have the drive and I have
the C Drive
if my data were inside my c drive like
most users have set up and this is the
windows my documents folder then we
would be backing up a pretty big ISIL
image
so for example my
my data has 91 gigs and then just the
windows operating system which I really
care about for this example has 33 or
close to thirty four gigs so if my
documents were located in my C Drive
then I would be basically making an iso
image of a hundred and twenty four gigs
which is pretty big so i have chosen to
back up my windows or C Drive would just
the windows operating system to make the
iso image much smaller my data gets back
up very very frequently to another
external hard drive basically whenever a
change or add anything to this drive it
immediately gets backed up just in case
of failure again it's up to you on how
you want to handle backups but so far
this is works pretty well for me
so first thing we need to do is download
our free software install it so just
launched a web browser
and then we're going to go to this
website here and what we're going to do
is we're going to scroll down and we're
looking for a drive back up 9.0 free
edition for windows click the download
for free link and hear what we're going
to do is we're just going to pick
whatever version you want if you're
running 64-bit or 32-bit for windows
keep in mind i I'm really not associated
with this company at all
I just like this program they do offer a
program
that you can actually buy that's like
the pro version
you don't need to do it for what I'm
about to show you if you like the
software i want to do that that's cool
but for our purposes we only need to be
free version so just click the download
now and just save the file and then
we'll get ready to install the program
at this point simply just install this
like any program you normally would and
then at some point sadly the only what I
consider a slight pitfall of this
program is that you actually need to
register this program again the key code
it is free
I've had good luck with this and i have
not gotten spams i will admit it's just
like pain in the butt that you need to
register with it is free and such as
life and it
like I said that hasn't been that bad so
all you do when you get to this point
you just need to click this and get free
cereal
you need to sign up with this company
will send your product key and a serial
number and that's pretty much it
once you do that just finish up the
install after the programs installed
plug in your external hard drive and
we're going to run the program
so this is the main part of the program
we are going to click back up disk or
partition and it's pretty much puts you
through a wizard for backups
and then we are going to click the next
button and here is basically a list of
everything that I can back up and create
an iso image from for our purposes and
if you want to do the windows operating
system
we just need to find our C Drive as long
as you installed windows on your C Drive
which most users probably did
all we have to do is just check this box
and then this will tell you the
estimated archive size of the iso image
30 . 3 gigs is fine and then you're
going to click next and then here is
basically our destination
so in my case I on my external hard
drive i called it always back up just so
I know where everything is located
find the folder that you've created
everything in and this is actually my
desktop and then what we're going to do
is archived name is anything you want it
to be for this i'm just going to call
test you could put today's date
whatever you wanted click Next and
you're all set
and last but not least we need to create
our media recovery disk so this is again
pretty straightforward run the program
this is again the main area we're going
to say build recovery media and again it
doesn't fancy little wizard say next
pretty much any computer can boot from
CD ROM so i'm going to select that
let's say next typical just be
straightforward next and then here if
you have multiple CD drives just select
the one that can actually burn cds
click Next
and then say next and you're pretty much
done
so now that we're finally finished take
your external hard drive
take your CD that you created and talk
these in a safe place
with any luck you'll need them feel free
to make new iso images periodically of
your operating system and with any luck
I'm not feeling too lazy soon i will
create a video on how to actually
recover our operating system from the
iso image that we created today if this
takes a little longer than intended
i will give you some quick quick crash
course on this now it's pretty
straightforward basically what you're
going to do is you're going to take your
CD
I'm going to place in your cd-rom and
before Windows your operating system
launches from the physical hard drive in
your computer you are going to make sure
that this recovery CD boots first and
when you boot from your cd-rom first of
many application will be ran and with
this application you are able to follow
the instructions
it's fairly straightforward but it
allows you to do is take that folder on
your external hard drive and take that
ISIL image and dump it to our C Drive
since windows isn't booted up
nothing is accessing our C Drive and
this is what actually allows us to take
what's on this and dump it in or on to
the c drive
so once you do that you can take out the
CD
it may take 20 minutes or less depending
on how big your ISO images
well one that's done like I said take
out the CD and just start windows
normally and
and you should be right back to when you
took that snapshot
thanks for watching