Create a copy of my hard disk

[tonybright]

Hi,

I have recently had to carry out a full system recovery(back to factory default) twice, and both times had to go throught the pain of downloading all the updates from Win 7 and Sony.

Is there any way I can create a "copy" of my machine as it stands now - saving at leas 15 months of downloads again ???

Thanks for any advice offered

[Blencogo]

I use Acronis True Image.

The advantage is that it creates an exact mirror of your hard drive which includes Updates, all your data, settings, added software etc.  You can then incrementally update the image and in the event of a problem, you can restore the whole drive or individual files or folders.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acronis-True-Image-Home-2011/dp/B003YCOHGY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303335070...

You will really need an external USB Hard Drive.  You could use DVDs but a portable hard drive is preferable.

Unfortunately it is not free and you may find cheaper alternatives using Google but you tend to get what you pay for.