System Backup
System backup is essential if you can’t afford to lose time for recovery in case of HDD failure. Technologically, operating system backup is the most complicated area of backup. To back up OS you can’t merely copy all system files from one drive to another.
17.3 MB, 32-bit (above) or 23.2 MB, 64-bit version
- Firstly, this won’t work because a large part of them will appear inaccessible for reading (Windows blocks access to system data through file system).
- Secondly, operating system, by definition, is launched at computer startup, i.e. system backup must include at least boot records which are not represented as files at all.
To create a complete system backup, it is necessary to work with the hard drive directly on a physical level, instead of using file system queries.
How to Back up System
It is highly recommended that the system partition that is backed up remains unchanged during the process. If you or your system modifies contents of the hard drive while Handy Backup tries to back it up, then the operation may fail.
The best case is when you boot from a different HDD or disk partition and add image of the main system drive to the backup task. Learn more about bootable system backup...

All options available for common files backup can be enabled for image-based backup too. The data can be compressed, encrypted, verified, etc. and all operations can be scheduled to take place automatically. For the full list of options, please see our software features...
For details on the usage of the disk imaging feature, please see Image Backup in the User Manual.
Handy Backup for system backup in Windows. Try now!
To back up system, you need the Home Professional edition:
$99 per license
See more on System Backup
Registry Backup - protect Windows from critical errors, hardware crashes, and software failures
Image Backup - make a safe backup copy of the entire disk drive
Bootable Backup - learn how to create bootable backup and recovery drives for emergency cases
Volume Shadow Service Backup - copy locked data by backing it up via the VSS service
Who uses Handy Backup?

