A hard drive image is like taking a photo of the state of your drive at a particular time.

Your hard drive can consist of thousands of files, data, applications and an operating system. These files change as they are edited, deleted or accessed and the state of your hard drive changes every time you turn it on.

When you make an image of your hard drive you are taking a snapshot of all the files and saved as one single file you can store for later use.

You may want that files in the future as a backup if something happens. You may want to archive it of the hard drive could be physically failing so you might want to make a copy of the hard drive to put onto another drive and continue using.

Disclaimer

If you are not confident in imaging are hard drive and have never done it before do so at your own risk.

It can be very easy to make a mistake and wipe all your data. Make sure you have backed up your preferred method before attempting to make a drive image.

Do I need Software

One of the best and easiest applications to use to make an image of your hard drive is Acronis True Image.

There are many different ways to make an image but the best is to do it manually and make a copy of your drive when you are not using it to run your computer either as a primary drive or slave (secondary).

What Will I Need

• A image application like Acronis True Image
• 1 USB Thumb Drive
• 1 External Drive with enough spare space

The Process

The process will be different for different products but the basics will remain the same.

• First you need to make a USB boot disk using your imaging software. This will enable you to boot from the USB rather than your hard drive you are trying to image (backup).
• Tell your motherboard to boot from the USB rather than your hard drive – for the purpose of this exercise. You will need to set it back when you are finished.
• Plug your external drive is also.
• Boot from your Acronis USB and choose the backup option.
• For the source choose the disk you would like to image.
• For destination choose your external hard drive.
• Hit proceed and depending on the size of your drive you will be finished. Can take anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours depending on the state of your hard drive and how big it is.
• Don’t forget to set your motherboard back to booting from your internal hard drive again when you are finished.