I've never had an issue using Windows image, it's always worked great for me on all the win7/8 systems I look after but Tech did post a link to a nice one for Win8 if I did happen to want one https://www.slimwareutilities.com/recimg_manager.php
Always worked well for me as well. When i was trying out imaging apps, i would always create a system image with the built-in Windows tool before i went about messing with other imaging apps, just in case. Saved my butt a few times.
I tried AOMEI and it is fast and has a lot of options. Most of which however, I would never use. I'm not interested in incremental or scheduled backups. I'm also having a problem with it. I tried to create a WinPE boot disk. It says that my system does support this function and it should work. The first time, I created the ISO file and then burned it to a CD with ImgBurn. ImgBurn said the process had completed successfully so I tried booting from the disc. During bootup, my computer hesitated a few seconds and then booted straight into Win7 from the hard drive. Trying to explore the CD, it shows as being empty. I tried again but this time burning the disc directly with AOMEI. It also said it had completed successfully but the same thing happens. The disk does not boot and shows as empty. If I have to add drivers, I have no idea which ones to even look for. If I have to install any toolkits or such, that's a no-go for me. I'll stick with EaseUS and it's Linux based disk.
I also tried the Linux Disc from AOMEI. I tried creating a Linux disc. It burned and does boot. However, it does not find the external HDD that the backup was created on so that is useless to me as well.
UPDATE: The Linux disc does find the HDD and the backup file but only if the HDD is connected to a USB 2.0 port. It will not find it when connected via USB 3.0. The EaseUS Linux disc does find it when connected either way.
Sorry to hear that about AOMEI, i see you already posted about this problem on their website. Hopefully their support will be able to help you sort out the issue.
I tried Easeus briefly, it's restore disk can not recognize my verbatim 500 GB usb hard drive. I'm glad it works for most people.
The Macrium WinPE works on any pc I've tried it on.(All different hardware)
Are you using Macrium or IFW ? I am a huge fan of IFW myself, quite possibly the best imaging app i've ever used.
Sorry to be slightly off topic here but....ive used AOMEI backupper and created the bootable cd and imaged my windows 7 computer a dozen times.
Lets say i ditched windows 7 altogether from the hard drive and installed a linux distro.If at some time i wanted to use windows 7 again would AOMEI restore one of my images back on to my HDD again.?
Thanks.
I would think any one of the programs given here would do that.
Correct, only thing you would probably need to do is re-arrange/convert your partitions back into NTFS since Linux uses a different filesystem.