Does this create an exact image of my HDD? If I were to buy a new HDD would I be able to put the image on the new HDD and it work the same way it did on the old HDD with all the games and programs I had installed?
Yes it will create a bit for bit copy, but it will have to be restored to the same system. That means if your Motherboard goes out you would have a problem restoring the image. That is why I used Ghost till it became crap and now I use the bootable disk for Acronis because you can restore to a different system and all will still work.
Acronis True Image Home version 12 and up work on 7.
And it does not mather what hardware you use as long as it's compatible (read same chipset driver).
But if your drive crash and you want to repair it or if anything in your PC breaks and you replace it with the same part or a revision, it should work.
For example, your Z77 board dies. As long as you use an other Z77, it should work.
System imaging or cloning is for backup of a system or deployment of many identical hardware.
I was asking because I am getting a new HDD and want to just use the Windows 7 create disc image backup tool to basically clone my current drive and then just put it on the new drive. Just trying to avoid installing Windows from scratch.
Then get Acronis boot disk 2012, works perfectly for that.
I have never been able to make the windows thing to work.
I have cloned HDDs before with Acronis True Image. Just plug in the HDD, format it, then clone from the primary HDD to the new one. Can you do this with the Windows 7 "create disc image" option?
Clonezilla is another option. Just my preference.