Many laptop and desktop manufacturers have a separate partition in their PCs and laptops that is used to store a copy of the Windows OS. This comes in handy if your PC is infected by a virus or your 0S crashes. This backup lets you quickly get your PC up and running. Windows 7 has a built-in backup utility that stores an image on a backup partition, an external hard drive or even on a network share.

To create a disk backup, click on Start > Control Panel> System and Security> Back up your computer. Click on Create a system image from the left panel. Choose, where you want to save the 'backup and then click on Next. just make sure that the drive has enough space to store the data. Choose the partitions you want to backup in the next step.

If you want to select folders to backup instead of an entire partition, click on Set up backup instead. Select the location where you want to back up the data, then click the radio button that lets you choose the folders you want to backup. Select the folders and finally proceed to the final steps. You can even schedule automatic backups at a fixed time.