Windows 10: Advice / Recommendation for System Drive Back Up Technique

Hi.


Had a huge scare this morning, after a recent update had to be reverted. Thought I'd lost my system drive. I tried to recover using a USB windows WRE? I made back in April, but anywhere I went on it came up with errors, including full reinstall. I then tried an older Windows 10 Install disk I made last year, but it wouldn't let me install due to another error after selecting what type of Windows I wanted installed. Luckily at the end of my tether, I just let the PC run on the "undoing changes made to your computer" for a while, and to my utter relief it went back to normal (I know I need more patience).


But, now due to the panic I want to cover myself. I have a recondition HP Elite i7 that obviously came from a company. So the Windows installed is registered with what I believe is the Mac address of the Motherboard?


If my System Drive goes capoot, what are my options to get back up and running again, what would you all suggest I do as backup? I have some spare external hard drives laying around and also a few USB drives?


I'm just a little confused about Mirror ISO's and System back up, I don't need my personal files backed up as I do these manually.


Sorry for the long request, basically what is the best, safest method I should use, should my System Drive corrupt, what do I need to go about installing windows.

:)

 

Lost data from hard drive, what to do now?

Well, I'm sorry to hear that it's a WD My Passport that failed on you, @tomhenry ! *Frown
I'd recommend you to try using a different USB cable with it and see if that will help your system to detect it without it disconnecting.
I'd also suggest you to go to Disk Management and see how the drive is listed there. It won't hurt to check up on the health and SMART status of the HDD by running the QUICK and EXTENDED tests from the WD's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics. Here's a link to the available software: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=11ZOpD

Give these troubleshooting steps a try and keep us posted with the results!
SuperSoph_WD

 

Hard drive/ OS issue

a guy suggested :

• shutdown
• unhooked HDD
• restarted
• yay !!
• reconnected HDD
• restarted
• yay !!

also , try method 3
How do I unlock the drive where Windows 10 is installed?

 

PC Build Steps

all parts should be here by friday...any last advice? I will follow the step lists we created guys...