Windows 10: File History or Backup and Restore? or both? or what?

Greetings. I have a laptop with Windows 11 pro which was automatically upgraded from Windows 10 Pro, which I upgraded from Windows 10 Home. I bought an external hard drive for backups as my laptop is getting old. I am currently trying to get a backup of all my data that is on this pc onto the new hard drive but I am running into so many options that it's quite confusing. I guess the main one is; Am i suppose to use File History or Windows Backup and Restore Windows 7? Or am I suppose to use both? Or should I not bother with either and use a 3rd party app?I have other questions as well concer

:)

 

File History Restore Not Working

My apologies for my not explaining my problem clearly.

File History would always list my external drive. It would not list the File History backup subfolder, "Computer Name", which contained my backup.

I completed the 5 steps you recommended, and in step (4), using Windows Explorer, I opted to change the name to "File History.old" instead of deleting it. Had I deleted it, all my backup files that I want to reload onto drive C would have been gone.

When I look at the external backup drive in Windows Explorer it now shows 4 folders, $RECYCLE.BIN, FileHistory, FileHistory.old and System Volume Information. Bottom line, FileHistory contains only the backed up data currently on Drive C as a result of step
5, while FileHistory.old contains the data I wish to reload.

Now when I go to Control Panel/File History/Select drive, and select the external backup drive, only the subfolder contained in FileHistory shows up. The subfolder contained in FileHistory.old, which contains the data I wish to restore, is still not listed.
When I select "Restore personal files" it only shows folders associated with FileHistory.

Thanks for your attention and help, but I am now resigned to copying and pasting the files that I need to restore. I totally yield to the higher power that is Microsoft.

Again thanks,

RP

 

Windows backup/restore and file history

It's not the 2 or 3 .vhdx files that are the weak part of a 'Backup & Restore (Windows 7)' system image. It's the 26 other various files, database, catalog, and .xml specs that seem to be its Achilles heel. They all have to be there and consistent for a restore operation to recognise the backup image as valid. One small discrepancy and system restore will not even list the image as being there and available to restore.

 

Backup using file history

Thanks Robeline

I was going by other advice and articles that suggest that backing up under Update and security/backup is now the way to go. I will try your suggestion.

Doug