Windows 10: How to backup a PC? Why is this so difficult?

I foolishly offered to backup PCs belonging to my mother-in-law (Windows 10) and father-in-law (Windows 7). Coming from a Mac, I assumed this would be easy enough process. I'm no newbie when it comes to computers, but damned this has been a hard lesson. On the Mac, you just click "Backup" in Time Machine and boom. On the PC it just seems very, very complicated.


I bought a Seagate 2TB drive. Hopefully I can use the same drive to back up both PCs, but I'll buy another drive if I have to.


First problem. I connect the Seagate drive to a PC just to test it out. There's no option to eject it. I did lots and lots of Google searches and cannot find a definitive answer. Do we not have to eject external drives any more?


Second problem. I read lots and lots of articles from PC World and other reputable(?) sites about the best backup utilities out there. I download a couple of them—Aomei and EaseUS. EaseUS actually downloaded an antivirus program without my permission WHILE it was installing. Is this sort of thing typical on the PC? That is about as slimy as you can get. I immediately uninstalled it and the antivirus software that I didn't want.


Aomei was just horrendously complicated. I uninstalled it. I selected clone option, but there are five different partitions—FIVE!—on the PC and I get some sort of error message telling me how impossible the task that I have selected is.


Then I tried the backup utility in Windows 10. Can it just backup ALL files on the computer. I don't want to have to select the files I want to back up because I want to back up the whole freakin' drive. That way if there is a hard drive crash, we can restore from the last backup. Right?


There must be a step-by-step guide to backing up a hard drive somewhere. Someone please help.

:)

 

PC Build Steps

Ok just because I like steps i am going to create some steps. Please give me the stamp of approval/disapproval

• Install system in case
  • Remember to connect SSD and optical to same SATA ports on motherboard
• Turn on PC
• setup HDD
• run blend test in prime95 for 30-60 min
  • run realtemp at the same time

• While in Prime95 test
  • if CPU goes above 70c in RealTemp, I have a leaky CPU
  • if my system locks up or blue screens, there is an instability in the system somewhere
  • if my system does not lock up or blue screen, my CPU is not damaged and I am in the clear!

What do you guys think??

 

Using network hard drive for backup

It depends what sort of backup you want to do. If you're happy just backing up regular files, then there are a bazillion (really, that many!) different bits of freeware to do that. There is a good list here:

Download Back Up Tools for Windows - MajorGeeks

and pretty much all of them can do network backups. Some even have fancy options like encryption. Really, the most useful thing is just being able to schedule them and know they ran OK.

You may also want to make a system image backup too, and you'll find that software in the very same list.

I don't have Windows 8 as yet, so I'm afraid I can't suggest any for that platform. Personally, I use Clonezilla for image backups.

 

Need Serious Help: How To Record Video of What is Done on my PC?


I suggest the following simple steps:

1. Set the autosave options in MS Office to a low value say 5 minutes.
2. Setup file history to autosave frequently - the shortest period is 5 mins
3. Install Macrium Reflect Free and configure it to do a daily incremental system backup

You should be well covered if you do the above to protect your key files.