Windows 10: It's Backup Season Again

It's almost the end of the summer season.
It's time to image my PCs again. This is also a reminder to all who have not done so. And while you are waiting for Win 9 to arrive, start backing up you system now. It will come in handy specially to those who are planning to do a dual boot. Don't wait. Just do it! *Smile





:)

 

Error message?

It must be holiday season again!

 

Install of build 1509 stuck during reboot

Thanks so much for your reply. I will perform the backups you described and then attempt a reinstall of v.1509 via the Media Creation Tool. I have this thread bookmarked and will revisit all of this once the holiday season is over.

Thank you again for your help and you'll hear from me soon. Happy Holidays to you and yours.

 

Lol, I make 2 Acronis, and one Paragon (backup backup) backup image every weekend *Wink

 

I don't change my system settings a lot nor install a lot of programs. I don't really need to image that often.
My files are backed up separately on NAS and external drives.

 

Weird font problem. Browser won't load email suddenly. Can't connect to internet. Restore to last image, at worst it's 1 week old. Great peace of mind *Wink

 

Back ups are one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Otherwise it leads to lots of heartaches.

 

Always a good reminder, badrobot. :smile:

For home I just back up my data on an external drive, then take it into work (my simple disaster recovery plan).

For work, I back up my data on a network drive that's backed up multiple times a day (off site). And I use Acronis to make a complete image of my system on an external drive. While at home I don't mind a clean install of Windows, at work it can be a pain since I have my development environment tweaked so much.

 

Daily Acronis incremental for me. Acronis is the most important single program I have installed.

Yes, its a good reminder. These days there is no excuse for not backing up your system image.

 

Something is not right with your system. Unless you probably do a long term solution like clean install (I know it's a very painful truth to some of us), then you may not need to do image every week then. But if your system works for you, then forget what I just said. *Smile

Personally, I prefer reverting back to a "clean install image". I do have it as a primary backup. But I also do quarterly backups. So, I have two image backups... a clean version and a "recent" version.

As for my Win 8 PC, I have a clean backup for both Win 8 and Win 8.1. ("Clean backup" is just a system image right after a clean installation.)

I use macrium free edition for image backups. I have a Macrium bootable rescue USB for both Win 7 and Win 8.1. Very easy to use also. But I also have Acronis Pro version.

 

I learned about the importance of disaster recovery at work many years ago and I carried those concepts over to my own PC usage.

Right now I have two drives, one for the OS/Programs and one for the data. And I use DVD's for backup and the cloud for even more backup.

I really don't want to have a disaster that I can't recover from!
Jeff *Smile

 

Exactly!

On my 2 desktop PCs, I have 2 copies of the same OS. One on cloned SSD which is the primary boot drive and one on the HDD (original installation) which also serves as a data drive.
So if anything happens, and I am in the middle of something, I will just switch to the other drive and carry on and deal with the problem on the other OS later.

And in case of an unfortunate data loss disaster... my ultimate weapon is the MiniTool Power Data Recovery... it saved my life twice already! *Smile

 

I use Macrium Reflect to create system images before I make any changes to the system, like just prior to running Windows Updates, or installing new software. I have a fair number of HDD's, so I like to save new images on at least three separate drives in case one of them fails.

 

Nope, nothing wrong with my system, haven't reinstalled in more then a year. But things do happen. Rather then investigate the cause, a known good image is an easier fix. The weekly backups take maybe a 1/2 hour total, and I just carry on with what I'm doing, so no hassle. And as I say, great peace of mind. I have seen so many posts from people who say they have a backup image, but it's x months old. With all the tweaks I have made over time, programs won in contests and giveaways, etc. a clean install is not a #1 option.

 

My backup seasons are one heck of a lot shorter. I also use Macrium Reflect Free (here is a good tutorial on how to use Macrium Reflect) to image my boot drive once a week and just before I make any changes. It takes a hair less than ten minutes to make the image and verify it (it's all one operation so I just set it and forget it. I save my images to my main data drive (which gets backed up so the images also get backed up).

I use FreeFileSync to backup my data drives. It's a folder/file syncing program and is much faster than imaging (unfortunately, it can't be used to backup system files); so much faster, in fact, I can do daily backups of my main data drive. I keep two identical backup drives at home (and backup to both of them daily) and two more in a safe deposit box at my credit union which get swapped out with the two at home at least once a month.

I also backup my data to Carbonite. It costs only $60/year—that's only $5/month—and, imho, is cheap insurance for my data.