Windows 10: Safety measures to start / boot / repair Win 10?

You can use as many different disk imaging programs as you wish. However, that would be confusing.

You can run Macrium as an installed program and create and possibly restore images (depends on destination being in use).

You can create a bootable medium from that, and boot your (possibly unbootable) PC from that and create and restore images.

You need large enough external storage for your various disk image sets.

 

I would like to use a single program, if it would be enough.

So is this right:

I only can use a single program, Macrium Reflect, create a rescue disk / medium (on an external USB hard disk, e.g. WD 5 TB Elements or a USB-Stick) and that it is? I do not need to download anything else?

 

I schedule Reflect Free to backup to an external hard drive and also manually backup to another external drive which is stored in a separate location. I have my first clean install of windows with all working programmes archived as a further safety measure. Note you can mount any Reflect image as a drive and easily recover any files or folders you need rather than doing a full image recovery. Consider also the use of File History.

 

Alright, so always keep an image of a first clean installation of Win (after it is set up to ones needs) and an image of the actual state.

OK, a good idea. But if Win does not start anymore wouldn't it be better to recover the full image because there might be broken (and missing) files (not being recognizable, only by check by content)?

So in total I did that (according to the tutorial, hope I got it right):






















The data / files Macrium Reflect copied to the USB-Stick need 257 MB.

And I made an image:



















The image:




So now I have a bootable USB-Stick. And now I do not need any further recovery CD/DVD, a repair CD/ DVD, files to download or anything else.
Is that enough? Or is there anything else to do?

So if Win does not start anymore, one plugs in the rescue media, e.g. a USB-Stick which repairs / starts the OS / programs and if it runs well one can leave it or if it does not work properly then one could or should restore the image (stored on an external hard disk) of C: either completely or the missing / broken files to get the state of the drive / OS like it was before the problem occurred?

 

The Macrium Reflect rescue drive, by itself, has very little OS repair capability. The only repair function is the Fix Winodws boot problems utility on the restore menu to fix problems with the boot files (BCD) that keep the OS from loading. If something gets messed up in the Windows OS itself, and not the boot files, then you restore your last image that was working and that takes you back in time to when the image was made. Then you have to figure out what action broke the OS after that and make sure to stop that action before it occurs again. It could have been a program you installed - or more of a problem, a Windows update.

I notice your 5TB external hard drive looks like it is about completely full. Are you getting a second external hard drive? There is a fairly easy way to create a small FAT32 partition on the external hard drive, then you copy the files and folders from the rescue USB flash drive to the FAT32 partition on the hard drive and now you can both boot the computer from the external hard drive right into the imaging program (Macrium Reflect), and restore the image from it - eliminating the need to keep the rescue USB flash drive. All my important computers have an SSD for the main OS, and a second hard drive for backup images permanently installed. The second hard drive installed has a small FAT32 partition with the rescue drive copied to it, so if the main OS on the SSD crashes, I can boot the computer from the second hard drive and restore an image without having to connect anything external to the computer.

 

Restoring an image when your PC is unbootable.

You boot from the Macrium rescue disk you created and run Macrium.

Your images should be on a separate external storage medium.

Using the Macrium program you select the image which you previously created on the separate external storage medium and restore that to your internal disk. That replaces the relevant partition, assuming the disk and image are sound.

Using Images as a backup
Yes you can mount images and copy files from them.
However, if you have an unbootable PC or unresolvable error it is extremely unlikely this will help you fix that.

 

@Enter - one thing I noticed on your screenshots.....it appears you did not choose to verify your backup image. There is an option to do so when you make the image. Or you can verify it afterward. I have had virtually no issues with the backup image not being valid, but it's still a good thing to do. Should you ever need to restore that image, it's the wrong time to find out it's no good.

 

There are several imaging programs with free versions. The simplest to use is Aomei Backupper
Best Free Backup Software for Windows 10, Windows 8.1/8, Windows 7, Vista, XP

Paid versions have more features.
O&O are doing a giveaway of DiskImage 11 professional at the moment.

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A few days ago it happened after or during a Win 10 update, do not know the cause, could not find out.

Yes, I now have a 8TB WD drive for backups only. From time to time I move files to other external drives from that 5TB drive when it is almost completely full.

That is very good, I will do it like that (unless one has to do a backup of the drive before making a partition, does one have to do one?). The drive is formated with exFAT.

Alright, I understand.

Yes, that is right, I didn't. I will do it from now on. Thank you. Edit: Beyond belief, but I cannot find the verify option, neither on my screenshots nor in the program, where can I find it?

Thank you very much for the links, the O&O giveaway, I will try them out.

 

A few hours ago my Notebook didn't boot anymore (the same failure like a few days ago). I plugged in the rescue USB-Stick, it booted to the Reflect GUI and I let it recover the last image. The problem kept staying, the Notebook didn't boot, the same behaviour like it was before. There was shown autochk not existing, skipping AUTOCHECK. So I had to reset the computer. Now I have lost the files / edits / changes done after the last backup / image (if I had reset the computer without the backup I would have the complete changes / files). Is there a way to recover the changes I made since Reflect did the last image?

I thought, this means the OS is backed up and not my own files located in another folder than Windows is:




How could I back up the OS only (and / or restore)?

I started a new thread here about the autoshk: Notebook doesn't boot, error: autochk not existing, skipping AUTOCHECK - Windows 10 Forums

 

The option you selected backs up all the partitions that are required for Windows to run. You say your own files were located in another folder than Windows is. But what partition was that folder in? If your files were in a folder that was in the same partition as Windows (on C: drive), then the files get backed up and restored along with Windows because Macrium Free only does entire partition imaging. In order to backup and restore Windows only, and not your data files, then you have to create a separate partition for your data, and your files will get stored on an entirely different drive letter, like E:\, and not just in a separate folder from Windows.

 

Alright, thank you very much!

And obviously other files, e.g. my own ones.

The same partition, C:, there is only one.

Alright, but it absoultely does not make any sense for me, when it says back up Windows I would think it means to back up Win and nothing else. Why doesn't it say back up (entire dive) C:? Very senseless for me.

Many thanks again

 

On my PC, the Macrium imaging choices are:

1: image specified complete disks. This would be the choice to make if you wanted to make a single image file of each and every partition on some particular disk. Not just C, not just D; etc

2: create an image of the partitions required to backup and restore Windows. This would be the choice to make if you wanted to image ONLY those partitions required to restore Windows. Typically, D, E, F, etc would NOT be included as they are not needed to run or restore Windows.

Or you can manually put checkmarks under the individual partitions on the disk in question within the Macrium interface. If you checkmark ALL partitions, you've made the same choice as 1 above for that particular disk.

I don't see a choice to "backup Windows". Macrium works on a partition basis. You can include all of a partition or none of it. Regardless of what it might contain. You have total control over what partitions.

 

This is the actual wording. In the case of just one OS, UEFI, there would be 3 very small partitions and the main C: partition. 4 in total.

 

Thank you for the clarification. I will try to do it correctly the next time.

Are the screenshots visible for you above?