Windows 10: System Backup

After spending two days to get my computer reprogram after a Diskpart failure I want to do a backup on the drive. Is the Windows10 backup good to use,or do I need something else. If I do a complete backup can I restore it to another formatted drive ?. Need a better way of doing things,don't want this to happen again without have a better fix.

Z

:)

 

System backup

Yes you would use #1. It contains everything you need to make a working copy of windows. Of course, you have to do the image copy to an external drive, USB or DVD etc. But you also need a separate boot DVD / USB to run the restore from.

This article describes the whole process, making backup, making restore disk and running restore:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-make-full-ba...

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"Backing a Computer Up", many articles have been written on the subject.

Point 1: sooner or later your computer is going to f'up, requiring a "restore"

Everything breaks, computers included. Especially since they (the computers) are constantly in the hands of users who don't know what they are doing to the computer and the computers are constantly under attack by malware.

Point 2: computers f'up, including your backup!

If you have only 1 "backup", you have nothing. I'm sure you've heard, troubles come in threes. Invariably when your computer f's up, you find out your only backup is also fup'd. So there are 2 sub points:

a. Always verify your backup.

b. keep multiple copies on multiple media in multiple locations

The recommended MINIMUM best practice is 1 backup "onsite" for quick recovery. A second backup "offsite" for physical security and finally a backup on a different medium, to provide security against hardware failure

ie. #1 backup on a USB connected HD onsite (kept unplugged except when needed)

#2 backup on a second USB drive that you keep offsite (ie at work or family home) which you rotate

#3 backup some different medium, ie USB flash drive, or DVD or even OneDrive or other cloud service. This can also serve as offsite copy.

Point 3: Frequency

How often you do backups depends on how much change is happening and how important the files are to you.

For example, Windows itself doesn't change much, so a monthly backup frequency is reasonable. When "update tuesdays" were more significant, there were 2 strategies, image copy weekend before so you have a known good fallback point or image copy immediately
after tuesday updates to have a fallback. Plus, windows, and your applications are relatively easy (if time consuming) to restore/replace. But your personal data files are often irreplaceable. So weekly or even daily backups only of changed files (incremental
backups) may be more appropriate. Finally there are the files you are actively working on and you feel are high value: a book, a thesis, an assignment with a short upcoming deadline, a business document. Those you may (should) want to backup multiple times
as you are working on them using "save as". That way if any "corruption" sneaks in to the document, you have multiple slightly older versions to fall back to. That minimizes amount of work lost. You wouldn't believe the number of cries for help we get at end
of school terms from people with term papers, thesisisisis <grin> etc on short due dates with problems.

For example, when I was in school, I had a USB drive for my school documents (and my IE Favorites collection) that I would take back and forth. I would copy any document I was actively working on to the school computer (very bad idea to edit files directly
on USB Flash drives!) then copy them back at the end of the day. When I got home I would copy the whole flash drive back to my home computer. That way, if I did lose the flash drive I lost at most only a day's worth of work. Granted, today you would probably
use OneDrive in place of the Flash drive. But even there, I would keep separate copies on my local HD.

Point 4: Partitions

To make backups and backup frequency and especially system restore easier I believe in separating Windows and Applications from your personal data files. In other words I prefer to setup a logical partition for Windows and applications, ie C:\ drive, and a
separate one D:\ for Data files. That way you can more easily do the different backup frequency. And if Windows dies (ie is infected with malware), it is simple to restore a backup of the C: drive without affecting any files on the D: drive.

So to summarize, my backup strategy is

#1 monthly image copy backup of C: (Windows and applications)

#2 additional image copy backup of C: before major changes, ie major upgrades to Windows or after changes like installing new software programs (and finishing your personalization of them)

#3 Monthly full image backup copy of D: drive

#4 Weekly "incremental" backup copy of D: drive

#5 daily/hourly backup of actively edited important files

I have a couple of 1+TB usb Hard drives for the image copies and I use flash drives and onedrive for personal file backups.

 

System Backup

Not yet. but I am playing videos nonstop to keep the computer awake, because last night, it would not wake up. I had a boot disc on a previous computer. I tried to make one today, but since it did not format the disc, I have doubts. Right now, it is
failing to back itself up to create a system image. I don't even know what a system image is.

 

You can use either Macrium Reflect Free or AOMEI Backupper . They are both good and free.
Personally, I use Macrium.

 

Both are good.

i use Easeus Backup myself.

And the old Vista W7 imaging facility, which was dropped in 8/8.1, is back in W10.

It's basic, but it works.


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Thanks for all the suggestions, if I use Macrium Reflect Free software will I be able to restore to another formatted drive? Like make a clone of my main system.

 

Yes Macrium Reflect does this.

 

Instead of cloning, just create a backup image into a single file to an external HD then you can restore to another drive when needed. In addition, you can mount it as a virtual drive to selectively restore files/folders. You don't even have to format the drive, Macrium will take care of that.

 

Really.....so why does it have to be backed up to a external drive?? You can use a 2nd drive that's internal. Unless their is some reason you shouldn't. ?? And.....how do you mount it as a virtual drive?? That's sounds interesting.? Right now I can't even mount an ISO on my hard drives, even thou after reading Brinks tutorial its suppose to be easy. My menu does not show that option at all in file explorer. Just wondering...is all.

 

Of course you could. External or internal does not matter. I do use an internal SSD but always have extra copy on an external. However, it is safer to backup to an external in case if you have Virus attack or have you ever heard of Ransomware ? which they can encrypt all your data from all drives and require you to pay a ransom to decrypt, and that's one of the reason I always suggest to backup to an external.

To mount the image as a Virtual drive, just double click on the image (.mrimg extension). A Windows will popup, check which one you want to mount, click OK. Look in "This PC". You should have the drive mounted. To unmount, Right click on the drive->Unmount:









Here's a quick and dirty video which I did backup on an internal SSD:
[youtube]pCUNEwU41MU[/youtube]

 

Hi,

Maybe an installed CD/DVD burning program has changed the default program to open .ISO files ?
If you rest the default program for mounting ISO files back to explorer them you should have the option to mount it.

Cheers, *Wink

 

Thanks for all the Suggestion
I did use Macrium Reflect Free and it worked like a charm.My extra drive is all loaded and running perfect.What a great piece of software,will never build another computer without it. Tried the Image Backup in Windows 10 with no luck,did not like partition sizes being different. Using the drive as I type,I'm happy camper again. Anybody that cares about there system and files should be using this.

 

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Yes using your method, I could mount the "mrimg extension's" just fine after you showing how you do this. Never new we could do that with Macrium Reflect!! Nice feature. Your video is ok too, but I do my backups always from my usb 3.0 rescue disk, that I made with MR. I just prefer to make my image backups from bootable usb stick instead of from my C-Drive. But I learned something new today on how to pick and choose what file or folders to mount using MR!!
I like that method....a lot. *Smile

The problem I was talking about thou, is mounting an ISO file, using a different method to mount. Which in my case doesn't show up even as a choice. I know why, I believe its because I use WinRAR and it blocks my choice to even see that option on my file explorer menu. No big deal really, as I am NOT going to remove WinRAR, as its a paid registered app, that I bought long time ago. Thanks for the info on MR topgundcp *Smile

 

Yes, Windows built in "Mount" option will be disabled when you install a third party software to avoid any conflict. I use "Ultra ISO" since it offers more options, I could create/modify/mount an ISO file with ease.

 

After having been a long time user of Acronis TI and Shadowprotect Desktop. I found exactly what I wanted in Macrium Reflect Home. Been a user since 2012 and it has never let me down. As of now, MR is the standard by which I judge other backup and imaging programs. MR Home Version 6 is really fast.

Shadowprotect is also very reliable but Storagecraft's flaky activation policies are a massive turn off for blokes like myself who perform clean installs every 3-4 months. Not to forget Shadowprotect is expensive in comparison to other solutions. They target Corporations not small home users like me.

As for Acronis, what can I say? A great backup program that's now evolved into a real mess whilst trying to behave like a Swiss Army knife. And then TI version 2016 has no log viewer. Seriously, Acronis have lost their way.