Windows 10: Windows 10 System Image

Yep, set it just like you said. I will make the image a little later after some chores this morning. It is very comforting to know that the recovery media works. Glad you pointed me into testing it. Talk to you later.

 

Ok, later. Is this your machine?


Lenovo Desktop Computer H50-55 (90BG003JUS) A10-Series APU A10-7800 (3.50 GHz) 12 GB DDR3 2 TB HDD AMD Radeon R7 Windows 10 Home 64-Bit-Newegg.com

 

That is the one. I got it through Best Buy on a price match for $429 which I thought was a great deal. The thing is super fast, no waiting on anything. Of course this machine replaced a 13 year old XP machine with 1GB of ram, so most anything would have been noticeably faster. As a test, I opened up about 8 youtube videos, along with some word documents, a tax program, etc. Then I did some web browsing and everything was practically instantaneous.

 

Nice box!

 

Just taking a look ahead at the Macrium program. It automatically checked six items as shown below. Since I would like to restore everything to normal if need be, should I go with all of the items?

 

Sorry, I got diverted...

Yes, in your case it adds up to about 60GB, which will compress down to about 36GB. Should take approx 15-20 minutes, with verify. Important you choose the option for verify. No sense making an image and not knowing it's good. Do you need some help with all the options?

 

Well, since they are all checked, I assume operating system, programs, files, and everything will be imaged. I see below that I can select "image" but I also see on the far left of the screen that I can select "image selected disks" or "create an image of the partitions ...." Do I have to pick one of those or just select the "image this disk" in the main screen area?

 

They're all checked. Just go with that. Click Image this disk. Have to ask....you do have the WD plugged into a USB 3.0 port, not USB 2.0?

 

Yes, plugged into a USB3. Thanks for asking. Got all my ducks in a row now, will actually run it an a little while. Will let you know how it worked out.

 

There are a few things to check first. You should create a separate folder on the WD to hold the backup images. Keeps it tidy. And it's important to use the verify option (bottom left, Advanced options). Please don't just accept all the defaults and run it. Take a moment and make sure the options, all of them, are set properly. I don't want you to waste your time.

 

Okay, I now have time to do the imaging finally. Still wondering what all I'm imaging though since all the tutorials and videos I watched on this didn't show all the things that show on my computer. As in the screen shot I showed above, I have listed the following:

1. System (NONE) FAT 32 (LBA) Primary
2. None - Unformatted Primary
3. Windows (C*Smile
4. Win-RE_DRV (None) NTFS Primary
5. Lenovo_Part (None) NTFS Primary
6. LRS_ESP (None) FAT32 (LBA) Primary

I plan to just image all of this mess, but what are all of these things?

 

1, 2, 3, 4 are system partitions. Must have. 5 and 6 are from your vendor, Lenovo, should keep, at least for now. 3 "C", is you Windows operating system.

Make a folder on your WD drive to hold the images. When you setup the definition for your backup, there's a place to browse for the destination for the backup. Browse and choose the folder you create on WD. You can call it anything, like Macrium Backups. Set the Advanced options to include verify, that's important. Just walk thru the steps. Accept the defaults for number of backups to save. Save your backup definition, call it what you want to. Uncheck Run backup now. When you've finished making the definition, it will appear under the tab at top Backup Definitions. Right click it and click Full. It will take off. Image is done first, then verify. You'll see a progress bar. The verify time is approx. same as image time.

Questions?

 

Thanks, I just made the folder on the drive and will do it now. Will post back when it's done.

 

Good!

Kick-off time in Superbowl is in 20 minutes or so. I'll check back when I can......

 

I just made the image !!!! I went with the default all six items checked. Set auto verify. Copied to a folder I created on the external drive. Took 18 minutes including verification. Message said image successful. Checked contents of folder afterwards and it shows a single image file in the folder of about 47GB. I guess this is smaller than the anticipated 60GB due to compression. Went WAY quicker than I expected. On the external drive I will also store manual backups of my own files so if needed I won't have to get into the image even though that is possible. Feels good to know it's done and that I am confident it will work. Thanks again for the help - without it I would have probably muddled through but would always be wondering if I did it right.

I did discover in "my document" that Macrium had inserted a wordpad text file called "my backup". What is that for? Can I delete it? Seems like it would do no good for my recovery goals since it's on the hard drive anyways.