W 10 Backup Question

Thanks for the help. I already have the tool installed on my PC. It does allow me to idownload W10 , but, my goodness, it's a terribly slow download. I tried downloading it overnight, but when I got up this morning the computer had shut itself down. I might try it again tomorrow, when I have time to keep an eye on things.

BTW, I don't already haveW10 on any media, otherwise I would have used that.

The beauty of creating an image file is that it is a single step to restore the OS, programs that you installed, and all data created. Once you have your computer configured the way you like it, create an image of it. After that, periodically do an incremental backup. If your computer gets corrupted, just revert to known good backup.

To mr. ed... Your having Windows 10 installed on that PC you had issues with is recorded on Microsoft's servers. With another PC, get the Microsoft Media Creation Tool and create an USB ISO Windows 10 stick. Use this as I mentioned in my earlier post and Windows 10 will be back on your PC and automatically registered to you by Microsoft Servers. You will just need to enter your email address and password that you use in regard to your Microsoft account. If you don't remember same you can easily call Microsoft's Win 10 Tech Support and they will help you out. After you do the install of Win 10 you just have to get your programs reinstalled on the system and get your personal data files back on there also. Not at all hard to get your Win 10 back on there.

Assuming you had Windows 10 installed on a PC an easy easy way to get Windows 10 back on the PC, after you have an issue with the PC, or that you say replaced the hard drive is to reinstall Windows 10 with a USB drive that you used the Microsoft Media Creation Tool to place Windows 10 on. Very easy, you place the USB stick in the USB port on the PC and you turn the PC on. Windows, in minutes is installed on the PC. When finished you just log in on the newly installed Windows 10 and Microsoft's servers, automatically register the Windows 10 operating system. You do not enter a registration key. This process is very simple. SO, if you keep on hand a USB with the ISO Windows 10 on it and then you back up all your personal files and software to say a portable hard drive then when the day comes and you have issues you will be all set.

Yes, some will say to create a Windows Recovery USB stick or mirror your hard drive and such but reality is an easy and fail save way that always provides positive results is to do as I mentioned and create an ISO Windows 10 USB stick. You can get the Microsoft Media Creation Tool here. Just remember to always have a current backup of your programs and personals files. Best bet is to keep this backup off site, in case you have fire, theft, etc..

Tom_M wrote:
I have used the free version of Macrium Reflect.
Available here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

Yes, I've already looked into Macrium and now weighing my options. Thanks for mentioning it, though.
BTW, I picked up my new 1TB external drive today. Getting ready for some serious disk imaging and backup when I get this PC back to normal

Well, I made a booboo. My PC all of a sudden acted strange, almost unusable. So, I reset it and lost Windows 10. Now I'm back to W8. I had a feeling this would happen because I saw the warning dialogue that my PC would reinstall the original OS. Anyhow, that's what I get for being rambunctious. I'm in the process of reinstalling W10, because I'm used to it now and did like it. So, the lesson is, "read all the print so you know what you're getting into."

BTW, I tried to restore my PC first, but wasn't able due to this major glitch. Probably picked up malware somehow, although I ran scans with Norton and Malwarebytes. Good thing all my files are backed up to the cloud :C

Tom_M wrote:
I have used the free version of Macrium Reflect.
Available here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

X3

garry1p wrote:
From what I understand you can back up all you want but if you have a disk wipe out then you have to have some way to boot your backup to a new disk and that is not provided in the win 10 backup.

I don't believe that is an accurate assessment. ALL computers start with BIOS operation during initial bootup before going to operating system. Simply click the proper key during bootup process to take you to the BIOS settings and from there you can select what disk, USB device, or CD/DVD setting you need to boot from. From there you can proceed with booting to your backup/restore disk or USB device that you previously created.

That said, Acronis, and other second party programs probably are a lot more flexible and easy to use if you want to spend your money.

I use a incremental backup program for my data. Incremental meaning that it replaces changed files, add new files and deletes to the backup drive. Hence it updates very quickly.

And I backup one master folder which contains all of my data and contains many folders and files (GBs of data). The backup is the same file structure and I can easily check/copy any files on it.

I keep separate copies of the OS and programs.

Be careful thinking you can back up a image to a changed or new computer. Lots of changes might be required for the OS and/or drivers making a image restore less than successful.

Tom_M wrote:
I have used the free version of Macrium Reflect.
Available here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

X2

Macrium Reflect will do everything you need for backup. I have it installed on my laptop and I keep a 64gb Micro SD in the card slot which Reflect has formatted as a boot disk. It's where I keep my backups.

If the C drive crashes, or for some reason I replace it with a new one, I can boot from the SD card and reinstall a mirror image of what was on the old disk.