W 10 Backup Question

[mr__ed]

I use a Toshiba laptop running W10 Anniversary edition (home). I want to back up all my files, including the OS. My question is: Do I need to purchase a program like Acronis, or can I use the backup utility already on my PC? I plan to use a 1TB external HDD. Thanks for your assistance.

[mr__ed]

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

[mr__ed]

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

[AsheGuy]

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

X3

[Ed_Gee]

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.

[CA_Traveler]

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.

[ralphnjoann]

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.

[Tom_M1]

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

[mr__ed]

Well, I might as well play it safe. I think I'll go ahead and use Acronis.

[garry1p]

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.

[Ed_Gee]

Windows, including Win 7, has historically allowed backup either files, or an entire disk image. I'd be surprised if Windows 10 did not provide that choice, too. No need to purchase

[rk911]

mr. ed wrote:
I use a Toshiba laptop running W10 Anniversary edition (home). I want to back up all my files, including the OS. My question is: Do I need to purchase a program like Acronis, or can I use the backup utility already on my PC? I plan to use a 1TB external HDD. Thanks for your assistance.

I use Acronis on my Win7 machines to create image backups of the hard drive partitions. IMO an image backup is better than a file-by-file backup. There are products other than Acronis that will do the same thing.