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07-29-2015, 01:51 AM
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#1
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: UK North West
Posts: 133
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What do you guys use for backing up the system disk
Hi,
My SSD failed recently and I lost my c:\ drive with Windows and the programs. It's back running again but it was bit of a pain reloading it. How do you keep backups of your system drive?
I backup my data drive daily to another internal drive and to a Netgear NAS
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07-29-2015, 03:54 AM
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#2
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Stockholm
Posts: 206
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I use windows built in system image tool, and two external hard drives that I alternate between. In windows 7 just look for "system image" in the back up tools. In later version it is somewhat hidden I believe, but it's still around.
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07-29-2015, 04:42 AM
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#3
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 8,696
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I have used EaseUS TODO Free.
Backed up the system disk to another internal drive last night in 6 minutes for an uncompressed copy of my tiny 120GB SSD to HDD.
I have created the TODO backup boot disk on a DVDR (it's the Linux based free version that allows you to restore Windows).
Change BIOS to boot from CDR/DVDR/BD/R.
Tested the start up disk today (as far as I could without going through with the process!).
From the recovery disc it loads a GUI with mouse and you can click through clear options to find and restore your drive image.
It works as expected as far as I can see. Finding the backup of Windows you want to restore from another internal drive from the list and proceed from there.
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07-29-2015, 04:52 AM
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#4
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Berlin
Posts: 11,817
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I use something similar, Acronis True Image in this case. Pretty much the same deal.
I keep a compressed copy of my system drive handy and a bootable recovery CD at hand.
The exceptionally smart thing would be to clone your system drive as well to an identical SSD, if you're a business user. That'll minimize downtime. OSX users don't have this problem. They can just CarbonCopy-clone their system to any external drive and boot from that if they want to.
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07-29-2015, 04:56 AM
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#5
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Near Cambridge UK and Near Questembert, France
Posts: 22,754
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So MANY threads on this recently....
Acronis and/or easeus todo - both do a great job.
I am sure there are many more, but I have used both of the above recently to good effect.
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07-29-2015, 05:39 AM
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#6
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,560
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Carbon Copy Cloner
The backup clone is identical in every way and bootable if a system volume. Schedule backups, your choice between 1:1 or keeping a deleted files archive, etc, etc. You can also save a system volume as a disc image file so you can store it on another drive (without dedicating that drive to that system). Used to be donation but now sold for $40.
Yep, conversation gets posted often. But apparently still not often enough!
Keep a live backup volume (ie. not just a disk image file which is not bootable) for your main system volume. If something goes wrong (including operator error) you can simply boot from your backup, fix or wipe and reclone your main drive and move on like nothing ever happened.
Newer OS versions have a virtual recovery partition and all now. That won't do much for you for hardware failure and it's not a backup.
SSD failures are quick aren't they! Just had my first not long ago.
Last edited by serr; 07-29-2015 at 05:51 AM.
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07-29-2015, 05:50 AM
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#7
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Sweden
Posts: 7,417
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Joaquins Void
I use windows built in system image tool, and two external hard drives that I alternate between. In windows 7 just look for "system image" in the back up tools. In later version it is somewhat hidden I believe, but it's still around.
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I do it exactly the same way. I don't know why people shun the built in "Create system image". I have used for a long time, and even restored with it. Works fine.
__________________
// MVHMF
I never always did the right thing, but all I did wasn't wrong...
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07-29-2015, 06:19 AM
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#8
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 12,560
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Yeah, you can use Disk Utility in OSX to clone your system drive too.
Free and just works. The features and convenience of CCC are worth the $40 though.
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07-29-2015, 06:23 AM
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#9
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Berlin
Posts: 11,817
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Quote:
Originally Posted by serr
Carbon Copy Cloner
The backup clone is identical in every way and bootable if a system volume. Schedule backups, your choice between 1:1 or keeping a deleted files archive, etc, etc. You can also save a system volume as a disc image file so you can store it on another drive (without dedicating that drive to that system). Used to be donation but now sold for $40.
Yep, conversation gets posted often. But apparently still not often enough!
Keep a live backup volume (ie. not just a disk image file which is not bootable) for your main system volume. If something goes wrong (including operator error) you can simply boot from your backup, fix or wipe and reclone your main drive and move on like nothing ever happened.
Newer OS versions have a virtual recovery partition and all now. That won't do much for you for hardware failure and it's not a backup.
SSD failures are quick aren't they! Just had my first not long ago.
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Yeah, a 250 GB SSD is $100 now. I should listen to others and myself.
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07-29-2015, 06:51 AM
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#10
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 2,036
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07-29-2015, 07:12 AM
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#11
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 4,630
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For my Macs, Carbon Copy Cloner has been my daily go-to for cloning drives and doing backups after each session. I also clone my drive to a disk image and run scheduled backup tasks with CCC. It really is a life saver on the Mac.
On my PC, I have long been using Justin's PathSync ( http://www.cockos.com/pathsync/) for incremental backups to both internal and external drives. I have also used Seagate and Paragon Hard Disk Manager to make disk images that I have never had to use — so I have no idea if either product actually works. I paid for the Paragon software and it's got a lot of deep stuff that most people might never use, I suspect.
I definitely prefer the simplicity of using CCC on a Mac these days.
I don't do gaming. I don't have SSDs and I only use Seagate HDs. Makes my life less complicated.
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07-29-2015, 08:14 AM
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#12
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Human being with feelings
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: UK North West
Posts: 133
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Thanks for all of your responses. All of them helpful. I think I'll try Acronis True Image.
SSD's do fail quickly!
cheers
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