Restore Problem

It would take forever to burn backups to DVD's

Most use external hard drives or ssd's.

Please use this tutorial. We need to know what we are working with.

System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums Site Use Tutorials

Jack

It would take forever to burn backups to DVD's

Most use external hard drives or ssd's.

Please use this tutorial. We need to know what we are working with.

By
JDobbsy1987


System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums Site Use Tutorials

Jack

shoobee said:

Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0, Blue (STDR1000102) Amazon $46.00 or


WD 1TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBUZG0010BBK-WESN Amazon $55.00

I've pretty much used WD externals and had no bad experience. There are folks here who will argue one or the other but I have no strong recommendation for you.

I see that the WD 1TB has plenty of good ratings as well as the Seagate 1TB.

shoobee said:

So I use Macrium to save to the external HD. Computer goes black..nothing. How do i use the external HD?

BTW thanks for all your help

I hope you are asking what to do IF the computer goes black!

Here's a good and thorough forum tutorial on using Macrium: Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

One of the most important parts of using Macrium is to create Rescue Media (on a USB flash drive or even on the external disk with the backups, which is what I do) which you boot your computer from if the disk is trashed (but still physically working) and you can do the restore operation from the device you booted from.

Or, you could even have that Rescue Media burned to a DVD and boot from that.

From DVD or USB flash drive booted, Macrium will be able to see your connected external disk and do the restore.

If you use the 1TB drive as your rescue drive, you can either have it boot from a small (500MB - 1GB) FAT32 partition on that disk and have the rest of the disk allocated (usually in NTFS format) for storage of the backups.

There are lots of folks very accomplished at using Macrium here who can help you out if you get stuck.

shoobee said:

Lots of things to learn. Thank you very much for your help!...

Absolutely not a problem.

shoobee said:

I guess I need a usb to usb cable?

Often a cable is included with the drive but, yes, usually a mini connector at one end for a portable drive like you mentioned at Amazon with a larger connector to hook to the computer USB port.

Those two specific disks at Amazon look like they include a USB 3.0 cable, although they're usually short.